I'd been in dangerous rooms before. Rooms where one wrong word could get you killed. Rooms where the air itself felt like it was holding a knife to your throat.
But this? This was different.
The Five Families council chamber was everything I expected and nothing I was prepared for. Mahogany walls that had probably witnessed a thousand betrayals. A table so polished I could see my reflection in it—pale, composed, ready. Crystal chandeliers that cost more than most people make in a lifetime, casting shadows that seemed to move on their own.
I stood in the doorway for a moment, taking it all in. Five chairs at the table. Five men who thought they owned the world. And behind Lorenzo's chair, slightly to the left, a smaller seat. Deliberately positioned. Deliberately inferior.
That's where
