Chapter 5

Chloe

The words didn't register at first.

I looked from Uncle Matteo's smug face to Valentina, and then down the table to my mother, who was calmly smoothing the black lace of her cuffs.

Not a trace of surprise in her eyes. She had known all along.

"What the fuck is this?" My voice came out low, vibrating with disbelief. "Every single person in this room knows my father raised me to be his heir!"

"Oh, we know it crystal clear," Matteo drawled, leaning an elbow on the back of my chair.

At the center of the table, my mother lifted her chin, her gaze sliding over me like I was a stranger.

"Your father's intentions were sentimental, Chloe," my mother said coolly. "Unfortunately, Lorenzo died unexpectedly in an alley without leaving a sealed Blood-Decree."

She folded her hands neatly on the obsidian wood.

"By the founding laws of House Corvo, when a Don falls without a notarized will, succession goes to a Round Table ballot. You've been voted out. Step down."

My fingers dug so hard into the carved raven armrests that my knuckles turned white.

"Fuck your ballot!" I snarled, my eyes raking across the Capos who had eaten at my father's table for thirty years. "You're betraying him before his ashes are even cold?! Why—just because I'm a woman?!"

Valentina let out a soft, musical laugh.

"Oh, don't flatter yourself, little sister," Valentina purred, taking another slow step toward the dais. "The table doesn't care what's between our legs—after all, they just elected me."

Her painted lips curved into a razor-sharp sneer.

"They threw you out because the gap between you and me is an ocean."

Fury surged up my throat, hot and suffocating. I shoved myself up from the chair.

"You two-faced bitch!" I spat. "Just yesterday afternoon, you looked me in the eye and swore you'd be the first to kiss my ring when the day came!"

"I was humoring a delusional child," Valentina replied without blinking. "Why waste breath arguing when I knew you could never compete with me when it actually counted?"

"She has a point, Chloe," Uncle Matteo chimed in, shaking his head with fake pity. "Look at yourself objectively for once. In terms of bloodline power? You're a Null. A magicless cripple."

"Whereas my Valentina," my mother added proudly, her chin high, "was born with the purest aristocratic blood-core House Corvo has seen in a century."

Matteo spread his hands, playing to the room.

"And as for that 'brilliant strategic mind' you're always bragging about?" Matteo snorted. "Did you even listen to the insane bullshit you just barked at this table?"

As if on cue, the Capos around the table began shaking their heads in open disgust.

"Honestly, I thought the girl had lost her damn mind," Marco scoffed, leaning back and lighting a cigarette. "Just because the old man got spiked, she wants us all to jump into a meat grinder? Standing here in black was basic courtesy, Chloe—don't mistake manners for grief!"

"Seriously," Rocco grunted from the corner, crossing his massive arms. "Ordering us to load heavy silver and start a turf war tonight? We don't even know if House Corvo's accounts can still clear next month's payroll!"

"We're mobsters, not martyrs!" Silvio snapped, tossing his pen onto the ledger. "We're in this family to make money, not to get turned into ash for a fucking mourning ribbon! Every half-wit in Venice knows that when a Don dies, the first rule of survival is diplomacy, alliances, and making friends!"

"Making friends on your knees buys you a quiet Tuesday!" I roared back over the table. "In this city, long-term survival only comes from the size of your fist!"

"Save the lecture, niece," Matteo sneered, cutting me off with a wave of his hand. "Your sister has already convinced the Round Table with her own method. A permanent, once-and-for-all solution."

I let out a harsh, incredulous bark of laughter.

"A once-and-for-all solution?!" I glared at them. "Fuck that! My father taught me that the only constant in the Mafia is that the knives never stop moving! The alliance of the Three Founding Houses has always been pure self-interest—when a house bleeds, nobody stands with the weak!"

Valentina stopped at the foot of the dais, tilting her head with a serene, venomous smile.

"True," Valentina murmured. "Unless, of course, we bind House Corvo directly into the flesh and bone of one of those two families."

I froze.

A memory clicked in the back of my skull—a dusty parchment vault my father had once shown me when I was fifteen.

"Wait..." My eyes narrowed as I stared at my sister. "You're talking about the old San Michele Pact from when the Three Houses first carved up the lagoon?"

Beside me, Uncle Matteo gave a slow, satisfied nod.

"Have you all lost your fucking minds?!" I exploded, slamming my fist against the lectern. "Invoking that pact is practically begging for a dog collar! The house that triggers that clause gets military protection, sure—in exchange for handing over thirty percent of our net tribute forever! My father would rather eat glass than bend his spine like that!"

"Your father is a pile of soot in an alley!" Marco barked back coldly. "Keeping our heads attached to our necks is what matters tonight—who gives a shit about thirty percent?!"

Down the table, Silvio let out a low, mocking chuckle, shaking his head at me.

"Look at this idiot, still doing ledger math," Silvio muttered to Rocco. "Does she really not realize that she is the signature required to activate the pact?"

Rocco snorted. "Always worried about the Don's throne, never worried about her own neck."

The blood in my veins turned to slush.

Slowly, I looked back at Valentina. "Fuck... Don't tell me the fine print of that clause is..."

Valentina walked up the three marble steps of the dais, stopping inches from my face, her perfume sweet and suffocating.

"Selling you off," Valentina whispered, her eyes gleaming with pure triumph. "Oh, forgive me—marrying you off."

Red mist detonated behind my eyes.

"I'll rip your fucking tongue out!"

I lunged straight for her throat.

Valentina didn't even flinch. Her pupils flared crimson as she snapped her fingers, unleashing a suffocating wave of pureblood compulsion meant to slam me face-first onto the marble floor.

The invisible weight hit my shoulders like a falling church bell.

Too bad for you, sister.

My jaw clenched, and I spat a sharp, guttural syllable in dead High Latin—a counter-resonance phrasing my father had spent three brutal winters drilling into my lungs—while snapping my thumb against the silver-ash ring on my index finger.

CRACK!

Valentina's blood-magic shattered like cheap glass.

Her eyes widened in sheer terror as I stepped straight through the broken hex, cocking my right fist back to drive her teeth through the back of her skull.

"Grab her!" Matteo roared.

Half an inch from Valentina's nose, four pairs of iron vampire hands wrenched me violently backward, dragging me down the steps and pinning my arms behind my back.

"Get your filthy hands off me, you traitorous bastards!" I thrashed against Rocco's grip, kicking a chair into splinters.

Up on the dais, Valentina let out a shaky breath, her hand flying to her throat before her expression hardened back into icy arrogance.

"Well," Valentina said, smoothing her hair as she looked down at me from my father's throne. "It seems a magicless freak isn't completely without teeth after all."

She sat down in the high-backed chair, draping her arms over the ravens.

"It doesn't matter, though," she continued coolly. "Because I am a merciful sister, I'm going to let you choose your own cage. Two Founding Houses. Tomorrow night, you walk down the aisle."

She held up one manicured finger.

"Option one: House Bellini. Their eldest son and heir, Julian Bellini."

Around the table, the tension eased into approving murmurs.

"Now that's a stroke of luck," Silvio remarked, nodding. "Julian is a rare gentleman among purebloods. Mild-mannered, hates getting his cuffs dirty, prefers opera to turf wars."

"I heard he only drinks vintage artisanal blood out of crystal champagne flutes," Marco laughed, looking at me with mocking pity. "Honestly, I feel sorry for the poor bastard—god knows how a refined man like that is going to survive Chloe's rabid temper!"

Valentina raised a second finger, her smile turning dark and cruel.

"And option two," she purred. "House Marcello. Their eldest son... Cassian Marcello."

The laughter around the table died instantly.