Chapter 2
Chloe
My father glanced lazily at his wristwatch.
"Oh, at 4:10 PM, he certainly was," my father said mildly. "By 4:15, however, it came off. Right along with his thumb."
Nestled inside the velvet box, the heavy platinum ring was still wrapped around a pale, severed werewolf thumb—sheared clean through the bone with alchemical silver.
Giancarlo’s bodyguards went dead rigid.
Giancarlo stumbled back half a step, his chest heaving before he barked: "What have you done?! That is the Castellano werewolf syndicate that butchered the entire American West Coast! Just wait until their boss Don Enzo comes for your—"
Before Giancarlo could finish, my father calmly pulled a sleek black phone from his pocket, tapped the screen, and set it on the wood.
An audio recording played, filling the silent office with a thick, gravelly West Coast syndicate drawl:
"Madonna mia, Don Lorenzo, my deepest apologies! My boy Dante is an ignorant pup who doesn't know how high the sky is—sticking his nose into your territory and your casino without my permission!"
On the recording, my father’s voice replied with a light chuckle: "And the thumb, Enzo? You're sure you don't have an issue with that?"
A booming, hearty laugh crackled through the speaker.
"A single thumb?! Not worth mentioning! The fact that you didn't chop his whole fucking arm off or rip his two fangs out of his gums already shows immense respect to my house! Be well, Don Lorenzo! And pass my warmest regards to the other two Founding Houses!"
Click.
My father didn't wait for Giancarlo’s brain to recover.
Looking down at the trembling casino boss, the warmth vanished from my father’s eyes, leaving only arctic ice.
"Now then, about the money," my father murmured coldly. "Are you quite certain about that sixty percent?"
Giancarlo’s knees nearly buckled under him, cold sweat drenching his collar.
"N-No! No, of course not!" Giancarlo stammered frantically. "Full amount! Wait—no, double! We’ll pay double right now!"
My father let out a cold laugh.
"No," he said flatly. "What I want is fairness. Double would keep me awake at night."
He gestured toward the vault door at the back of the room.
"Take my daughter to count the cash. I prefer the traditional way—I want her to feel in her own hands just how heavy money really is."
Twenty minutes later, I walked out onto the damp night street beside my father, carrying a heavy leather briefcase packed with three months of crisp bills.
I looked up at him, unable to hide my grin.
"You already had eyes on the Castellano family's every move, didn't you?" I said, shaking my head in awe. "And then you just took the kid's thumb clean off? God, that was exquisite!"
My father let out a low, amused laugh, glancing sideways at me.
"God help me, Chloe, I don't mind your bloodthirsty side, but try not to sound like chopping off fingers is your favorite hobby," he teased gently. "Besides, you should know by now—the thumb wasn't the point."
I slowed my pace along the canal, turning the move over in my head.
"The point was drawing a hard border," I murmured. "Checking their expansion before they think San Marco is free real estate."
My father nodded, a gleam of approval in his dark eyes.
"Good," he said warmly. "And here I thought you let your temper cloud your judgment back in that office."
I flashed him a crooked smirk, patting the Beretta beneath my jacket.
"Come on, Dad. If you're going to sit there playing the reasonable saint, somebody has to draw iron and play the bad cop, right?"
Genuine delight broke across my father's face.
Then, slipping into the tone he always used when testing me over a chessboard, he raised a brow.
"Then tell me one more thing, bambina," he quizzed. "Why was Don Enzo so polite on that recording? Back in Chicago, the Castellanos are rabid dogs—they don't apologize when their blood gets spilled."
I tapped a finger against my chin, my smile cooling into pure calculation.
"Because he's smart, not soft," I replied evenly. "Even the biggest shark from across the Atlantic knows you don't bite the local kings before your feet are dry. He doesn't want to unite all of Venice against him on day one."
I glanced up at the blood-red moon hanging over the spires.
"More importantly, judging by how overly courteous he was... Enzo still thinks the Three Founding Houses are an iron wall. He hasn't figured out how rotten our alliance actually is on the inside."
My father stopped by the bridge and clapped a hand onto my shoulder, his chest swelling with unmistakable pride.
"Brilliant," he praised, his voice rich and warm. "God almighty, Chloe, you sound more like me every single day. Tonight, I owe you a reward."
We walked toward our black Maserati parked at the edge of the quiet square.
Just as I reached for the door handle, a sweet, familiar aroma drifted out from a narrow brick alleyway across the street—sizzling sugar and warm Venetian frittelle from an old midnight pastry cart disappearing around the corner.
My stomach gave a subtle tug, my eyes lingering on the dark mouth of the alley.
My father caught my look instantly and chuckled, buttoning his charcoal coat.
"Get in the car," he said, already turning toward the alley. "I'll go grab a bag while they're hot."
"Dad, don't bother," I protested, catching his sleeve. "The cart already went deep into the alley, we can just—"
"Whatever my little girl wants, she gets," he interrupted softly, reaching up to ruffle my hair. "That has always been my rule, hasn't it?"
His dark eyes softened under the crimson light, heavy with sudden nostalgia.
"When you were six and furious at the sky because you were born without magic, I stayed up every night learning dead counter-spells and bare-knuckle combat just to practice with you," he murmured.
He tapped the tip of my nose with a fond smile.
"And when you were eight, watching me drown in syndicate ledgers until dawn—pestering me non-stop that you were going to grow up and become Godfather just so your old man could finally retire... I started paving the road for you."
He gave my shoulder a gentle push toward the car door.
"Wait in the warm cabin, principessa. Two minutes."
I watched his tall silhouette vanish into the narrow brick passage, a quiet warmth settling behind my ribs as I slid into the backseat.
One minute ticked by on the dashboard clock.
Four minutes.
Seven.
The warmth in my chest evaporated, replaced by a cold, razor-sharp prickle at the base of my skull.
Buying fried dough didn't take seven minutes.
I shoved the car door open, drew my Beretta, and strode swiftly toward the mouth of the alley.
BOOM—!
A muffled, violent blast tore through the narrow passage ahead, rattling the ancient brickwork and blowing a cloud of black soot straight into my face.
My heart stopped dead.
"Dad?!"
I plunged blindly into the rolling smoke—and skidded to a halt on the wet cobblestones.
Thirty feet ahead, surrounded by six dead assassins in iron masks, my father lay motionless on the stone, his chest pinned to the ground by three jagged spikes of cursed Cold Iron.
Something inside my skull shattered.
"Dad...!" The scream ripped my throat raw.
I bolted forward to reach him—then my nose caught it.
Beneath the smell of blood and gunpowder was the unmistakable, acidic hiss of an alchemical silver-phosphorus fuse burning under his coat.
A secondary charge. Three seconds from detonation.
Every survival instinct screamed at me to dive backward.
I didn't stop.
Three seconds was an eternity. It was enough time for me to hook my father's collar, drag his body behind the stone well-head, and rip a mask off one of those corpses.
Lorenzo Corvo was a titan of Venice—I would rather lose an arm than let him be cremated like garbage in a gutter without a single clue left behind!
My fingers were two inches from his lapel—
SCREEEECH—!
Tires howled violently behind me as a sleek black sedan reversed at breakneck speed into the alley.
Before I could brace myself, the rear door flew open, and two iron-strong hands seized the back of my jacket, yanking me clean off my feet into the dark cabin.
SLAM!
The car rocketed forward out of the alley.
Ten yards behind the bumper, the night turned blinding white.
KA-BOOM!!
Alchemical fire roared through the narrow brick walls, the shockwave slamming against the bulletproof glass.
Twisting around on my knees, I stared through the rear window as the white-hot inferno swallowed my father's body and the six assassins whole, reducing thirty-nine years of iron rule into drifting, nameless gray ash.
Not a bone left to bury. Not a face left to hunt.
In the dark cabin behind me, a lazy, familiar voice broke the silence.
"Your father spent twenty years training you, Chloe... and you're still stupid enough to stand flat-footed in the middle of a live blast zone?"
I turned my head slowly.
Sitting across from me, casually adjusting his cuffs, was my father's younger brother—Uncle Matteo.
And sitting right beside him, her lipstick immaculate and her eyes as freezing and indifferent as they had been my entire life, was my mother.
