When the Lion Bleeds
Naples, Italy
Seven Days Before the Funeral
The mansion smelled of smoke, blood, and betrayal.
Gunfire had stopped, but the echoes still trembled in the marble halls of Villa Moretti. The guards were dead. The walls were painted red. And at the center of the carnage lay the lion himself, Don Alessandro Moretti, ruler of Naples' southern underworld.
His breathing was shallow, wet with blood. His chest heaved as he tried to speak, but only a cough escaped, spattering crimson across his once-white shirt.
She dropped to her knees beside him, panic frozen behind the fire in her eyes.
"Papa…" Amara Moretti whispered, pressing her hands to the wound on his side. "Stay with me.
The old man blinked slowly. One eye swollen. Ribs shattered. But his voice, though raspy, still carried the weight of a king.
"Amara… listen to me," he gasped.
She shook her head, tears burning hot down her cheeks. "You'll be fine. I've called—"
"There's no time." His fingers gripped her wrist weakly. "It wasn't just a hit. It was an inside job."
Her breath hitched.
His lips trembled as he said a name. A name that turned her blood cold.
Romano.
Everything inside her reignited in rage.
Luca Romano.
The man who once danced with her under Venetian lights. The man who held her heart in one hand… and now, her father's death in the other.
Don Moretti's voice broke one last time. "Don't let them take everything I built. Don't… become like me."
But it was too late.
In that moment, kneeling in blood, rage searing through her soul, Amara Moretti was reborn.
Not as the grieving daughter.
Not as the vulnerable heir.
But as a storm wrapped in silk.
A rose blooming in vengeance.
A woman who would bring the Romanos to their knees or burn Naples to the ground trying.
And somewhere in the shadows, Luca Romano lit a cigar and whispered to no one,
"She'll come for me. I hope she does."