Accounts of War

Alina Virelli Forty million dollars just bought a man's death, and I didn't even raise my voice to do it. "Move it," I say. The man across my desk hesitates. "I... I just need confirmation before I—" "Move. It." My voice doesn't rise. It never does. He swallows. "It's forty million." "I can count." A beat of silence, and then he does it. The number disappears in less than three seconds. Somewhere, a man will die tonight because I allowed it. I lean back in my chair. "Next time you hesitate like that, I won't be the one deciding where the money goes." His face drains of color. "Yes, Ms. Virelli." Ms. Virelli. They never call me Alina anymore. Alina is soft — Alina is what my mother whispered before she bled out on marble floors. Ms. Virelli is the woman who built an empire out of those ashes. I stand, heels echoing against black marble. "Schedule the meeting." "With the Russians?" "With whoever thinks they can cheat me." He nods too quickly and steps aside so fast he nearly stumbles. Fear is efficient that way — it works better than loyalty ever could. The elevator doors close. In the polished steel, my reflection watches me back: ash-blonde hair falling over one shoulder, cold eyes, perfect lipstick, no cracks anywhere. "Do you ever feel guilty?" The question comes from behind me. Marco. He shouldn't speak unless I allow it. "About what?" I ask. He shifts. "The transfers. The disappearances." I turn slowly. "Do you feel guilty when you breathe?" He frowns. "That's different." "No," I say softly, "it isn't. If I don't move the money, someone else does. If I don't sign the paper, someone else signs it. The only difference is that I do it better." The elevator dings. The doors open, and the conversation dies with the sound of the lobby swallowed behind me. My penthouse is quiet at this hour, the city humming somewhere far below, oblivious to the empire I command from above it. I pour a glass of red wine and let it swirl, the scent of iron a small reminder that even luxury is fragile. I wasn't always this. Once, I was a ten-year-old girl hiding in a garden while my family bled out around me. The night smelled of blood and oranges. I still hear it sometimes — the screams, the gunshots, my mother's voice cracking as she shoved me toward the shadows. "Run!" My father went down before I'd made it three steps. I ran anyway, past fountains turning red, until Nonna Lucia caught my wrist and dragged me through tunnels I never knew existed. "Alive," she said. "That's all that matters." Weeks in hiding taught me the rest. My uncle Matteo looked at me like I was already a weapon instead of a child. "Most children die," he told me. "You won't. You're Virelli. You learn — power, fear, control — and one day, you return." Nonna Lucia was crueler and more precise: no tears, no flinching, only patience. Revenge isn't rage, she'd say. It's precision. Wait, and they'll fear you more than they ever feared your father. I did wait. I learned everything they taught me, and by fifteen, I wasn't a child anymore. I was exactly what they'd built me to be. I sit with an old photograph in my hands now — my father's jaw sharp and confident, my mother's smile faint, her hands clasped as if she could hold back what was coming for her. "Was it worth it?" I whisper. Silence answers, the way it always does. "I am Alina Virelli," I murmur, more to myself than to the empty room. "And I am everything they failed to destroy." I set the photograph down among the ledgers and the glowing screens of numbers and accounts, and move to the window. The city lights blur into gold and crimson against the glass. They think fear comes in bullets, in screams. They're wrong. Fear lives in silence — in precision, in someone who watches, calculates, and waits. My phone vibrates. Unknown number. I hesitate for exactly one breath, then answer. "Speak." Calm. Controlled. Dangerous. A pause, then a voice, low and measured. "Good evening, Ms. Virelli. I see you're well." I tighten my grip on the phone. "You have five words to make this worth my time." Another pause. "Forty million isn't the only thing you control anymore." I let the words hang in the air, and a slow, satisfied smile spreads across my face. "Good," I murmur. "Then let them learn what happens when they try to take what's mine." The line goes dead. I set the phone down and meet my own reflection in the glass — ash-blonde hair, cold eyes, perfect lipstick, no cracks. I am Alina Virelli. And this city, this empire, will bend to me. Or it will burn.