Serena POV
The black wrought-iron gates of the Marcello Estate tower over me, their spiked finials like teeth against the grey morning sky. Armed guards in black suits conduct a brisk, impersonal search, their hands moving over the seams of my wool coat and sifting through my bag before the heavy gates slowly swing open.
A man in his forties is waiting for me on the other side, his posture as severe as the tailored lines of his suit.
"Miss Serena," he says, his voice level and devoid of inflection. "I am the Consigliere of this household. I also act as the head butler. Follow me."
I follow him down a sweeping, tree-lined driveway, the sheer acreage of the property seeming to press in on me from all sides. We walk past private equestrian grounds, a massive heated pool, and an indoor botanical garden encased in gleaming glass.
This is not just wealth. This is power made manifest, solid and untouchable.
We enter the grand foyer of the main house. The veined marble floors are polished to a mirror sheen, but the silence hanging in the air is thick and suffocating. A massive portrait hangs above the staircase—a man in his prime, dark-haired, with icy blue eyes that seem to follow me across the room. Even in oil paint, Lucian Marcello's gaze feels like a physical weight.
"Mr. Marcello is currently out on business," the Consigliere says without looking back at me. "You will meet the young heir first."
He leads me up a grand, sweeping staircase to the second floor. We walk down a corridor so long that my shoes make no sound on the deep-pile carpet, the very echo swallowed by its immense length. We at last stop in front of an open door.
The Consigliere turns to me, his voice sinking to a confidential murmur.
"Nico is four years old. He has not spoken a single word since he was three. He only occasionally communicates with the Don."
I nod slowly, processing the information.
"The longest any previous governess lasted in this house was one week," the Consigliere adds, his gaze becoming pointed. "Do not touch him without permission."
I step past the Consigliere and walk into the room.
A little boy sits in the center of a plush, cream-colored rug. He has dark hair and pale skin. His eyes are beautiful, but his pupils are like two dry wells, into which the room's light falls without stirring the slightest reflection.
He is arranging wooden building blocks into a tower, his small hands moving with an obsessive precision.
The impulse to offer a greeting, or to force the kind of smile I reserved for frightened children, dies in the room's sterile air. Instead, I slowly crouch down until I am at his eye level, and settle onto the rug about two feet away from him.
I pick up a single wooden block from the pile and place it gently next to his structure.
Nico goes utterly still. He stares at the block.
His shoulder tightens first, a barely perceptible motion, and then his small hand shoots out as if sprung, snatches the block I placed, and sends it across the room. It hits the wall with a sharp thwack.
I do not flinch. I do not speak.
I wait for a count of ten seconds. Then I pick up another block and place it in the exact same spot.
Nico grabs it and throws it again.
The Consigliere shifts his weight in the doorway, a current of tension flowing from him into the room.
I reach into the pile and gather five blocks, making a point of ignoring his castle entirely. I stack two blocks vertically and place one across the top. With the remaining two, I construct a crude representation of a swing set next to my little archway.
I draw my hands back, resting them quietly in my lap.
Nico stops building his castle. He very slowly turns his head and stares at my creation. He looks at it for three full, drawn-out seconds.
Then, he slowly reaches out and takes a square block from his own meticulously built castle. He extends his small arm and carefully places his block right next to my swing set.
A sharp intake of breath comes from the doorway. I look over my shoulder and find the Consigliere staring at us, his face a mask of disbelief.
"That is the first time he has not thrown an object at a new face," the Consigliere whispers, as if to himself. "The last governess caught a glass vase to the head."
I look back at Nico, but he is already returning to his castle, ignoring me again.
"Familiarize yourself with the compound," the Consigliere says, taking a half-step back into the hallway as if to regain his composure. "Your room is adjacent to Nico's. The Don will return tonight to conduct your final interview personally."
I spend the next hour touring the estate, committing to memory the layout of the underground security levels and the first-floor living quarters. The Consigliere explicitly warns me that the third floor is the Don's private sanctum—and it is strictly off-limits.
When I enter my assigned bedroom, the luxury of it is almost disorienting. The room is vast, anchored by a king-sized bed draped in dark silk sheets. The en-suite bathroom is larger than my entire previous apartment.
I sit on the edge of the mattress. The material yields beneath me, but my body remains rigid with tension.
Three days ago, I was thrown out onto the street by the man I was supposed to marry. Today, I am sitting inside a multi-million-dollar mafia fortress, waiting to meet a man who orders executions before breakfast.
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