A month had passed since the night the study door had served as our altar, and in that time, the "Little Flower" hadn't just withered; she had been systematically dismantled and rebuilt.
The transition wasn't soft. It was a baptism in ink and iron. I no longer spent my mornings sketching the coastline of Naples; I spent them in the Russo shipping headquarters, a glass-and-steel monolith that looked out over the Mediterranean like a predator watching its prey. I sat at the head of the boardroom table, my eyes cold, my spine straight, watching hardened men—men who had served my father for decades—flinch when I spoke.
I had learned that power wasn't just about the gun in your holster; it was about the silence you held before you delivered a verdict. Luciano had given me his name, but he had
