The Valenti family had once been kings.
Not of Milan of course—no, that throne belonged to the DeLucas—but of Genoa, the port city where salt and blood mixed in the harbor waters. For decades, they ruled the shipping lanes, the docks, the underground fight rings, and the narcotics trade funneling through the Mediterranean. They were brutal, yes, but smart—more businessmen than brutes, their empire built on corruption, not corpses alone. Their symbol was a serpent coiled around a dagger, forged in silver and worn only by those who had spilled blood for the name.
But in 2008, the DeLuca syndicate moved.
They didn’t declare war. They didn’t need to.
One night, the Valenti patriarch, Don Luciano Serrano, was found floating in the Nervi marina, his throat slit ear to ear, a single playing c
