Sienna Romano.
The first meeting is a performance. I am the lead actress in a play I never auditioned for.
I sit at the head of my father’s mahogany table. The chair feels too big, the leather cold against my back. It still smells faintly of him, a ghost of smoke and power that I am trying to inhabit.
Silvio Rossi clears his throat, the sound a wet rasp in the quiet study. “So, the first order of business. The port shipments. The Gallos are demanding a larger percentage for the next quarter.”
“Demanding,” I repeat. The word tastes like poison. “We don’t respond to demands, Silvio.”
He gives me a patient, condescending smile. The kind of smile one gives a child who has said something foolish but charming. “Sienna, with respect, these are delicate times. Your father had an understanding with the Gallos. A certain… flexibility.”
“My father is dead,” I say, my voice flat. “His understandings died with him. What is our current contract with them?”
Antonio Falcone shifts in his seat, drawing my attention. He steeples his fingers, looking every bit the wise elder statesman. “It’s more of a gentlemen’s agreement, my dear. Not everything is written on paper.”
“Then perhaps it should be,” I counter. “Lorenzo, pull the shipping manifests for the last six months. I want to see a full breakdown of the Gallo partnership.”
Lorenzo, standing by the fireplace, gives a stiff nod. He doesn’t look at me. He looks at Antonio, then at Silvio. A silent question passes between them. A transfer of power I am not included in.
“Of course,” Lorenzo says, but his tone is hesitant. He is placating me.
Paolo Conti, who has been silent so far, lets out a wheezing cough. “Your father, God rest his soul, he knew how to handle these men. It’s an art. A dance. It takes years of experience.”
“And I’ve only had two days,” I say, meeting his watery gaze. “Is that your point, Paolo?”
“The boy has a point,” says one of the Genna brothers. I can never tell them apart. They are interchangeable blocks of muscle and menace. “Marco understands these things. He’s been in Europe dealing with our overseas partners.”
“Our overseas partners that have been bleeding us dry for a year,” I say, the information slipping out before I can stop it. A detail I gleaned from a stray report I wasn’t supposed to see.
Silence. A thick, heavy blanket of it smothers the room.
Silvio narrows his eyes. “How would you know about that?”
“I read,” I say simply. “It’s a hobby of mine.”
Antonio Falcone laughs, a deep sound meant to break the tension. It only makes it worse. “Sharp as a tack, this one. Just like her mother. But this is not a society fundraiser, Sienna. There are lives at stake. Our lives. We cannot afford a mistake.”
“Then I suggest you stop treating me like I’m the mistake you’re all waiting for me to make,” I say. My voice doesn’t rise. It drops, becoming quieter, deadlier. “I am the head of this family. Until Marco arrives, my signature is the only one that matters. My decisions are the only ones that are final. Is that understood?”
They stare at me. For a moment, I think I see a flicker of something in their eyes. Surprise, maybe. But then it’s gone, replaced by that famiSiennar, infuriating indulgence.
“Of course, my dear,” Antonio says, his voice smooth as oil. “Whatever you say. We are all here to support you.”
They are Siennars. Every single one of them.
The rest of the meeting is a blur of platitudes. They talk in circles, using jargon and referencing old deals I have no context for. They drown me in information while telling me nothing. It’s a masterclass in stonewalling, and I am the sole, frustrated audience member.
They are dismissing me. Politely. Respectfully. But it is a dismissal all the same.
When it’s finally over, they stand and offer their condolences again, their hands briefly touching my shoulder in gestures of false comfort. I feel like a porcelain doll being passed around.
“We’ll handle the Gallo situation,” Silvio says as he leaves. “Don’t you worry your pretty head.”
I just nod. The fire in my chest is banked low, a dangerous ember they are all too foolish to see.
Lorenzo is the last to leave. He pauses at the door. “They are old fashioned men, Sienna. They are just trying to protect you.”
“Is that what they’re doing, Lorenzo?” I ask, not turning around. “Or are they protecting themselves?”
He doesn’t answer. He just closes the door, leaving me alone in the suffocating silence of my father’s study.
I sit there for a long time, listening to the house settle around me. This room was a fortress. Now it feels like a cage. Or a tomb.
I get up and walk to the door, locking it. Then I walk back to the desk, running my fingers over the worn leather of my father’s chair. I need to know. I can’t fight an enemy I can’t see.
I press the intercom button on the desk. “Luca. Bring Lorenzo back. Use the private entrance. Make sure no one sees him.”
“Yes, Sienna,” his voice crackles back instantly.
Five minutes later, a quiet knock comes from a paneled door hidden behind a bookshelf. I open it. Lorenzo stands there, his face etched with confusion. Luca stands just behind him in the narrow corridor, a silent shadow.
“What is this?” Lorenzo asks.
“Come in,” I say, closing the door behind him. “And please, for the next ten minutes, stop seeing me as your boss’s daughter. See me as your boss.”
He looks uncomfortable. “I don’t understand.”
“It was very clear in that meeting that the council intends to keep me in the dark,” I say, walking to the large, ornate safe that is built into the wall behind my father’s desk. “They will feed me what they want me to know, and I will be a figurehead until Marco comes to claim his throne.”
I turn to face him. “I will not be a blind queen, Lorenzo. I want to see the books. All of them. The real ones.”
Lorenzo pales. “Sienna. That is not… it is not your concern. Your father, he kept these things separate for a reason. To protect you.”
“The time for my protection is over,” I snap, my patience gone. “My father is dead. My brothers are dead. I am all that is left. Do you think our enemies are going to leave me alone out of respect for my delicate sensibilities?”
“The council will handle our enemies.”
“The council may be our enemy!” I say, my voice rising for the first time. I take a breath, forcing it back down. “Someone gave the order. Someone who knew their schedules. Someone who knew how to bypass their security. That someone could have been in this very room an hour ago. And I will not sit here waiting for them to come for me next.”
I stand in front of him, my hands clenched into fists at my sides. “You served my father for forty years. Your loyalty was to the Don. I am the Don now. So I ask you, Lorenzo. Who do you serve?”
He looks at me, really looks at me. The worry on his face is still there, but it’s warring with something else. A flicker of his old loyalty. A sense of duty that runs deeper than his chauvinism.
He lets out a long, defeated sigh. “Your father would have my head for this.”
“My father is gone,” I say softly. “Help me make sure he didn’t die for nothing.”
Slowly, he walks to the desk. He moves a heavy paperweight, a marble globe of the world, and presses down on the spot where it sat. A faint click echoes in the room. He then pulls a book from the shelf, a worn copy of The Prince. He opens it to a specific page and runs his finger along a line of text.
With a low groan, a section of the wall beside the safe swings inward, revealing a keypad.
“He changed the codes every month,” Lorenzo says, his fingers hovering over the numbers. “Only he and I knew them.” He punches in a long sequence. A green light flashes.
He then turns to the safe itself, his hands spinning the large brass wheel. He works from memory, his movements sure and practiced. The final, heavy clunk of the tumblers falling into place is the loudest sound I have ever heard.
He pulls the heavy door open. Inside are not stacks of cash, but rows upon rows of dark, leather bound ledgers.
“He never trusted computers with the real accounts,” Lorenzo says, his voice a whisper.
He pulls one out. Then another. He places them on the vast expanse of the desk. He opens the first one.
The numbers are a language I understand better than ItaSiennan. For the next hour, we don’t speak. The only sounds are the turning of pages and Lorenzo’s occasional sharp intake of breath as I point to a line and raise a questioning eyebrow.
It is worse than I could have imagined.
It is a bloodbath written in black and red ink.
“This payment to the Falcone family,” I say, my finger tracing a number with far too many zeroes. “For ‘consulting fees’. What does that mean?”
“It means your Uncle Tony was blackmailing your father,” Lorenzo says, his voice grim. “He had information about the Atlantic City casino expansion. Your father paid for his silence.”
My stomach twists. Uncle Tony. The man who hugged me at the wake.
I turn another page. “And this debt? To the Irish? We don’t do business with the Irish.”
“Your brother Matteo did,” Lorenzo says quietly. “A shipment of guns that was seized by the feds. He borrowed from them to cover the loss. He never told your father.”
My brilSiennant, foolish brother. Always trying to prove himself.
It goes on and on. Crumbling alSiennances held together with desperate payments. Legitimate businesses leveraged to the hilt, propping up failing criminal enterprises. Debts to families we once considered our inferiors. My father wasn’t ruling an empire. He was desperately trying to patch the holes in a sinking ship.
The Romano family is not just vulnerable. We are broke. We are a house of cards, and someone has just blown on it with all their might.
“This is why they were killed,” I breathe, leaning back in the chair. “We showed weakness. Someone saw an opportunity to kick the chair out from under us.”
“It would seem so,” Lorenzo says, his face ashen. He looks like he has aged ten years in the last hour.
But something still doesn’t fit. My mind is racing, connecting the dots. The weakness explains the motive for an outside attack. But the execution…
“The security protocols,” I say, looking up at Lorenzo. “Papa’s car. The route randomization system. I designed it myself after that attempt on Gianni two years ago. The routes were changed daily, randomly, by a computer. There was no predictable pattern.”
Lorenzo nods. “It was a brilSiennant system. Your father was very proud.”
“The preliminary police report Luca acquired said the attack happened on the Triborough Bridge,” I continue, the pieces clicking into place with horrifying speed. “That route should only have been in the system once a month, at most.”
“What are you saying, Sienna?”
“I’m saying it wasn’t an outside job,” I say, my voice trembling with a cold, terrifying certainty. “Or not entirely. To know he would be on that bridge at that exact time… it wasn’t a lucky guess. Someone had to override the system. Someone had to manually input that route. Someone on the inside.”
I look around the study. At the pictures on the wall of my family, smiling and whole. At the books filled with secrets and lies. At the heavy oak door that separates me from the rest of the house.
The feeling is immediate. Primal. The hair on my arms stands up.
I am not safe here.
This house, my home, is not a fortress. It is a hunting ground. And I am the last prey.
