The heavy oak doors of the great hall groaned open, carrying the heavy scent of imported cedar, pipe smoke, and the cold sweat of thirty-two terrified witnesses.

The great hall had been transformed into a suffocating cavern of white lilies and burning tallow candles.

Two hundred guests—syndicate capos from the coast, corrupt municipal judges, politicians with slicked-back hair and expensive silk ties—sat in velvet-backed chairs imported from Florence. At the altar stood Isabella Moretti, draped in forty pounds of French silk and imported lace, her face plastered with the practiced, predatory smile of a woman who believed she had already won the war.

Standing ten feet away, hands clasped behind his back in a charcoal-tailored suit that fit him like armor, was Lorenzo Duca.

He hadn't looked at Isabella once since she walked down the aisle. His gaze was fixed entirely on the high arched balcony overlooking the hall, where a small pair of eyes peeked out from behind a velvet drape.

"Do you, Lorenzo Duca, take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife?" the magistrate intoned, his voice trembling slightly as he read from the gold-leafed prayer book.

Lorenzo opened his mouth to speak, but before the syllable could leave his throat, a sharp, distinct sound cut through the heavy organ music.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

It wasn't human footsteps. It was the heavy, deliberate tread of a 125-pound Doberman walking across the marble balcony.

Every head in the hall whipped upward.

Pino trotted out from behind the velvet drape, his black coat gleaming in the candlelight. And right behind him, wearing a hand-sewn dress made from the leftover white lace of Elena’s kitchen curtains and a pair of mud-caked red boots, walked Mia.

She stopped at the edge of the balcony, looked down at the sea of terrified faces, and then spotted the towering stack of wedding gifts piled near the altar.

"Mr. Dog," Mia announced in a clear, carrying voice that echoed off the vaulted ceiling, "there’s cake down there."

A collective gasp rippled through the front rows. Isabella Moretti’s face flushed a violent, mottled red.

"Get that rat and that beast out of here!" Isabella hissed, stepping forward, her silk train rustling angrily. "This is a sacred ceremony! Whose bastard child is wandering around this estate?!"

The music stopped entirely. The organist’s hands froze over the keys.

Lorenzo didn't flinch. He didn't look at Isabella. He slowly turned his head away from the altar and looked up at the balcony, where Mia was now leaning over the stone balustrade, holding up her one-eyed rabbit for the entire syndicate to see.

"She is not a rat, Isabella," Lorenzo said, his voice cutting through the silence like a butcher’s cleaver.

Isabella forced a tight, brittle laugh, turning to the audience. "Lorenzo, darling, you’re joking. Surely after the ceremony we can deal with the domestic staff's clutter—"

"There will be no ceremony," Lorenzo interrupted.

He reached into his pocket—not for a ring, but for a slim, black leather folder. He didn't open it. He simply tossed it onto the velvet-draped altar, where it slid across the gold leaf and stopped directly against the prayer book.

Isabella’s smile vanished. "What is that?"

"That," Lorenzo said, stepping down from the altar platform and walking slowly toward the central aisle, "is the complete financial ledger of the Moretti shipping syndicate, detailing every bribe, every gunrunning manifest, and every shell company you and your father used to finance your little coup."

Marco stepped out from the shadows of the side entrance, flanked by four armed guards who immediately locked the heavy oak doors from the inside, dropping the iron deadbolts with a deafening thud.

"You're out of your mind," Isabella choked out, her hands flying to her throat as her father, Don Moretti, stood up from the front row, his face turning the color of ash.

"You thought you could buy my house," Lorenzo said, his voice rising, cold and terrible, filling every corner of the hall. "You thought you could use a corrupt housekeeper to frame a penniless mother, clear out my east wing, and plant your assets beneath my floorboards."