The morning after the attack, the villa was silent but heavy with the scent of gunpowder and blood. Servants scrubbed marble floors where corpses had fallen. Guards shifted with new precision, their eyes sharper, their weapons held tighter.

The world already whispered of what had happened. And Enzo Vitale would use it.

He sat at the head of the long mahogany table in the war room, a glass of whiskey in his hand, storm-gray eyes blazing. Elena stood beside him, no longer in silk but in tailored black—slim trousers, a fitted jacket, a dagger strapped to her thigh. The bruises from last night still lingered faintly on her arms, but...