Sienna Romano.
The leather ledgers sit open on the desk like corpses awaiting autopsy. Their secrets spill out into the silent room, a litany of debt, deceit, and decay. The Romano empire is a phantom. A ghost of its former self, propped up by my father’s pride and now, nothing at all.
“We are ruined,” Lorenzo says. The words are flat, stripped of all hope. He sinks into one of the chairs opposite the desk, his face the color of old parchment.
“We are hunted,” I correct him, my voice a low whisper. My eyes are fixed on the door, the heavy oak a flimsy shield against the threat I now know is breathing the same air as I am. “Someone in this house, someone who sat at this table, handed my family to their executioners.”
The air is thick with the smell of old paper and betrayal. Every shadow in the room feels like a hiding place. Every creak of the old house is an approaching footstep.
“We must move carefully,” Lorenzo murmurs, rubbing his temples. “We consolidate. We call our loyal men. We find the leak.”
“Carefully?” I laugh, but the sound is brittle, sharp. “Caution is a luxury for the powerful, Lorenzo. For us, right now, it is a coffin. Your loyal men are the very vipers I suspect. Silvio? Antonio? They were picking at the bones of my father’s legacy before his body was even cold.”
“They are opportunists, yes. But murder? A coup? Sienna, these are men who knew you when you were a child.”
“And now I am a woman who is in their way,” I say, pushing away from the desk. I begin to pace, the confines of the study feeling smaller with every step. My mind is a whirlwind, discarding plans as quickly as they form. Retreat? No, that is a slow death. Attack? With what army? What money?
We have nothing. Less than nothing. A name that is rapidly losing its power and a target on my back.
“So we wait,” Lorenzo says, though it sounds like a question. “We let them think you are a figurehead. We let Marco come. He is a fool, but he has the name. He will be a distraction while we work in the shadows.”
“Wait for what? For the traitor to finish the job? For Marco to arrive and hand what’s left of this family over to our enemies on a silver platter?” I stop in front of him, leaning over the desk. “They expect me to be a grieving daughter. They expect me to be weak. To hide. To wait for a man to save me. Everything they expect us to do is the wrong move.”
“Then what is the right move?” he asks, his voice raw with desperation. “There is no right move. We are in checkmate.”
“No,” I say, an idea beginning to form. It is a wild spark in the darkness. A terrifying, insane, brilSiennant spark. “We are not in checkmate. We just need to knock over the board.”
I walk to the liquor cabinet, my hands moving on their own. I pour two glasses of my father’s oldest scotch. I don’t drink scotch. I hand one to Lorenzo. He takes it, his hand trembling slightly. I hold the other, the heavy crystal cold against my skin.
“To project strength,” I say, thinking aloud, “we need to appear stronger than we have ever been. We need an alSiennance so powerful, so unexpected, that it will make our enemies pause. It will make the traitor in our midst afraid to move. It will buy us the one thing we do not have. Time.”
Lorenzo stares at me over the rim of his glass. “An alSiennance? With who? The Falcones are blackmailers. The Gallos are circling. The Contis are weak. There is no one left to trust.”
“You’re right,” I say. “We cannot ally ourselves with our friends. Or our supposed friends.”
I take a slow sip of the scotch. It burns a trail down my throat, a welcome fire. I meet Lorenzo’s gaze in the dim lamplight.
“So we will ally ourselves with our greatest enemy.”
He says nothing. He just watches me, his eyes full of confusion and a dawning horror.
I say the name. “Curtis Malone.”
The glass slips from Lorenzo’s fingers. It hits the Persian rug with a dull thud, amber liquid splashing across the intricate patterns like spilled blood. He doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Have you lost your mind?” he finally breathes, rising to his feet. “Sienna. No. That is not a plan. That is a funeral arrangement. The Malones have been our enemies for three generations. Your father spat on the ground Curtis Malone walked on. His father killed your grandfather’s cousin.”
“I am aware of our family history, Lorenzo,” I say, my voice impossibly calm.
“He is a monster. A killer. They call him ‘The Butcher of Brooklyn’. He will not meet with you. He will send your head back to us in a box.”
“Exactly,” I say, a strange sense of clarity washing over me. “It is the one thing no one would ever predict. Our enemies, the traitor, they expect me to hide. To mourn. They do not expect me to walk into the lion’s den and ask the lion for a dance.”
“He will kill you,” Lorenzo insists, his voice shaking with a rage born of fear. “He will see it as the ultimate insult. The pathetic, dying Romanos, crawling to him for help. He will gut you for the sheer pleasure of it.”
“Maybe,” I concede. “But what if he doesn’t? What if his curiosity outweighs his hatred? Curtis Malone is not a fool. He is a businessman. A brutal one, but a businessman nonetheless. He knows a destabilized underworld is bad for everyone. He knows a war is expensive.”
I place my glass on the desk with a quiet click. “An alSiennance, or even the appearance of an alSiennance, between the Romano and Malone families would be an earthquake. It would shatter every existing power structure. It would put all the other families on their back foot. It would give me a shield. A very dangerous, very unpredictable shield, but a shield all the same.”
Lorenzo just stares at me, his mouth opening and closing. He sees the logic, I know he does, but the sheer, visceral wrongness of it is too much for him to overcome. He has spent a lifetime hating the Malone name.
“It’s suicide,” he whispers.
“It’s survival,” I counter. “It is the only move we have left.”
I know he will not be the one to do it. His loyalty is to the past. To my father’s memory and my father’s hatreds. I need someone whose loyalty is only to me. To the future.
I press the intercom. “Luca. My office. Now.”
Lorenzo looks at the intercom, then back at me, his eyes wide with disbelief. “You cannot send him. Sienna, I beg you. You will be sending that boy to his death.”
“Luca is not a boy,” I say. “And he is the only person in this world I trust.”
The hidden door opens moments later. Luca steps inside, his presence a quiet, solid force in the chaotic room. His eyes flick from Lorenzo’s panicked face to the spilled drink on the floor, then to me. He waits.
“I need you to deliver a message,” I say, my voice even.
“To whom?” he asks.
“To Curtis Malone.”
Luca does not flinch. His expression does not change. Not a flicker of surprise, not a hint of fear. He just holds my gaze. It is Lorenzo who lets out a choked sound, a mix of a sob and a curse.
“Directly into his hands,” I continue. “No one else sees it. No one else touches it. Only him.”
“When do I leave?” Luca asks. Simple. Loyal. Unquestioning.
“It’s a death sentence, son,” Lorenzo pleads, turning to Luca. “She doesn’t know what she is asking.”
Luca’s eyes never leave mine. “She is the Don. She knows exactly what she is asking.”
A swell of something that feels dangerously like hope rises in my chest. I walk to my father’s desk and take out a piece of his personal stationery. It is thick, cream colored paper, with the Romano family crest embossed in gold at the top. The height of arrogance. The perfect vessel for this message.
I take a fountain pen, the one my father signed his most important contracts with. My hand is perfectly steady as I write.
I do not write a plea. I do not write a request.
I write an invitation.
*A matter of mutual survival. Your territory. Your terms.*
I do not sign it with my name. I sign it with my new title.
*Don Romano.*
I fold the heavy paper once and slide it into a matching envelope. I don’t seal it. Let him see we have nothing to hide.
I hold it out to Luca.
“You are not to go to his home or his known offices,” I say, my voice low and precise. “That is where he expects his enemies. There is a small restaurant in the West Village. An ItaSiennan place called Il Corvo. The Crow. It is neutral ground, owned by an old family from Sicily. My father used to say it was the only place in the city where a man could eat his pasta without fear of being poisoned. Malone knows it. He goes there on Thursdays. Alone. For lunch. It is a tradition his father started.”
Lorenzo looks stunned. It is a piece of intelligence he clearly did not possess. A piece I had filed away years ago, from a stray comment I had overheard.
“You will go tomorrow,” I tell Luca. “You will sit at the bar. You will wait for him. You will approach him respectfully. You will give him this. And you will say nothing, unless he speaks to you first.”
Luca takes the envelope. His fingers are firm, his grip sure. “Understood.”
“If they try to stop you, if they try to take you…” my voice falters for a fraction of a second.
“They will not take me,” he says. It is a simple statement of fact.
I nod. There is nothing more to say. He turns and walks to the hidden door. He does not look back.
He is my queen’s gambit. My only piece, sent deep into enemy territory.
The door closes behind him, and the silence he leaves in his wake is absolute. I am alone with Lorenzo and the wreckage of our past.
Lorenzo looks at me, and for the first time, the pity is gone from his eyes. The condescension is gone. In its place is a terrified, profound respect.
“God help us,” he whispers.
“God has nothing to do with this,” I reply, turning to look out the window at the dark, sleeping city. “I am dealing with the devil now.”
