Prologue
The Bianchi estate burned that night.
Not just from the fire that consumed the eastern wing, but from betrayal that left the walls dripping with blood and history.
Thunder cracked the sky wide open as the southern mafia’s strongest empire fell silent.
Inside the grand hallway, Luca Bianchi—a name feared across three continents—knelt on cold marble, cradling the body of his wife. Her blood seeped into his sleeves, his chest, his very soul. She was still warm. Still soft. Still gone.
The echoes of gunshots had just died down when he heard it—a baby’s cry.
Faint. Desperate. Familiar.
Aria.
His youngest. Barely five months old. The only girl in a legacy of sons.
The only one who hadn’t made it to the safe room.
He staggered to his feet, rage blinding him, only to find a shadow at the end of the hall. A man.
Damien Smith.
His most trusted ally. His childhood friend. Godfather to his sons.
Cradling Aria in his arms.
Alive. Crying. Shaking.
“Give her to me,” Luca rasped, reaching out.
Damien didn’t move.
“She doesn’t belong here,” Damien said. “Not in this world. Not in your war.”
Luca blinked. “What are you doing, Damien?”
“I’m saving her,” he whispered. “Before the blood drowns her, too.”
“You killed her mother,” Luca growled.
“She was collateral,” Damien replied without flinching. “You chose this life, Luca. She didn’t. Aria deserves something better than this damn throne.”
“She deserves her family!”
Damien’s eyes hardened. “Family is who protects you. Not who trains you to kill.”
And with that, he turned.
Luca raised his gun—
—but the shot that echoed through the hall wasn’t from him.
From the shadows behind Damien, another traitor revealed himself.
Luca collapsed, the bullet tearing through his side. He gasped for breath, watching as Damien disappeared into the storm with Aria in his arms.
Her cries were the last thing he heard before darkness swallowed the once-mighty king of the Bianchi empire.
That night, the mafia lost its queen.
The Bianchi brothers lost their father.
And the southern throne lost its princess.
Some said she died.
Some said she never existed.
But the five Bianchi brothers knew the truth.
They would wait for her.
The blood heir.
The lost rose.
The girl stolen in the storm.
