The heavy doors of the study closed behind them with a muffled click. Lorenzo did not summon his men. He did not call Marco, his second-in-command, nor did he reach for the encrypted phone in his pocket that could mobilize forty armed soldiers within ten minutes.

The ink on the new syndicate non-aggression pact was barely dry when the first anomaly appeared on Lorenzo’s desk.

It wasn't a dead body or a severed horse head—those belonged to an amateur era of the mafia. This was modern, digital, and infinitely more dangerous. A container ship registered under a shell corporation linked to the European Board had docked in the private sector of the harbor at midnight, carrying three hundred tons of high-grade military hardware.

Lorenzo stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows of his newly rebuilt study, watching the rain beat against the glass. Isabella stepped up behind him, her fingers tracing the edge of his black linen sleeve. She had regained her strength; the hollows in her cheeks were gone, replaced by the striking, porcelain-skinned elegance that had once commanded the elite circles of the underworld.

"They aren't retreating, Lorenzo," she said softly, her voice carrying the cold weight of experience. "A syndicate doesn't just fold because their local enforcers died. Kovalev was just a middle manager. The true power sits across the Atlantic, in the Zurich vaults."

"Let them sit," Lorenzo replied, his voice flat. "If they want war on my docks, they’ll find out why the Duca name was feared before my father even picked up a gun."

He turned away from the glass, reaching for his encrypted burner phone. But before his thumb could hit the speed dial for his new captain, the phone chimed. A single text message flashed on the screen from an unknown international number.