Sienna POV
I lay inert on the cold pavement, the glaring screen of the burner phone a single point of light in a darkening world.
The encrypted chat room was flooded with messages from Enzo's trusted soldiers and Capos.
They were laughing, posting crude pictograms, and celebrating the successful conclusion of the Don's long game.
My fingers were numb as I scrolled up through the litany of digital cruelty.
A message from a soldier named Luca caught my eye.
"The hospital staff deserves a substantial bonus for faking that rival cartel hit three years ago," he wrote.
A band of iron tightened around my chest, making each breath a shallow, painful effort.
Three years ago, Enzo was supposedly ambushed and required extensive grafts of living tissue and cartilage to reconstruct his face after a devastating cartel bomb.
I had begged the syndicate doctors to take whatever they needed from me to save him.
Another Capo replied in the chat, mocking me for actually sacrificing my own flesh for a man who was just playing a role.
The next message made my blood run entirely cold.
It detailed how Enzo had orchestrated a sadistic loyalty lottery among his inner circle while I was under anesthesia.
The men had written down body parts on pieces of paper to decide what to take from me as a test of my blind devotion.
I read that the Capos had proposed eyes, kidneys, and hearts.
The final message was a picture of a handwritten note.
The handwriting belonged to Enzo.
He had written down my left ear.
My hand shook violently as I raised it to the side of my head.
I pushed past my thick hair and touched the ridged, mutilated scar tissue where my left ear used to be.
I remembered waking up in agony three years ago.
I remembered Enzo sitting by my bed, crying, kissing my hands, and swearing his eternal protection because I had given a piece of myself for him.
He had taken my ear for a demented game.
A cramp like a knot of hot wire twisted through my lower abdomen.
I gasped, curling into a ball on the rough concrete.
A sharp, tearing pain pierced my stomach.
I looked down and saw dark red blood beginning to pool at my feet, staining my light-colored dress.
An elderly woman walking a small dog gasped and hurried over to me.
She grabbed my arm, her voice full of panic as she tried to pull me up.
"Dear God, you're bleeding!" she cried, attempting to guide me toward the hospital entrance just a few yards away.
I leaned on her, dragging my feet across the pavement.
Two massive syndicate guards in black suits stepped out from the glass doors.
They crossed their arms, forming a human barricade before the entrance.
The taller guard looked down at my bleeding legs with utter disgust.
"This Falcone-controlled facility is off-limits to you," he stated coldly, "by direct order of the Don."
The elderly woman yelled at them, saying I was losing a baby.
The guard ignored her.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a creased business card.
He flicked it onto the ground near my shoes.
"Go to the underground clinic," he sneered, "where your kind belongs."
A sleek white limousine pulled up to the curb right behind me.
I heard a saccharine voice cut through the morning air.
Carmela stepped out of the car, talking loudly on her phone to Enzo.
"I've arrived for my spa treatment, my love," she cooed, blowing a kiss into the receiver.
She was draped in designer diamonds and a pristine white fur coat.
She bore no resemblance to the bruised, terrified girl I had rescued from a basement.
The guards at the door immediately dropped their aggressive posture.
They bowed deeply at the waist.
The Hospital Director rushed out of the glass doors, sweating and smiling.
"Welcome, Donna," he addressed Carmela, ushering her inside.
Carmela walked up the steps, her expensive heels clicking sharply.
She brushed right past me without a single glance downward.
She stepped over the small puddle of my blood on the concrete.
Another violent cramp tore through my body.
I fell to my knees, a rattling cough shaking my frame.
Thick, dark blood splattered onto my hands.
My vision began to narrow into a dark tunnel.
Through the fading light, I looked down the street.
Enzo's armored vehicle was parked at the corner, idling menacingly.
The tinted window was rolled down just enough for me to see his cold, unblinking eyes watching me bleed.
The tall guard who had thrown the card at me let out a disgusted sigh. "The Don wants the rubbish cleared. Put her in the van and dump her at the butcher's," he ordered the other men. Rough hands seized my arms, dragging my limp body across the pavement. They tossed me into the back of an idling cargo van as if I were a sack of refuse.
My head hit the cold metal floorboard, and the world went black.
But in the darkness, something shifted. The woman who loved Enzo Falcone died in that van. What remained was something colder. Something that would not break.
