(VALENTINO'S POV)
The sound of glasses clinking fills the room.
"To Blackstone fucking Capital," Bruno says, lifting his glass high.
Michele lets out a breathy laugh and raises his glass too. "To not getting arrested."
"Yet," Sandra adds with a smirk, raising her glass.
Everyone turns to look at her.
She shrugs. "What? I'm being realistic."
I laugh and shake my head before taking a sip of my wine.
"I still can't believe we made it out," Leo says.
"We made it out because I'm good at my job," Sandra replies.
"True," I nod, pointing my glass at her. "We couldn't have done this without you, Alessandra. You're the M.V.P on this team."
She adjusts her glasses as she smiles.
I'm about to take another sip when Leo walks toward the living room, probably to pour himself another drink. But a few seconds later, his voice comes from the other room.
"Guys?"
Something about his tone makes all of us look up.
"We're on the news," he says.
My heart jumps a little.
Then Bruno laughs. "Already?"
I push off the counter and walk into the living room, the others following behind me.
The massive TV mounted on the wall is already lit up with breaking news. Red letters stretch across the bottom of the screen.
"BLACKSTONE CAPITAL HEIST — BIGGEST ROBBERY IN U.S. HISTORY."
For a second, none of us says anything.
Security footage plays on the screen, showing us storming the lobby, customers dropping to the floor, and guards getting disarmed. The footage switches to smoke pouring from the side corridor after Bruno blew the vault open.
A slow smile spreads across my face. "Leo, turn the volume up."
Leo grabs the remote and raises the volume.
The news anchor's voice fills the room.
"The assailants remain unidentified due to the black masks they wore, though law enforcement sources have gathered that they are members of a gang calling themselves I Figli della Vipera, which translates to The Sons of the Viper."
Bruno throws both hands up. "That's us, baby!"
My stomach drops when the footage on the TV changes.
The screen freezes on a side profile of me.
That one fucking second when my mask slipped.
My eyes widen, and the wine in my mouth goes down the wrong way.
"Shit!" I cough, bending forward as the wine burns my throat.
Leo smacks my back. "Val?"
"I'm fine," I rasp, coughing again. "Fuck."
The anchor continues, completely unaware that she just ruined my goddamn night.
"This unidentified suspect is believed to be of foreign origin and is now a person of interest to the F.B.I. Any information that may lead to his arrest is encouraged."
The room goes dead quiet for a good moment.
Michele slowly turns to me. "That's… not good."
"No shit," Leo mutters.
"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me," Sandra says, her eyes on her phone screen.
I turn to face her. "What is it?"
She walks over to me and shows me what's on her phone.
My face is everywhere on Twitter with the hashtag, #MafiaDaddy.
For a second, I just stare. Then I burst out laughing.
Leo looks at me like I've finally lost my mind. "Val, how's any of this funny?"
I point at the screen. "They're calling me Mafia Daddy."
Bruno leans over Sandra's shoulder, squinting at the screen. "Holy shit. Half these women want to have you arrested and fucked at the same time."
Michele blinks. "That is… deeply concerning."
Sandra scrolls. "It's trending worldwide."
"Worldwide?" I repeat, my grin widening.
Leo's face goes pale. "Val, that's not a good thing."
"It's not completely bad either."
"It is absolutely bad," Michele says.
Bruno reads one of the comments out loud. "'I don't support crime, but I support whatever that man wants to do to me.'"
Sandra studies me with a worried look on her face. "So what are you going to do now?"
I take a slow sip of my wine.
"To be honest? I should care. I should probably be worried about law enforcement coming after me. But none of it fucking matters."
Leo's brows pull together. "Val—"
"No. Listen to me." I step closer to the table, setting the glass down. "We hit the fucking jackpot. Fifty million in cash. Two hundred and eighty-five million in solid gold. Four hundred and fifty-two million stripped clean out of offshore accounts. Almost eight hundred million in one night. Nearly eight times what those Red Devil bastards stole from me."
No one interrupts.
"And the flash drive Sandra put in my hands?" I look at her, then at the rest of them. "That's our shield. Every dirty secret of the elite written in ones and zeroes. Senators. Billionaires. Judges. CEOs. They've all got secrets they'd rather die than see on the evening news."
"If the Feds come sniffing," I continue, "I'll dangle that drive over the throats of every powerful bastard on it. They'll make the problem go away before their little hobbies ever see daylight."
Bruno's grin slowly returns.
Sandra tilts her head, impressed despite herself.
Leo still doesn't look convinced. "You're playing with fire."
I smile. "I know."
"That doesn't bother you?"
"No." I pick up my glass again and look at the frozen image of myself on the TV. "I'm not scared. I'm not running. And I'm definitely not hiding."
For a moment, the room stays quiet.
Then my phone starts buzzing in my pocket.
My smile fades before I even pull it out. Because somehow, I already know who it is.
I reach into my pocket and take out the phone.
"PADRE" flashes across the screen as the phone continues ringing.
I stare at it for a few seconds, my heart already racing as my thumb hovers over the answer button.
I take a deep breath before pressing accept, then I bring the phone to my ear.
"Sei un idiota buono a nulla!" (You good for nothing idiot!)
Jesus Christ.
I wince, pulling the phone away from my ear a little. His voice blasts through so loud it feels like he's standing right in the room with us.
And judging by the way Bruno's brows lift, I'm sure I'm not the only one who heard it.
"Valentino Cristiano Vipera!"
Oh, fuck.
He used the middle name.
Yeah, this is about to go to hell.
"Papà, I—"
"You what?!" he roars. "Che cazzo ti avevo detto, huh?" (What the fuck did I tell you, huh?)
I grind my teeth.
"You had one simple job—uno!" he continues. "Build quietly, work slowly, and keep eyes off us. But no, you think you're some fucking Hollywood action star in a goddamn action movie!"
One simple job?
He listed three, but who's counting?
"Papà, listen, I—"
"SHUT UP!"
My jaw tightens.
Across the room, Leo lowers his glass slowly. Michele looks down at the floor. Sandra's eyes stay fixed on me.
Bruno, for once in his life, doesn't say a damn thing.
"You think you can go around blowing up police cruisers, stealing from banks, making the fucking news—and somehow that doesn't come back to me?!" my father snaps.
I drag in a breath through my nose, forcing myself to keep my voice steady. "None of that matters, Papà. I made back almost eight times what we lost."
There's a pause.
Long enough for me to think maybe—just maybe—he'll calm down.
"Do you think through your fucking asshole?!" he shouts. "I don't give a flying fuck if you made a billion dollars! You were given simple orders and you disobeyed me!"
"But Papà… I recovered the money," I say, my grip tightening around the phone. "I fixed the problem."
"No, Valentino. You made it worse," he says coldly. "Because of your foolishness and your reckless bullshit, you've put us all in danger! You've dragged the Vipera name into the spotlight. What will you do when the U.S. government starts cracking down on all your operations? What will you do when enemies we didn't even know existed start coming for your head?"
I don't answer.
"You want to play gangster, Valentino?" he spits. "These flashy moves of yours, this ego of yours… it'll get you killed, boy."
The line goes quiet.
For one stupid second, I think maybe he's done.
Then he lets out a heavy sigh.
"I can't believe my own blood would act like this," he says, his voice lower now. "You're a disgrace to my name. I should've strangled you the moment you were born."
For a moment, I can't breathe.
My heart hammers so hard against my ribs that it hurts.
I can feel everyone watching me.
So I don't let any emotion show on my face.
"Papà—" my voice cracks. I clear my throat and try again. "Papà, mi dispiace." (Dad, I'm sorry.)
"I was just trying to fix—"
"Chiudi quella fottuta bocca sporca!" (Shut that dirty fucking mouth!) he snaps, cutting me off mid-sentence.
I wince from another sharp sting in my chest.
There's another long stretch of silence.
I hear him breathing on the other end, slow and heavy.
Then, in a tone so calm it chills me to the bone, he says,
"I know what to do with you now."
Then the line goes dead.
I keep the phone pressed to my ear for a moment, listening to nothing.
Then I lower my hand slowly.
No one says anything for a moment until Michele breaks the silence.
"Val?"
I turn to face him.
"What did the Don say?" he asks.
I force a smile onto my face.
"I knew he'd be angry," I say, slipping my phone back into my pocket. "That's nothing new."
My lips quiver, the smile threatening to fall, but I hold it up with everything I have.
"But I'm not letting the old man ruin this for me," I add.
"We're going to drink," I continue, grabbing my glass from the table. "We're going to celebrate. And tomorrow, we'll deal with whatever bullshit comes next."
Sandra doesn't look convinced. Leo doesn't either, but no one argues.
Good.
Because if one of them asks me if I'm okay, I might actually lose my fucking mind.
I lift my glass. "To the Sons of the Viper."
Bruno is the first to raise his, then the rest follow, their glasses meeting mine with a soft clink.
I drink, keeping my smile in place as the wine burns down my throat.
But deep down, where none of them can see, my chest clenches hard around my heart.
"I should've strangled you the moment you were born."
My fingers tighten around the wine glass as the words keep replaying in my head.
I just want to scream at the top of my lungs and throw it across the room.
But instead, I keep drinking and pretending as if I'm not dying on the inside.
°°°°°°°°°°°
CITY OF VIBO VALENTIA, CALABRIA, ITALY.
(MARCELLO'S POV)
The cigarette burns, pressed between my lips as Arianna, my consigliere, stands next to me with her tablet in her hands, playing me the footage the whole world is watching.
My son, Dante, sits at my side, his eyes fixed on the screen.
"I got in contact with the bank," Dante says. "They made off with almost eight hundred million." He swallows. "We lost two hundred and four million tonight, Papà."
For a moment I say nothing. The smoke fills my lungs and I let it out slowly. I fold my hands into fists until my knuckles turn white.
"I had our people trace the transactions to the accounts the money got wired to," Arianna adds, "...they hit a dead end."
She pauses the clip the second a side profile of a young man comes into view. Before I even ask for his name, she says, "That's Valentino Vipera, Salvatore's son."
I stare at the man on the screen, gritting my teeth as I picture ripping his jaw apart with my bare hands.
"Questo piccolo figlio di puttana," I growl. (This little son of a bitch.)
Dante's face hardens. "We can't let that Vipera scum get away with this. We have to deal with him—"
"We will," I cut him off, as my grin slowly spreads across my face. "We'll take everything from him, eventually. And when I'm finished with him, he'll regret the day his whore of a mother birthed him."