Chapter 3
Chole
"And this child still daydreams about sitting in the Godfather's chair," my mother scoffed coldly, not a single tear on her face. "Can't even judge basic danger."
I didn't say a word.
I stayed on my knees by the window, staring back at the empty, smoking alley as my fingernails dug deep enough into my palms to draw blood.
Mistaking my silence for a total mental collapse, Uncle Matteo let out a soft, patronizing chuckle.
"Oh, don't be too hard on her, Eleonora. She's just lacking real street experience," Matteo drawled, leaning forward to pat my knee. "Though I do have to lecture you, niece. You've been shadowing Lorenzo for ten years now—you should know that in the Mafia, death is as routine as morning espresso. I suggest you don't get too—"
"Fuck you," I said.
The patronizing smile froze on Matteo's face.
The air inside the armored cabin dropped to sub-zero as I whipped my head around, my eyes burning like twin coals in the dark.
"Do you think I give a fuck about a secondary charge or my own skin?!" I snarled, my voice vibrating with lethal fury. "I had three full seconds on that fuse! If you hadn't dragged me out, I would have pulled my father's body out of the fire!"
I slammed my bloodstained fist against the leather armrest.
"Now I don't even have a corpse to put in the family crypt—and every single piece of evidence on those six assassins just went up in smoke! Because of your rescue, I don't have a single lead on who butchered my dad!"
Matteo's eyes widened for a split second, and something hot flickered beneath the surface before he caught it. His jaw tightened, yet the smile never left his lips.
"Oh, Chloe." He tilted his head, his tone almost tender. "Do you really expect us to believe that a girl without a drop of magic has that kind of speed and strength? It's a lovely fantasy, sweetheart."
"Utterly unreasonable," my mother snapped, shaking her head in disgust.
I stared at the two of them—at their pristine evening clothes, their rehearsed calm, and the seamless rhythm between them.
Slowly, the fury in my chest crystallized into something much colder.
"Speaking of rescues," I murmured, my eyes narrowing into razor slits as I looked from my uncle to my mother. "How the hell did the two of you show up at that exact alley at the exact right second?"
My mother's eyes flashed with outrage. "Fuck, Chloe—we just saved your life, and your first instinct is to interrogate us like suspects?!"
"Come on now, Eleonora, calm down," Matteo interrupted smoothly, raising a gloved hand. "When the sky falls, children always bite the hand holding the umbrella."
He looked back at me, a thin, mocking curve touching his mouth.
"When a pureblood of Lorenzo's age takes Cold Iron through the heart, his final death-pulse echoes across the entire lagoon," Matteo said softly. "Every vampire in Venice felt your father die tonight."
His gaze raked over me with quiet condescension.
"Though, given your... lack of a blood-core, it's only natural you didn't feel a thing."
"Matteo and I were dining three hundred meters away at the Danieli," my mother added sharply. "Trying to figure out how to plug the massive holes in the family's failing finances! And the very second your father dies, you turn your teeth on your own family?!"
She glared at me.
"Do you have any idea how many problems are waiting for us at sunrise?! Or how many old enemies are already loading their guns to take revenge on House Corvo tonight?!"
I bit the inside of my cheek, forcing the suspicion down into the dark vault behind my ribs.
Whether their timing was a coincidence or a script, my mother was right about one thing: the sharks were already circling the water.
I turned my back on them and rapped my knuckles sharply against the glass partition.
"Step on it," I ordered the driver coldly. "Straight to Palazzo Corvo."
Without looking back, I glanced at my mother in the reflection of the window. "Have the capos and key lieutenants been summoned?"
She gave a stiff nod. "They are already waiting."
Across the seat, Uncle Matteo watched me slip into command mode, a lazy, amused smirk tugging at his lips.
"What's with the fierce face, Chloe?" Matteo teased softly. "Getting excited? The hour you've been starving for since you were a little girl has finally arrived. Don't look so grim—your uncle is going to help you."
I knew better than anyone how little the family Underboss thought of me.
I met his eyes dead-on in the dark.
"Oh, you'd better, Uncle," I said, my voice colder than the canal water outside. "Because tonight, I expect you to live up to your dead brother—and the Corvo name."
Matteo's smirk stiffened, the retort dying in his throat as he turned his face toward the window.
Ten minutes later, our sedan roared through the wrought-iron gates of Palazzo Corvo.
High above the gothic roof, the百年 Blood Moon had finally faded out, leaving a cold, bone-white skull glaring down from the sky.
My pulse was dead steady now.
My father had taught me the hierarchy of survival: Grief is a luxury for tomorrow. Tonight, you lock the gates and hold the ranks.
The courtyard was ablaze with floodlights, the perimeter guards tripled and armed to the teeth with heavy silver.
I shoved the car door open and marched straight up the marble steps into the grand hall.
Every pillar of the syndicate was already standing under the crystal chandelier.
Silvio, who kept the black ledgers; Marco, who controlled the Zattere smuggling docks; Rocco, our scarred chief executioner—thirty made men standing in dead, solemn silence, their heads bowed in mourning.
Even my older sister, Valentina, who usually avoided syndicate business like the plague, stood quietly by the unlit fireplace in black lace.
Then, my mother and Uncle Matteo stepped through the doors behind me.
In a single blink, every trace of the cold mockery they had worn in the car vanished.
My mother let out a shattered, heartbreaking sob, pressing a handkerchief to her face as Matteo's shoulders slumped into the picture of a devastated brother.
Without a word to me, the two of them waded straight into the crowd of grim-faced capos—pulling Marco and Silvio into tight, tearful embraces, patting backs, and whispering low, intimate condolences into their ears.
I stood alone at the foot of the stairs, watching the theater unfold for three seconds.
Then I stepped forward.
"Save the tears for the cemetery," I called out.
My voice cut across the marble hall like a blade, freezing Matteo's hand halfway onto Rocco's shoulder.
Thirty pairs of dark eyes snapped toward me.
I walked straight past my weeping mother toward the heavy double doors at the back of the hall.
"I didn't call an emergency assembly at two in the morning to watch grown men cry," I said coldly, resting my palm on the brass handle. "You have three minutes to get inside the council chamber. I have critical orders to issue."
