Nero Daniels

My fiancé left me standing alone at the podium during our rehearsal dinner to rush to the side of a woman whose only illness was a desperate need for attention. He humiliated me in front of the heads of the Five Families, abandoning our alliance to scoop his "dying" mistress off the floor. I didn't cry. I didn't run. I walked straight to the head table, to the most terrifying man in the city—his older brother, the Don. "The Woodward family owes me a husband," I declared calmly. An hour later, I was married to the Capo dei Capi. But my ex-fiancé didn't accept his demotion. He kidnapped me, strapping me to a chair in a soundproof basement. For three days, he drained my blood pint by pint to "save" his mistress, Jaidyn, who watched me fade while she casually ate an apple. "Take another bag," she ordered, smiling at my agony. "She still has too much fight in her." As the cold crept up my chest and my vision blurred, I realized I was going to die for a lie, drained dry by a madman. Then, the steel door detonated. Through the smoke and debris walked my husband, not with a ransom, but with a serrated knife and a promise to burn them alive.

Cora thought she was the luckiest woman alive, married to a devoted tech billionaire who showered her with custom haute couture and obsessive care. But his "protection" involved locking her inside their San Francisco estate, forcing her to swallow foul neon-green supplements, and drawing her blood with highly classified veterinary needles. She thought it was just his extreme paranoia, until a cynical doctor cornered her at a charity gala. "Kendrick isn't raising a wife. He's curating a very rare, very fragile medical specimen. You're his personal pharmacy." Terrified, Cora broke into Kendrick's hidden safe and found a medical report approving her total bone marrow and stem cell depletion. Kendrick wasn't a doting husband. He was raising her as a human bloodbag to save his terminally ill cousin. When she nearly uncovered the truth, Kendrick cried fake tears, claiming he only needed her antibodies. "Tomorrow, we are going to my private island in the Caribbean. Just the two of us. No internet. No guards. Just peace." Cora almost believed his vulnerable act, deeply confused by how a man who kissed her so tenderly could plan to slaughter her in cold blood. Then, while packing for the trip, she dropped a wooden box, revealing a hidden flight manifesto. Kendrick's return date was listed. Hers was completely blank. Stapled to the back was a clinical schedule: Intensive Marrow Harvesting - Final Stage. Patient will not require return transport. Hearing his heavy footsteps echoing in the hallway, Cora gripped the sharp edges of the broken box. She was not going to be a slaughtered lamb on that island.

For ten years, my family kept me locked away, forcing me to play the part of a broken, mentally unstable girl. They controlled me with sedatives and treated me like a ghost in my own home, a prisoner in a gilded cage. But I had a secret. I was a world-famous anonymous artist with a hidden fortune, and I had an escape plan. On the day of my cousin's wedding, my rebellion was accidentally witnessed by a dangerous stranger who saw the predator beneath my fragile mask. To silence him, I dragged him into a dark closet. The encounter turned raw and reckless, a violent collision I used as the perfect cover for my escape. I vanished with a new name and a one-way ticket to a new life, leaving him with nothing but a bloodstain and the bitter taste of betrayal. I thought I was free, that I had successfully buried the girl I was forced to be and the man I was forced to use. Three months later, on a superyacht in Monaco, he found me. He wasn't just some wealthy guest; he was the ruthless head of a powerful crime syndicate, and I was trapped in his private penthouse. He locked the door, his eyes black with possessive rage. "The game is over," he whispered. "This time, you're not running."

Three years ago, I sacrificed myself to donate my corneas to my blind lover, Elliot Moon. To spare him the guilt, I had my family tell him that I had abandoned him for a new life. But the credit for my sacrifice was stolen by another woman, Dolly. Convinced that I was still alive, Elliot became obsessed with hunting me down and dragging me back to donate my heart to cure Dolly’s heart disease. He broke both of my brother’s hands. He drove my mother to her death. But I was already dead, reduced to a ghost, unable to do a single thing. That was until his subordinate uncovered the truth: "Mr. Moon, Ms. Kayla died three years ago to save you."

For two years, I played the role of the "Midwestern mistake," the mousey wife Julian Ford-Sterling IV kept hidden like a shameful secret. I hid my true self behind thick glasses and ashen foundation, acting as the perfect, cowed charity case while he lived a life of marble and indifference. The day our marriage contract ended, the headlines were already screaming about his affair with Hollywood’s sweetheart, Lana Vane. Julian didn't even grant me a final conversation; he simply sent his legal team to hand me divorce papers that gave me nothing—no alimony, no shares, just a non-disclosure agreement and a one-way ticket out of his life. I signed the papers and walked away, but a drugged encounter in a dark club that same night led me back into his arms. We collided in the shadows, two strangers stripped of their titles, but I fled before dawn, accidentally leaving behind my vintage silver locket. By the time I reached my secret design studio the next morning, I discovered Julian had executed a hostile takeover of my entire life’s work. To my horror, Lana Vane was already there, clutching my stolen locket and shamelessly claiming she was the woman Julian had spent the night with. Julian stood before me in his charcoal suit, looking at me with total lack of recognition. To him, I was just a "gold-digging" architect he had bought along with the furniture. I watched them together, the man who had discarded me and the woman who had stolen my identity, realizing that Julian was obsessed with the genius of "Rose" while despising the woman who stood right in front of him. He had no idea that the wife he’d just divorced was the very person he was now desperate to control. I straightened my spine, my violet-blue eyes cold and lethal behind my new designer frames. "Mr. Ford-Sterling, you wanted the best designer in the city? You’ve got her. But you should know—I don't just build empires. I know exactly how to tear them down."

I married the most ruthless Don in Chicago, but not for love, money, or power. I married Luca Falcone because he was the only man on earth who carried the same DNA as his dead identical twin, Dante—the love of my life. For three years, I played the role of the submissive, obsessed wife. I endured his coldness. I cooked for his mistress, Sofia. I even stayed silent when Sofia pushed me down a flight of stairs in a jealous rage, nearly killing me. Luca thought I stayed because I was weak. He thought the way I stared at his face was adoration. He never realized I was looking right through him, seeing the ghost of the brother he could never live up to. But the moment the second pink line appeared on the pregnancy test, my mission was complete. I had secured the heir. I had brought a piece of Dante back to the world. The vessel was no longer needed. I signed the divorce papers, packed my bags, and vanished into the night while Luca was busy with his mistress. When he finally tracked me down months later, broken and begging on his knees for me to come home, I didn't feel a thing. I looked down at the man who thought he was a King and delivered the final blow. "I never loved you, Luca. I married you for the sperm."

After seven years of marriage, I discovered my billionaire husband Grayson' s will. He was leaving his entire fortune not to me, but to his young protégée, Kira. My life was a lie; I was just a placeholder, a womb for the heir his mistress couldn't carry. When I demanded a divorce, he laughed. "You're pregnant, Elyse. And you think you're just going to walk away with my child?" He tore up the papers, threatening to use his immense power to take our baby. Then Kira, his mistress, showed up at my door, confirming my worst fear: Grayson wanted my child to raise as his and hers. She even sent me a photo of him asleep in her bed, wearing the pajamas I bought him, with a chilling message. "He hopes our baby has a dimple too. For me." I was chosen because I resembled her. My son was meant to be her child. That night, I vanished. The news later reported a pregnant woman, identified by my wedding ring, had died in a clinic fire. But I was already on a plane, my hand on my belly, escaping to a new life.

For five years, I was the ghost in the machine, the secret architect of my boyfriend Coleton' s brilliant career. I was "Aura," the anonymous creator of our company's billion-dollar software, and I used my hidden influence to make him the star project lead in a new city 1,500 miles away. I did it all for us, for the future we were supposed to build together. But when I finally transferred to his office to surprise him, I found him wrapped up with his new assistant, Kyra-the same girl I' d seen laughing on the back of his motorcycle in a video just days before. He called her his "climbing partner," a friend, nothing more. Then, she made a mistake that cost our company millions. When I confronted her, Coleton didn't hold her accountable. He defended her. In front of the entire executive floor, he turned on me, blaming me for her failure. "If you can't handle the pressure here," he sneered, his voice dripping with contempt, "maybe you should just go back to headquarters." The man whose entire life I had built was firing me to protect another woman. Just as my world shattered, the elevator doors chimed. Our CTO stepped out, his eyes taking in my tear-streaked face and Coleton's furious one. He looked straight at my boyfriend, his voice dangerously quiet. "You have the audacity to speak to the owner of this company in that tone?"

My daughter Lily hadn't seen her father in five years, so her joyful cry of "Daddy!" echoed through the sterile mansion as she ran to him. But his eyes were not for her. Jessica Hayes, his "one true love," stood beside him, her feigned trip and cry sending him into a panic. He scooped her up, his face contorted with concern, then shot a venomous look at our innocent five-year-old. "Lock her in the master bedroom closet. Three days. No food." My blood ran cold. "Ryan, no! Please, you can't!" "She has asthma, Ryan. She'll suffocate!" He scoffed, accusing me of lies and manipulative ploys. The guards, impervious to my pleas, ripped Lily from my arms. "Mommy! Mommy, I'm sorry!" she shrieked, carried away. That night, her terrified cries faded to desperate whimpers. "Please, Mommy... can't... breathe..." I pounded on the door until my fists were raw, screaming for them to let her out. The whimpers stopped. The closet door opened. Lily lay there, blue, not moving, not breathing. Unconscious from lack of oxygen. The ambulance siren wailed as I sank to the waiting room floor. My phone buzzed. It was Instagram. Jessica Hayes, pouting in a hospital bed with a tiny scratch. Her caption: "Mr. Peterson is so generous! I only scraped my knee and he gave me two luxury apartments as compensation. I guess I'll forgive you now~" Geotagged from a luxury hospital across town. Where our daughter wasn't. He gifted her apartments for a scraped knee, while our child suffocated. A cold numbness spread through me. "Grandma," I whispered, bowing my head to Mrs. Peterson. "Love cannot be forced. Please... let him be with Jessica. I just want to take Lily and leave." My fresh wounds throbbed, tears mixing with blood. I showed her the post, the address of our marital home given away. Mrs. Peterson's face blazed with fury. "That scoundrel! That worthless boy!" "Call that bastard and tell him to get his ass to this hospital immediately!" But it was too late. If Grandma's scolding worked, Lily would never have been locked in that closet.

The world ended on a Tuesday afternoon. One moment, I was building blocks with my five-year-old son, Leo; the next, our home bucked and collapsed around us, trapping us in a coffin of splintered wood and concrete. Pinned in the darkness, I whispered reassurances to Leo, my body shielding his, even as I felt the immense weight above us. But then Leo whimpered, his voice thin: "My leg hurts." My heart seized. His left leg was caught, crushed under a concrete beam, and I was utterly helpless. Every scream for help was swallowed by the tons of debris. Just as despair threatened to consume me, I heard it: familiar voices. Sarah was there, my wife, a top ER physician, coordinating the rescue. Hope surged, a dizzying, wild thing. "SARAH!" I bellowed with every last ounce of breath. "SARAH, IT'S DAVID! LEO IS WITH ME!" Through a tiny crack, I saw her, ten feet away. But then another voice, closer to her, cried out: "Sarah… over here…" It was Mark Johnson, her "soulmate" from college, the reason our marriage had been a hollow shell. I watched, disbelieving, as she rushed to him, ignoring my desperate pleas, prioritizing his broken arm over our son' s crushed leg. She commanded rescue workers to save him, then scooped his uninjured son into her arms, walking right past us without a second glance. The child, Ethan, even lied to her face, confirming we weren't there, and she believed him. The betrayal was a cold, hard blow, leaving me with a terrifying realization: she had heard me, chosen him, and now, my son might pay the ultimate price for her choice. My son was going into shock, and I knew, with chilling certainty, that this act of abandonment would shatter our lives forever.

David Chen, my fiancé, lay dead on top of me, his blood soaking through my clothes. His last words, a whisper against the chaos, echoed in my head: "If there's a next life, let's not be together again... I want to wait for her." For nine years, I had chased his shadow, followed him on dangerous missions, hoping my devotion would break through his icy heart. It never did. He hated me because his childhood sweetheart, Emily, had died, and I was the one left living. His father even spat, "You drove Emily to despair, and you killed David!" Everyone, even my guardian, General Thompson, regretted our forced engagement, blaming me. I regretted it most of all, feeling like a disaster magnet, destroying so many lives with my selfish, naive love. The irony was a bitter taste: I had survived, and he was gone. So, I prepared to grant his wish and finally disappear. I stood on the Golden Gate Bridge, the wind whipping my hair, the water dark and final below. Closing my eyes, I let myself fall, embracing the end. But the impact never came. Instead, I jolted awake in my own bed, sunlight streaming in. My phone buzzed, and the date on the screen made my heart stop: the day before our engagement party. I was back. This time, I wouldn't make the same mistake. This time, I would set them all free.

The launch party for my wife' s tech startup was a whirlwind, but then the smoke started. A rigged collapsed, a fire erupted. I saw Jennifer, my wife of twelve years, instinctively shield her prized intern, Ethan, and drag him to safety, abandoning me as the world went dark. I woke up a month later in the ICU, my lungs ravaged. The first thing I saw was a message from Jennifer. My heart fluttered with foolish hope. "Ethan is recovering at home," it read, "he's craving that clam chowder you make. Drop some off for him." Not a single "How are you?" or "I'm glad you're alive." Just a demand. A chore. For him. Something inside me, twelve years of devotion, finally snapped. I canceled our expensive IVF appointment and booked a one-way trip to Iceland. Jennifer called, not concerned for my health, but enraged about the money and the IVF. She called me jobless, worthless, and praised Ethan as "brilliant" and "forward-thinking." Then I found the single rose she sent me, a stark contrast to the 999 roses Ethan flaunted on Instagram. Hours later, I returned home from the hospital to changed locks and a used condom in our bedroom trash. The man she wanted, the one who would beg, was gone. My love had turned to ash. I calmly called a divorce lawyer. This wasn't just about betrayal; it was about finally choosing myself.

I was once a well-known feminist activist, but later I became a gold digger and a submissive wife. To earn money for Frank's medical treatment, I married Zachary and became a stepmother to his autistic son, Erik. Former friends criticized me for degrading myself and cut off contact with me. My life became very narrow; I spent my days meticulously caring for Erik and my nights accompanying Zachary through the ups and downs. In the fifth year of our marriage, Erik's biological mother returned. She was a wealthy heiress, a PhD from a prestigious university, stunningly beautiful, and had built a feminist persona on social media, amassing millions of followers. In comparison, I felt dull and uninteresting, and people found me repulsive. So, I decided to file for divorce.

I was the perfect Mafia wife, my dowry the foundation of my husband's ambition. I paid for his Yale degree, his tailored suits, and the very mansion he called his own. My reward? He paraded his mistress into my bedroom and declared her his second wife, expecting me to silently finance their affair. They thought they had broken a merchant's daughter. They forgot I was raised by wolves. Armed with a blood chit—a life debt owed to my family by the most feared man in Chicago—I walked into the lion's den. I went to Damien 'The Wraith' Falcone, the Dark Don who rules the Outfit with an iron fist, to demand a simple annulment. But the King of Chicago isn't interested in simple transactions. He saw the steel beneath my silk, the vendetta burning in my eyes. He granted me my freedom, but at a price: my allegiance. Now, I'm a pawn in his lethal game of thrones, caught between a treacherous husband I swore to destroy and a ruthless Don who looks at me with a terrifying, possessive hunger. In a city built on loyalty and betrayal, I'm about to teach them all that a queen's wrath is the deadliest weapon of all.

I was dragged back from the countryside by my father for one purpose: to be a sacrificial lamb. He ordered me to marry the mafia Don Damien Valachi in place of my sister. Everyone in the underworld knew that this Don's brides never saw the light of the next day. My stepmother put on a fake smile and took my hand, calling it an "honor"; my sister hid behind her, unable to conceal the gleam of triumph in her eyes. I smiled coldly and held up two fingers: "Twenty million dollars. Now." My father tried to play tricks, planning to take back the money from my trust fund after I died, but I had someone transfer every cent out before the wedding, leaving him a zero balance. The next day, the wedding car pulled up to the Valachi estate. The butler ordered the driver to use the service entrance-it seemed my groom didn't think I was worthy of the front gate. I got out and switched to an armored vehicle. I floored the accelerator, crashing straight through the estate gates. The gates shattered, and I didn't stop until I reached the main steps. I jumped out, the heel of my shoe crushing a broken iron railing, and shouted: "The bride is here." I looked up, scanning every window until my gaze stopped on one dark pane. I knew Damien was watching. I brushed the dust off my skirt, raised my voice a notch, and smiled: "What, the Don of the Valachi family doesn't dare come out to meet his new wife?"

My mother is marrying a monster tomorrow. I'm the only one who remembers. My widowed mother was arranged to marry Lorenzo, a powerful Mafia Capo. I thought his status would finally bring us protection. But on the third day of their marriage, Lorenzo moved his pregnant mistress, Camilla, into the estate's master suite. She loudly claimed the child in her womb was the orphaned blood of a fallen soldier. "A Capo of Lorenzo's stature is doing your mother a service," the Syndicate wives mocked me, demanding we accept our place. Camilla systematically seized my mother's territory cuts and subjected her to endless psychological torture, while Lorenzo simply turned a blind eye. When the baby was born, it bore the exact same distinct birthmark on its neck as Lorenzo. Only then did we realize Lorenzo had used my mother as a convenient shield for his illicit affair, stealing my dead father's legacy and slowly draining our lives away. I didn't understand why the Family's brutal justice allowed a thief to siphon funds under the guise of caring for a martyr's widow, leaving us to die in absolute disgrace. Opening my eyes again, I was back to the day before the mob wedding. Looking at my six-year-old hands, I grabbed the torn marriage petition and stole the secret trust documents. This time, I ran straight to the heavily guarded gates of Don Salvatore, the most ruthless executioner in the city.

On my birthday, my husband Dante asked for a divorce over a plate of cold lasagna. He held my hand, tears in his eyes, and told me his mistress was pregnant. "It’s a miracle, Elena," he wept. "God has finally given me a son." He looked at me with pity, calling me "broken" because I hadn't given him an heir in eight years. He moved his pregnant mistress into the penthouse I paid for, and his mother mocked me as a "dry vine" while cooking tonic soups for the new woman. They didn't know the truth I had buried three years ago. I remembered the day the doctor slid the file across the desk: *Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.* Dante was the sterile one. I had burned the results to protect his fragile ego as a Mafia Don. I took the blame. I drank his mother's vile herbal poisons every morning until I vomited, just to keep his secret. Now, he was discarding me for a "miracle" that was biologically impossible. I signed the divorce papers without a tear. Then I bought the debt of his company, put on a blood-red dress, and walked into his heir's Christening. I didn't come to object. I came to plug a USB drive into the projector and show the entire underworld exactly whose "miracle" that baby really was.

"It was just one night stand, and now I'm pregnant with triplets? Gosh!" Josephine Jade never thought that she would have to run away from her own family while pregnant. She was alone, without money, without connections, with three fetuses in her stomach. How can she survive? However, Josephine couldn't give up now, until she managed to reclaim her arbitrarily seized property and get back at everyone who tried to get rid of her. A sick child, a past crush that comes back, a mysterious eccentric man, and a family that hates her, will weave together the journey of Josephine Jade's new life. "You have no right to separate me from my children, you bastard! I will survive and you will submit to me. Just watch!"

I was the brilliant money launderer for the most feared syndicate on the East Coast, and the fiercely loyal wife of its Underboss, Dante. While I worked sleepless nights to build his underworld dominion, he secretly diverted my operations to fund a luxury club for his naive barista mistress. When I confronted them and publicly exposed her, Dante didn't show a shred of guilt. Instead, he slapped me across the face in front of the entire syndicate. He draped his tailored jacket over his crying mistress to shield her, then turned his cold eyes on me. "Apologize to her right now, or I will send every single soldier in your crew to the slaughterhouse." He then weaponized the mafia's whisper network to destroy my reputation, painting me as a hysterical, paranoid woman just to legitimize his affair. For years, I had blindly endured his psychological torture, believing my devotion would eventually earn his respect. But looking at the brutal purple handprint on my cheek, and the ninety-nine dried bouquets of white roses he kept in the attic to carelessly patch over his toxic abuse, my heart finally turned to ice. I didn't throw a tantrum, nor did I beg for his love anymore. I left his apology blood diamonds on the table, drafted my mafia severance papers, and walked out of his territory for good. This time, I would build my own empire, and let him drown in the ruins of his.

I stood outside my husband's study, the perfect mafia wife, only to hear him mocking me as an "ice sculpture" while he entertained his mistress, Aria. But the betrayal went deeper than infidelity. A week later, my saddle snapped mid-jump, leaving me with a shattered leg. Lying in the hospital bed, I overheard the conversation that killed the last of my love. My husband, Alessandro, knew Aria had sabotaged my gear. He knew she could have killed me. Yet, he told his men to let it go. He called my near-death experience a "lesson" because I had bruised his mistress's ego. He humiliated me publicly, freezing my accounts to buy family heirlooms for her. He stood by while she threatened to leak our private tapes to the press. He destroyed my dignity to play the hero for a woman he thought was a helpless orphan. He had no idea she was a fraud. He didn't know I had installed micro-cameras throughout the estate while he was busy pampering her. He didn't know I had hours of footage showing his "innocent" Aria sleeping with his guards, his rivals, and even his staff, laughing about how easy he was to manipulate. At the annual charity gala, in front of the entire crime family, Alessandro demanded I apologize to her. I didn't beg. I didn't cry. I simply connected my drive to the main projector and pressed play.

For two years, I played the perfect, silent wife to Damien Moretti, the ruthless Don of the New York mafia. But tonight, he threw a thick manila envelope onto our nightstand. It was an annulment. "Giuliana is back. She's dying, and I am done playing house with you." His first love had returned, supposedly sick with terminal cancer. He demanded I sign the papers and leave the penthouse immediately so he could rush to her side. He looked at me with absolute disgust, expecting me to break down and beg. When she later staged a fake assassination attempt to frame me, Damien blindly believed her pathetic tears. He dragged me to the hospital, ready to unleash his murderous wrath on me for daring to touch his precious white rose. I looked at the man I had shared a bed with for two years. He was supposed to be a powerful, calculating leader, yet he was completely blinded by a cheap liar and a forged medical report. He actually thought I was just a weak, greedy socialite who would quietly take the fall. He had no idea that behind my docile mask, I was 'K', the digital underworld's most elusive hacker. I calmly signed the papers, took his millions, and pulled the real security footage of his perfectly healthy ex. At tonight's family dinner, I am going to shatter her fragile facade and make the Don choke on his own stupidity before I walk away for good.

I was the spare daughter of the Vitiello crime family, born solely to provide organs for my golden sister, Isabella. Four years ago, under the codename "Seven," I nursed Dante Moretti, the Don of Chicago, back to health in a safe house. I was the one who held him in the dark. But Isabella stole my name, my credit, and the man I loved. Now, Dante looked at me with nothing but cold disgust, believing her lies. When a neon sign crashed down on the street, Dante used his body to shield Isabella, leaving me to be crushed under twisted steel. While Isabella sat in a VIP suite crying over a scratch, I lay broken, listening to my parents discuss if my kidneys were still viable for harvest. The final straw came at their engagement gala. When Dante saw me wearing the lava stone bracelet I had worn in the safe house, he accused me of stealing it from Isabella. He ordered my father to punish me. I took fifty lashes to my back while Dante covered Isabella's eyes, protecting her from the ugly truth. That night, the love in my heart finally died. On the morning of their wedding, I handed Dante a gift box containing a cassette tape—the only proof that I was Seven. Then, I signed the papers disowning my family, threw my phone out the car window, and boarded a one-way flight to Sydney. By the time Dante listens to that tape and realizes he married a monster, I will be thousands of miles away, never to return.

I was three days away from marrying the Underboss of the Fazio crime family when I unlocked his burner phone. The screen glowed toxic bright in the dark next to my sleeping fiancé. A message from a contact saved as 'Little Trouble' read: "She is just a statue, Dante. Come back to bed." Attached was a photo of a woman lying in the sheets of his private office, wearing his shirt. My heart didn't break; it simply stopped. For eight years, I believed Dante was the hero who pulled me from a burning opera house. I played the perfect, loyal Mafia Princess for him. But heroes don't give their mistresses rare pink diamonds while giving their fiancées cubic zirconia replicas. He didn't just cheat. He humiliated me. He defended his mistress over his own soldiers in public. He even abandoned me on the side of the road on my birthday because she faked a pregnancy emergency. He thought I was weak. He thought I would accept the fake ring and the disrespect because I was just a political pawn. He was wrong. I didn't cry. Tears are for women who have options. I had a strategy. I walked into the bathroom and dialed a number I hadn't dared to call in a decade. "Speak," a voice like gravel growled on the other end. Lorenzo Moretti. The Capo of the rival family. The man my father called the Devil. "The wedding is off," I whispered, staring at my reflection. "I want an alliance with you, Enzo. And I want the Fazio family burned to the ground."