Gianna POV
I walked barefoot down the desolate avenue, every step leaving a faint bloody smear on the frozen flagstones. My toes had gone entirely numb blocks ago.
Up ahead, the old bakery. Mr. Rossi used to hand me free cannolis whenever Angelo walked me home from school.
I stumbled toward the soft yellow glow of the storefront.
Inside, he was wiping down the glass counter. He looked up. His hand stopped mid-swipe. The rag slipped from his fingers.
He rushed to the door, flipped the "Open" sign to "Closed," and slid the deadbolt into place with a solid thud. Then he yanked the blinds down and refused to look at me again.
Omertà. The sacred code of silence.
I forced my stiff legs to keep moving. Past the pub where my father's men used to drink. The door was propped open, cigar smoke spilling into the winter air. Over the blaring jukebox, I heard the bartender laughing, calling my father a rat, boasting that Enzo got exactly what he deserved at the harbor.
I pressed my freezing hands over my ears and hurried past.
The low purr of an engine. A sleek black SUV turned the corner, slowing to a crawl beside me. The tinted window rolled down.
My aunt's profile. My cousin Isabella beside her, staring at my bleeding feet with wide, horrified eyes.
"Auntie," I whispered.
Her elegant face hardened to marble. She pressed the button. The window rolled up. Just before the glass sealed shut, I heard her hiss: "The Don confirmed the exile decree personally this morning. No one can associate with the traitor's daughter."
The driver hit the gas. A sheet of icy slush soaked through my thin blouse.
I stood dripping and shivering, watching the red taillights disappear into the blinding snow.
The Don confirmed it. Not the Consigliere. Not the Commission. Angelo. The ceremony was over. He had taken the oath. And his first act as Don was to make my ruin official.
I reached into my damp pocket and gripped the crumpled exile papers. I refused to cry. Tears would only freeze.
By the third block, my legs gave out. I collapsed against the rusted siding of an abandoned warehouse, pulled my knees to my chest, and let my heavy eyelids close.
I knew if I fell asleep, I would never wake up.
Just as the darkness began to pull me under, a small shadow fell over my face.
A scrawny little girl stood ankle-deep in the snow, no more than eight years old, swallowed by a faded oversized jacket. In her small hands, she held a pair of beat-up adult sneakers.
"If you want to survive, you need your feet," she said. Her voice was tough, devoid of soft innocence.
She dropped the sneakers onto my lap, then reached into her pocket and pulled out a half-eaten bagel wrapped in a crumpled napkin.
I stared at the dry bread, a violent lump forming in my throat. My own blood had left me to die. A nameless child in an alleyway was offering me a lifeline.
"Thank you," I whispered.
Her name was Lily. She warned me the warehouse perimeter was bad for sleeping—prone to patrols. Before I could protest, she grabbed my sleeve and pulled me down a pitch-black alley to the rusted back entrance of a gritty, neon-lit diner.
A tough-looking woman with a lit cigarette hanging from her lips pushed open the screen door. Rosa.
Rosa took a long look at my bruised face, then at the blood seeping through the canvas sneakers. She didn't ask my name. She didn't ask who I was running from.
"Can you wash dishes?"
I nodded.
She tossed me a heavy, waterlogged sponge.
I stood in front of the deep industrial sink, freezing water blasting from the rusty faucet, stinging my raw hands. Gritting my teeth, I scrubbed dried egg off a heavy ceramic plate.
And despite the agony, I smiled.
True survival didn't require a mansion or a mafia title. It just required someone willing to hand you a dirty plate and a second chance.
I was still washing dishes hours after closing when the front door was kicked open with a sound like a thunderclap. Combat boots stomped across the linoleum. The clack-clack of a shotgun being pumped.
"Where is she?" a gravelly voice barked.
I gripped the slippery edge of the sink as a towering syndicate enforcer kicked the swinging kitchen doors open, holding up a glossy photograph of the exiled Mafia Princess—me, in a crimson gown at last year's gala.
