Damien POV
My room was a tomb. The heavy velvet curtains suffocated the moonlight, trapping the stench of stale whiskey, iodine, and my own rotting uselessness. I sat in the wheelchair, a ghost haunting my own decaying body.
Beside me, Enzo Romano stood like a shadow carved from obsidian. His voice was a flat, emotionless drone as he delivered his daily report—my only tether to the world I had lost.
"The Consigliere intervened," Enzo said, his hands clasped behind his back. "Giovanni Valenti dragged his grandson by the ear and forced him to confess to the lies. The boy, Luca, was cleared."
I stared at the dark wall. Giovanni was a traditionalist; his intervention was calculated, a move to maintain order.
"But Isabella Falcone did not let it end there," Enzo continued. "As Leo Gallo turned to leave, she blocked his path. She used her stiletto to slice his shoulder—the exact length and depth of the scrape on her brother's arm. She declared a Vendetta in broad daylight."
A flicker of something—pity, perhaps—brushed against my deadened nerves. Isabella was a beautiful, desperate creature thrashing in a snare. Slicing a Capo’s tailored suit was poetic, but it was suicide. She was one woman with a knife against an entire family of armed men. Her fire would only ensure she burned faster. I closed my eyes, waiting for the familiar numbness to swallow me again.
But Enzo didn't step back into the shadows. He lingered.
"There is one more thing, Underboss," Enzo said, his tone dropping a fraction of an octave. "Before the Consigliere arrived, when Leo Gallo had the knife to the boy's throat... Luca Falcone did not cry."
My eyes opened.
"He stood tall," Enzo murmured, "and he shouted, 'I demand to see the Don! Let him decide who is lying!'"
The words struck the stagnant air of my room like a crack of thunder.
*I demand to see the Don.*
A six-year-old boy. Marco Falcone’s blood. Marco had been my mentor, the man who taught me that in a world of monsters, the rules were the only weapon the weak could wield against the strong. Luca hadn't begged. He had instinctively invoked the absolute law of our world, turning my father's lethal authority into a shield.
And Isabella... she hadn't just lashed out. She was protecting that spirit.
For the first time in six months, the muscles in my ruined face twitched. The scar tissue pulled tight across my cheekbone as my lips curved upward. It was a harsh, broken thing—a smile born of irony and a sudden, violent spark of respect.
The Falcones were not prey. They were hawks, and they were refusing to die.
"The Gallos are bleeding pride," Enzo said, catching the shift in the room's atmosphere. He stepped closer, delivering the final piece of intelligence. "Old Man Gallo and his wife are in a frenzy. They sent an Associate to the Falcone estate with an ultimatum. Isabella is to deliver her mother's *Miracle Balm* and the Rossi pharmaceutical notes to their townhouse within twenty-four hours. Angelica Russo specifically demanded the notes. Furthermore, Isabella is ordered to kneel at their door for an hour to repent."
The greed of vultures. Angelica Russo’s obsession with the Rossi formulas was a dangerous variable, one I filed away in my awakening mind.
"And Isabella's response?" I rasped, my voice sounding like crushed glass.
"She didn't give one," Enzo replied, the faintest hint of dark amusement in his eyes. "Her maid, Chelsea, broke the messenger's nose with a single punch and threw him into the street."
The smile on my face hardened into something lethal.
The Gallos had been publicly humiliated twice in one day. A broken nose on their messenger was the final nail. Leo Gallo was a coward, but a humiliated coward with men at his disposal was a rabid dog. He wouldn't wait for the Don's permission. He would march on the Falcone estate with guns drawn.
Isabella’s defiance was magnificent, but she could not hold off a strike team with a stiletto and a loyal maid. She needed a shield. She needed her husband.
I looked down at my useless, paralyzed legs. The despair that had anchored me to this chair for half a year suddenly felt like a chain I needed to snap. I could not let the Falcone fire be extinguished.
I gripped the armrests of my wheelchair, my knuckles turning white.
"Enzo," I breathed, the command scraping raw against my throat, but carrying the undeniable weight of the Underboss. "Get me Dr. Bianchi."
