The Mafia Princess's Revenge

My mother, Sofia Ricci, was once the Mafia Princess of the Ricci family. Twenty-one years ago, during an attack targeting the Riccis, she died in an explosion—shielding four men she'd grown up with. After her death, those four men raised me together. Giulio Greco controlled the Greco conglomerate spanning all of Europe. Money and politicians were nothing more than bargaining chips to him. Adriano Vitale controlled nearly thirty percent of Europe's underground arms trade. His private military forces operated across multiple countries. Elio Fiore was one of the world's foremost surgeons, and also ran a private medical network that served only the elite and Mafia families. As for Nicola Orsini—in Italy's underworld, no one dared refuse him outright.I grew up drenched in the affection of these four men. As a child, I naively believed I was the luckiest girl in the world. Until I turned eighteen—and Marta Capello was brought home. She was the daughter of Lucia Capello, the woman all four of them had once loved. From the day Marta set foot inside the Greco estate, everything changed. Marta said I'd insulted her. Giulio didn't ask me a single question—just had his bodyguards pin me down and sew my mouth shut with medical suture thread. I was locked in my room for three days without food. Marta said I'd poisoned her drink. Elio didn't check the surveillance, didn't listen to my explanation—just locked me inside an underground human experimentation lab he owned. I was injected with varying doses of drugs and forced to undergo so-called "detoxification tests." By the time I came out of that lab, my right eye was nearly blind. Half my face bore scars that would never fade. The last time—Marta claimed I'd hired street thugs to kidnap her. Adriano personally delivered me to Mexico. He said: "Since you enjoy keeping company with trash so much, stay here. See what the real underworld looks like." He threw me into an underground entertainment complex controlled by the Vitale family. Three full years. In the beginning, I called Giulio in tears. I begged the people at the complex to contact Adriano. All I got was a beating. I secretly emailed Elio, telling him they were injecting me with unknown substances. The email went unanswered. I even called Nicola. The moment the line connected, I sobbed: "Papa Nicola, please take me home." Silence on the other end. A few seconds. Then he said: "Enough, Elisa. Marta nearly died because of you. How long are you going to keep this up?" That was the last time I ever asked them for help. After that, I learned to keep my mouth shut. When the lock clicked open again, I shrank into the corner of the bed almost by instinct. Arms over my head. Knees pulled to my chest. Three years had been more than enough to teach me one thing—when the door opens, don't ask, don't look, and above all, don't fight back. The footsteps stopped in front of me. The slap I expected didn't come. I waited a long time before I heard an unfamiliar man's voice. "Elisa Ricci?" My body went rigid. No one had called me by my full name in a very long time. I slowly raised my head. The man standing in the doorway was someone I'd never seen before. His gaze moved from my ruined right eye to the scars covering my arms. His brow visibly furrowed. I immediately shrank back. "I didn't do anything wrong today. I didn't do anything." The man didn't come closer. He simply took something from his pocket and placed it on the bedside table—a silver ring, its face engraved with an iris wrapped around a dagger. The ring worn by the Don of the Ricci family. "Elisa Ricci—would you like to go back to your mother?"