Lorenzo knew damn well that Sophia had it out for me, yet he threw me to the wolves anyway.

A silence fell upon the banquet hall as every eye turned toward Sophia. Her face brimmed with smugness as she fished a ring of silver keys from her clutch and twirled them around her finger.

"Oh, what should I do?" Sophia sighed dramatically. "Ms. Corleone has always been so high and mighty. I'm sure she wouldn't stoop to begging a mere secretary like me."

I looked down at Mia in my arms. Her breathing was so faint that I could barely feel it, her chest no longer rising.

I couldn't wait any longer. Another second and not even God himself could bring her back.

I swallowed every last shred of my pride and turned toward Sophia, kneeling before her.

"Please… Ms. Bianchi, please give me the keys. Mia is innocent. If you have a grudge, take it out on me, but don't hurt her."

Sophia didn't hand me the keys. Instead, she took two deliberate steps back, widening the gap between us.

"Too quiet. I can't hear you."

She walked to the center of the banquet hall and stood beneath the crystal chandelier, looking down at me like a queen.

"Besides, I'm not pleased with the way you ask for favors."

She pointed to the marble floor at her feet.

"You want the keys? Fine. Crawl to me from where you are. And as you crawl, say it out loud. Say you're a whore, and your daughter is a bastard. Make it to my feet, and I'll give you the keys."

A collective gasp rippled through the room. Even some of Lorenzo's Soldati showed a rare flash of pity.

Forcing the wife of a Capo to crawl like a dog in front of Lorenzo's Soldati and his business associates wasn't just humiliation; it was a psychological execution.

I looked toward Lorenzo. He was holding a glass of wine, chatting and laughing with a few business associates eager to curry favor, as if everything happening a few feet away had nothing to do with him.

But from the corner of his eye, he kept casting cold glances in my direction.

He was waiting for me to shatter completely, to admit my own worthlessness—all to satisfy his twisted hunger for revenge.

I looked down at Mia's tightly shut eyes. For my daughter, I would walk through hell itself.

"Fine," I ground out through clenched teeth.

I braced my hands on the floor, my knees scraping against the coarse carpet as I dragged myself forward.

One step.

"I am a whore!"

Two steps.

"My daughter… is a bastard!"

Every word felt like jagged glass, shredding my heart into pieces.

Whistles and jeers erupted around me. They pulled out their phones to record. Camera flashes strobed in my face, capturing the most humiliating moment of my life.

Sophia shook with laughter. Never one to miss a chance to twist the knife, she thrust one foot forward, signaling that I had to kiss the toe of her stiletto to make it count.

I endured every shred of humiliation and finally crawled to her feet. At some point, shards of broken glass had scattered across the floor. By the time I reached her, my hands and knees were slick with blood.

I reached out a trembling hand, palm up, in the universal gesture of a beggar.

"Ms. Bianchi, I've done everything you asked. Give me the keys."

Sophia watched my pathetic groveling, the malice in her eyes reaching its peak, then stopped twirling the keys.

"Such a good girl, Elena. Too bad…"

Her fingers suddenly relaxed, and the silver keys splashed into a nearby bucket of ice-cold whiskey. The bucket was deep, and with the open wounds on my hands, plunging them in would bring searing pain.

"Oops! Butterfingers," Sophia said lightly, without the slightest hint of sincerity. "Guess you'll have to fish them out yourself."

Without hesitation, I plunged my hand straight into the ice-cold bucket.

The wounds on my palm felt like they were being torn open all over again. Pain drained the color from my face, but I didn't stop. I clawed frantically through the ice until my fingers finally closed around something cold and metallic.

I grabbed the keys as if I were clutching Mia's life itself.

I pulled my hand out and raised the keys high, a wild surge of hope lighting up my face.

"I have the keys! Mia, I'm coming for you!"

I turned and tried to rush back to Mia, but pain exploded in my knees, and I stumbled.

In the next instant, a gold stiletto heel slammed down onto the back of my hand, grinding it into the carpet again and again.

A sharp pain shot through me. My fingers slackened, and the keys dropped to the carpet.

"Look at you, Elena Corleone. You really are nothing but a dog, aren't you?"

Sophia's voice drifted down from above. Then she bent down, picked up the keys, and leaned close to me, sneering in a voice only the two of us could hear.

"Since you're so desperate to save that bastard's life, why don't you join her in hell?"

With that, she turned and tossed the keys into the fireplace.

"Oh, sweetheart, that was an accident," she chirped, doubling over with laughter.

"No! Don't!" I roared, shoving her away like a madwoman. I was beyond caring what happened next.

The fire blazed hot and bright. Without hesitation, I thrust my bare hand straight into the flames to find those keys.

My fingers hadn't even reached the fireplace when a sudden force struck me from behind.

Before I knew it, Lorenzo was behind me. He seized my wrist and yanked me back so violently that I lost my footing and slammed onto the floor.

My gaze followed the sharp crease of his suit pants upward until it met his face—completely devoid of expression.

"Enough!" he snarled, his eyes smoldering with rage. "Losing your mind over that bastard was bad enough, but now you're willing to throw your life away too?"

He looked at me with pure revulsion. "Elena, you disgust me. Meeting you is the greatest regret of my life."

Regret?

A jagged, bitter laugh tore through my sobs.

Yeah, I regretted it too. I regretted not listening to Papa. I regretted ever crossing paths with him.

These two pieces of filth had just crushed Mia's last hope for survival.

I glanced at the clock on the wall.

9:58 pm. Two minutes left.

Mia lay motionless, her body already growing cold.

"Lorenzo, you'll regret this."

I lifted my head, my face smeared with blood and tears, my eyes hauntingly hollow. "You'll pay a brutal price for every single decision you've made today."

"Regret?"

Lorenzo laughed as if I had told a pathetic joke. He straightened, smoothed the lapels I had wrinkled, and looked around the room.

"I'm God here," he declared. "I hold the power of life and death over every soul in this room. Do you really think I'd regret crushing an ant?"

One of his closest Soldati stepped forward and handed him a handkerchief.

Lorenzo took it and methodically wiped the hand that had touched me, as if he had brushed against something filthy.

"Dispose of that body," he said, tilting his chin toward Mia's still form on the floor. His tone was as casual as if he were asking them to take out the trash. "And don't stain the carpet. Sophia had it custom-made in Turkilan."

At his command, several Soldati stepped forward with a black body bag.

They were going to stuff Mia, who still hadn't taken her final breath, into that bag right in front of me.

"Don't you touch her!"

I threw myself over Mia, shielding her tiny body with my own.

But I was spent. The crawling and the emotional outburst had completely drained what little strength I had left.

Two Soldati grabbed me by the arms, hoisting me up as easily as if I were a rag doll.

"Let me go! I'm the daughter of Don Corleone! I'm the Principessa of the Corleone famiglia, you bastards!"

I thrashed wildly, finally screaming the secret I had kept buried for five long years.

The banquet hall fell silent for a heartbeat. Then the laughter erupted, louder and crueler than before.

Sophia doubled over with tears of laughter.

"Dio mio! Did you hear that? She claims she's the daughter of Don Corleone. Does she mean Vito Corleone—the Don who controls all the mafia in Smeraldia and the Underworld Emperor of Europia?"

She sneered. "Elena, are you out of your mind? If you're the daughter of Don Corleone, then I'm the Queen!"

Lorenzo laughed along, his gaze a mix of pity and contempt.

"She's really lost it."

"If Don Corleone is really your Papa, how come no one from the Corleone famiglia has ever come looking for you in all these years?"

He stepped up to me and patted my cheek. "Face reality, Elena. You were an unwanted stray I picked up off the street. I let you play the Capo's wife for five years, and you still weren't satisfied. Now the dream is over."

"Gag her and throw her back in her room. As for that bastard…"

He paused and glanced at Mia on the floor.

Her hand hung limp at her side. Her fingertips had already turned lifeless gray.

"Dump her in the river. Let the fish have her. She won't be lonely down there."

I fought with every ounce of strength I could muster, but it was futile.

In that exact instant, a deafening roar tore through the night.

It wasn't the creak of a door, but the blast of an explosion.

The four-inch-thick doors of the banquet hall, along with the surrounding wall, were blown to pieces in an instant.

The massive shockwave launched the Soldati guarding the entrance into the air before slamming them against the wall.

As the dust and debris swirled in the air, a deathly silence descended upon the banquet hall.

Every head turned toward the gaping hole that used to be the entrance, terror written on every face.

Then, dozens of tiny crimson laser dots cut through the smoke, locking onto the foreheads of Lorenzo and Sophia.

Then came the perfectly synchronized footsteps. Each step was a heavy, suffocating promise of the slaughter to come.

Two columns of Soldati in full black tactical gear, clutching heavy assault rifles, stormed into the hall and sealed every exit with lethal efficiency.

On their chests was a shimmering gold insignia—a black stallion's head biting a rose dripping with blood.

They were the Corleone famiglia's elite personal guard, the Reaper's Scythe, deployed only when Don Corleone himself was on the move.

The smile on Lorenzo's face froze, his body turning as rigid as a corpse. The mockery in his eyes was replaced by soul-deep terror.

As a Capo, he knew that symbol better than his own name. It was the totem of the global underworld, the sigil of absolute power.

The smoke finally began to clear.

An old man in a hand-tailored black suit, leaning on a silver-headed cane, stepped slowly into the banquet hall.