Alessia Auditore.

The night had been strange and unexpectedly bitter.

Earlier fights with those that mattered most still raged in her ears as loudly as if they’d followed her.

Alessia had found herself praying for some distance from the ballroom almost as soon as she’d arrived. Between the pained, conflicted looks of Joey and Dante, and the unabashed disappointment of her own sister, she held no desire to remain there any longer than was required.

“I’ll be fine, Elena,” she’d assured upon her departure; smile slight, but as confident as it needed to be. The woman was one of the few that did not judge. One of the few Alessia would hold dear, regardless of what her future offered. “Enjoy what’s left of the party. I just need some fresh air.”

Fresh air cured all.

Alessia sat, gazing out toward the fountain of the smaller outside pool, taking in the foreign night air of a city she had already grown to despise. Time had been lost somewhere along the way. Perhaps it had been when she was musing the future of her beloved daughter. Maybe, when wondering about returning home to him... She couldn’t remember. Didn’t want to. She was fixated on the view before her; something utterly breathtaking about the way the moonlight danced across the water’s ripples.

For all the money St. Clair had proudly spent on her hotel’s lavish interior, it could not, for even a moment, compare to the beauty of God’s own handiwork. Alessia respected Aurélie for knowing that as much as herself.

She reached for her mother’s crucifix and brushed her fingers across it gently.

Alessia had made moves towards redemption, but it was too late to save a soul as ruined as hers. Punishment was exactly what she had earned.

Did she even deserve His ear?

“Did nobody tell you that the pool is off limits tonight, Ms. Auditore?”

A voice cut through the air so suddenly, the Italian felt her heart skip a beat. People rarely caught her at her most vulnerable. Tonight was clearly exceptional on all fronts.

Alessia slowly lifted herself to her feet, folding her arms across her chest in response to the chill that followed. It appeared the woman in question was emerging from the shadows near the other end of the pool. The lighting—pretty, though poor—did little to aid her in identifying the stranger. But she didn’t speak. Instead, she walked toward the dark figure without fear until she was stricken with the bitter realization of familiarity.

Her body relaxed in defeat before she could even stop it. Yet another disappointment.

“You,” Alessia said coldly.

The woman, who had now stepped out into the light, was grinning from ear to ear.

“Me.”

Any thoughts of leaving life with some remnants of her dignity intact—and she had been contemplating them frequently, as of late—had disappeared somewhere behind her cold, dead eyes.

Even Alessia hadn’t imagined herself deserving of going out like this.

“If you know who I am, then you know why I’m here.”

The sudden weight of her predicament seemed to push all of the air out of her lungs. There was no sense finding false hope in the idea of fighting her, because she wouldn’t be here unless she thought she could finish the job. So she would finish it.

Many thoughts fought desperately for her final moments of her attention. The most poignant of all, however, was that the time spent with her grandchildren hadn’t nearly been enough.

“Get down on your knees.”

The woman’s thick accent sounded far more French than she remembered.

Alessia simply stared back at her, too stubborn to let her steely gaze falter. Threats had never dictated how she chose to conduct herself. That was not about to change tonight. “No.”

The gun had come into view for the first time as it painfully collided with her face, but still, she refused to offer the satisfaction of a reaction.

“You don’t deserve to go out fighting, so you will go out on your knees. I won’t ask again.”

The Italian inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. She sought His strength when she had none to be found.

Was she worth saving?

“I fall to my knees for nobody but God...”

“Well tonight I am your God!” How someone so slight could be so domineering was as impressive as it was distressing. Her voice betrayed the exact opposite of what she claimed, however; she was the Devil himself, if ever he dared take human form. “I am your judge, and your jury. I am the decider of your fate.”

This time, she was forced into compliance.

Alessia hadn’t even realized that somebody had been standing behind her until she felt the excruciating, white-hot sting of what she could only assume to be a blade. So numbed was she by emotion and failure that she wondered if it had spared her some agony, in the end. One final, back-handed show of mercy.

There was no fighting it. With a pitiful shove, Alessia Auditore was on her knees, and barely that.

“Stabbed in the back. Poetic.”

It seemed as though the knife was being twisted, and she felt every millimeter of its movement as vividly as though it was a mile. No matter how hard she fought for pride, she couldn’t hold back the strangled choke of pain that followed. The attacker didn’t pull it out and hit her again. It simply remained.

“You should have known better than to align yourself with The Organization, Alessia. It’s high time we removed the head of the inferior snake.”

Alessia fought through her blurred vision to see her approaching. She stayed silent.

“I can’t watch you suffer as we harm your loved ones.” The woman inched closer, crouching down in front of her with cool elegance. “But I can make sure your dying thought is realizing you will no longer be around to protect them.”

The tear that followed would be the first. It would also be the last.

“Say hello to the devil for me. He waits for us both...” The woman whispered just short of her ear.

And as if it was a cue for the man behind her, with one impossibly strong drag of his knife, it was over.

There was no chance for her to respond.

No chance to spare a thought for the family she was leaving behind in ways beyond how she was failing them.

Alessia Auditore was gone.

“Remove the head, sever the spinal cord...semantics.”

An eerie silence followed.

The woman looked at the Italian face down at her feet with utter disdain. At least they were finally being reminded of their true place in the hierarchy. Taking a dainty step around the body to avoid the blood that had gathered, she glanced over her shoulder to the man who still wielded the knife.

I want to be like Aunt Alessia when I grow up, that´s what I said to my dad and godfather when I was a child.  Unfortunately, I don’t think I can be as impressive as you, not even in my wildest dreams. That’s okay I will just keep fangirling.

Hey, kid. It’s good to see you.

“Reminds me of Launceston, in a way. What with my aunts building establishments in Brenton and but now we’ve two different families. Definitely not complaining, though. This place is lovely. Everything is certainly falling into place for Aurélie. 

They’ll likely save that for another day. This wasn’t exactly new news for them, I’m sure.”

Unfortunately, the Rutherfords are infinitely more sophisticated than the Brenton trash I still have to deal with on a daily basis. I suppose time will tell whether they deal with competition in the same way, though. I wish them the best of luck in handling her if they do.

This is so, so inappropriate.

“He’s here.”

The comfortable silence she’d been enjoying was shattered by an uneasy voice. Alessia glanced up to see Gio hovering in the arched doorway to her office.

“He’s also late,” the woman chided.

It must have given his pathetic ego so much joy to keep her, of all people, waiting.

With an annoyed wave of her hand, she signalled to her most trusted confidant that she was, indeed, ready for the meeting that had been playing on her mind since the day’s most dramatic news had broken. Two stories that were timed so perfectly in her benefit, it was almost as though God had chosen this day to reward her.

Had she not earned it?

The Mancini girls would be devastated, though. She took no joy from this knowledge. Alessia made an internal note to herself to reach out to them tomorrow morning...

An ornate, crystal chandelier hanging overhead cast a dim glow across the well-frequented room. The darkness that loomed just beyond the windows gave the appointment not only a distinct air of the unofficial, but haste, too. This was something that could not wait. The brunette raised herself from her leather chair in greeting. Cristiano Ricci was an intelligent man; one did not forge an empire like his without wit. Had he already discerned her reasons for inviting him here?

The face of the silver haired man she’d once called ‘friend’ was twisted in grief.

Maybe the news—and following collapse in the price of his stocks—was enough to knock him off his attentive game. Did she also now have the upper hand of surprise?

Neither of the two spoke as she filled two tumblers with what she remembered to be his favourite Scotch. Instead of a typical ‘hello,’ she simply held the glass out for the old man, before gesturing towards the seat opposite her own, and urging him to sit.

“Grazie for meeting with me,” she began. The woman lifted her eyes to meet Gio’s, before dismissing him with a simple nod. The loyalist disappeared without question, shutting the door behind him quietly, and leaving the two veterans to their privacy. “I can only imagine how much of a difficult time this is for you.”

The man scoffed into his drink, “And here, I patiently wait for you to make it worse.”

It was a response that intrigued her and amused her in equal measure. Once, he had not thought so poorly of her. How easily things shifted on a stage like Launceston.

“I am sorry about Monica,” Alessia asserted, sincerely.

When news of his daughter’s disappearance had flooded her home in hushed whispers, she had immediately and wholeheartedly empathised. Memories of losing her own—even if it had only been a temporary pain—still plagued her nightmares, even now. Losing his eldest daughter, Francesca, without a trace, had hit him hard enough and they had all witnessed his unravelling. But a second? One who shared no such connections to the mob world, unlike she who had literally married one of the beast’s ugliest heads?

Would her fate be as unresolved?

It seemed Cristiano could at least accept she found no enjoyment in his pain. The man nodded silently in the closest thing he could manage to appreciation.

“But I’m not here for you to lay out your sympathies,” he finally said, matter-of-factly. “So why don’t we abandon this dance. What is it you want from me, Alessia?”

The woman took a small sip from her drink, eyeing the man carefully.

What was it she wanted from him?

Perhaps the only thing left that truly mattered to him.

“Your hotel.”

A silence, not unlike the one she had earlier enjoyed, soon descended upon the two. Alessia could have sworn she could see his temple start to pulsate. Had she been anyone else, he might have laughed; shrugged off the statement as nothing short of insanity. But Alessia Auditore did not joke, and he was as aware of this fact as anybody who’d ever faced her wrath.

Cristiano slammed his glass down on her desk in defiance. It was the first time she’d ever seen him struggle for words. “That’s out of the question.”

She waited for his futile attempts to talk her out of it.

“My hotel is the crown of my empire. It would collapse without it. You know that.”

“It’s collapsing with it...”

Given the heartbreak obvious in his expression, it became clear how aware of his predicament he was. How little ground he had left on which to stand, let alone fight from.

“Your stocks have been plummeting since Salvatore’s arrest,” Alessia reminded him curtly. “The man you trusted. The man you gave blessing to marry your eldest daughter, and the heiress to your empire. The man you embraced not only as a son-in-law, but as a friend...” Each word may as well have been a slap in the face. They no doubt felt as harsh. “You didn’t distance yourself enough, and trust amongst your investors has rightly diminished. Can you blame them?”

“I don’t need a lesson from you in my own fucking business, Auditore.”

Rarely did he speak so out of terms. Clearly, the situation was affecting him, and he no longer cared to pretend otherwise.

“Now, with the disappearance of Monica, and your CFO wife’s impending breakdown...” Alessia trailed off, twisting the knife as far as her insight would allow her.

“What do you know of my wife?!” The man had risen from his seat now, and had taken to pointing a finger at the Sovrani boss with utter disgust. Given his pain, she mercifully allowed him his indiscretion. “We were friends once, Alessia. I went above and beyond anything you had ever asked of me. And now it comes to this?”

“It’s just business, Cristiano.”

“Bad business!” He bellowed. “You would really capitalize on my pain? That of my wife? The loss of my daughter? The extradition of a man who looked to you as a sister?!”

The heated back-and-forth was not conducive to producing the outcome she desired, so Alessia held her tongue. That last one had strung, and she suspected he knew it. Alessia loved Salvatore. But business was business. Capitalizing on his loss and grieving it did not have to be mutually exclusive. Instead of responding verbally, however, she reached inside of her desk, and pulled out a professionally bound document to hand off into his possession.

The man looked at it with such disdain she was almost surprised it didn’t burst into flames.

“My lawyer has written this up as a more formal arrangement. I’d like for you to take a look before you make a decision in foolish haste,” she said softly, sliding it slowly across the teak tabletop. “There is no recovery from this, and you know that. At least not in the foreseeable future. By the time you bounce back, you’ll be lucky to have avoided bankruptcy. I think you’ll find what I’m offering far exceeds anything any half-sane investor would offer you for the place, so please, I urge you again, take a look.”

Ricci shook his head, looking down at his hands. If she wasn’t mistaken, she could have sworn she’d seen his eyes glaze over with the onset of tears.

“And you think me selling the crown jewel of my business to another mobster is going to earn back the trust of my investors?” His voice cracked. That was it. The last attempt he had to talk himself out of it.

Alessia simply stared back at him. The corner of her mouth twitched upward fractionally.

I’m sorry. I really didn’t meant to snap like that. 

It’s just been a really shitty few days, that’s all. It’s not important. 

How are you? How are you feeling?

If it’s making you feel like this, it’s important. Tell me what happened.

Look I’m really not in the mood for pointless conversation right now, so unless you have something worthwhile to say, please just leave me alone.

I’m going to give you a free pass there, and assume you thought I was someone else.

Such a shameful crime, tonight was a good night, indeed. I’ll give it St. Clair’s wife, her speech was impressively pointed. Pity Nicolas wasn’t here to see it.

You probably shouldn’t be drinking that, Alessia.

That it was. The woman knows how to speak.

And why is that, exactly? I can hardly think of a better reason to celebrate that this. The generosity that has been shown tonight, that is...

We should do charitable things more often. Truthfully, it just warms my heart to know all the good that came out of tonight.

Perhaps it will become a requirement after tonight.

You are beautiful, but don’t think I didn’t notice you were late.

You’re absolutely right; though, it seems to me that a few of our friends in the corner are a bit antsy. I hope everyone considers staying till the event it over.

I overheard someone at the bar: ‘I wonder if it’s their consciences catching up to them.’ Best joke I’ve heard all night.

Are you enjoying yourself, Elena?

It had been longer than one might have expected since she’d felt the rush of taking a life with her own hands.

Whilst she did not miss as a whole the time before she’d assumed control of the Sovrani, being without the title of ‘boss’ had offered many perks she no longer enjoyed. Even as the daughter of one of the city’s most notorious criminals, she’d revelled in a certain anonymity that was no longer viable given her position.

Now, murder had consequences. Ones that a leader would be selfish to risk facing when she had people lining up to get their hands dirty for her.

But this time had been different.

This particular attack required a personal touch; attention the woman wouldn’t have trusted with even her closest and most brutal confidants. It was blood to be shed by her, and her alone. For once, she could say ‘to hell’ with the repercussions, and mouths that dared condemn her for it would be wired shut.

The cold metal of the crowbar in her hands was a stark contrast to the white hot anger that had left her swinging until her victim was little more than bloodied pulp.

Blow after bone-shattering blow she struck, with a strength she’d almost forgotten she possessed. The wails of agony after she’d taken their knees would be sweet enough to sustain her through whatever turmoil the future held. Even those who watched on, fully aware of an evil within that could direct such actions with no remorse, seemed to have neglected the knowledge she had once been one of them. One of those who could inspire fear for reasons other than power…

Perhaps she still did.

“Maybe it’s time to go, boss,” a timid voice suggested from well behind her.

How long had she been staring at the corpse with bittersweet amusement?

She should have felt an animal for finding such relief in this, but she didn’t.

“Alessia, the event…” Sergio tried again to lure his boss away from the compromising position.

The event.

Galas such as these had become so monotonous over the years. Alessia had quickly gone from caring about the causes and the difference the money of those she despised could make, to simply attending to avoid the plague of bad press. To keep up the facade—now so transparent it was offensive—that she was a normal and legitimate businesswoman, just like the rest of them.

When the French had approached with the idea of making it, in contrast to the norm, an event to remember for all the right reasons, she soon realized that this time would be different.

The Russians would be forced to face the fact that for the first time in history, Launceston was setting aside differences that had decades divided it to destroy a common enemy.

Them.

Finally tearing her dark eyes from the mangled corpse they were so enjoying, Alessia looked down at her hands, sticky with dirty blood. It was a shame she couldn’t walk into Echelon smeared with the stuff like war paint, but for appearances sake…a nice dress and some heels.

“Do something with this,” she finally spoke, handing off the crowbar to her employee with no further instruction. “I need to get ready for tonight.”

Alessia took one final look around the room, as she wrapped her scarf around the lower half of her face.

It was amusing to her. They could live like royalty all they wanted, but they would always die like the animals they really were in the end.

“Don’t set fire to the place until you get word from me or Lombardi. Anyone comes snooping around, tie them up, and let them burn. I don’t care who it is.”