Chapter 1

I’m Isabella Moretti. My exceptional security skills earned the Don’s trust and made me the Donna of the Moretti Family.

Every year after that, I held a memorial for the members who had sacrificed their lives for the Family. I even founded a high-security school for the children they left behind.

The armed security cost more than the Family could afford, so I covered the rest out of my own pocket.

I believed the Family would only grow stronger if we never forgot those who had sacrificed for us.

After this year’s memorial, I went to inspect the school.

The children were playing happily outside.

Marco Moretti and Sophia DeLuca were racing. Marco pouted while Sophia threw her arms up in victory.Their smiles were brighter than the sun.

I smiled before I could stop myself.

But suddenly！

A steel security door let out a sharp creak.

My smile vanished. If that sound rang out in the middle of the night, it could give away the children’s location.

“Order the latest security door from New York. Have it replaced immediately.”

The principal hesitated.

“Donna, the newest model costs nine hundred thousand dollars. This month’s budget…”

I took a deep breath and smiled.

“It’s all right. Take it from my personal account again.”

The principal nodded gratefully.

What was mine belonged to the Family.

Even if protecting those children drained me dry, I would pay without hesitation.

But I never imagined that someone would destroy everything I had built with my own hands.

That morning, a video titled “St. Anna Academy—or a Hostage Camp?” went viral.

In the video, a woman clung to the school gates and screamed, “Please! Let me in! I just want to see her! I won’t take her away!”

Her hair was disheveled as she pounded desperately against the gates.

The video then cut to two expressionless, “cold-blooded” guards.

I gripped my phone so tightly that my knuckles turned white.

No. That wasn’t how our school treated people.

I replayed the video over and over until I finally recognized the “mother.”

Her husband had died last fall, and her child had only enrolled at St. Anna a few days earlier.

The day she pounded on the gates, a black sedan had followed her to the school. The guards had explained the situation to her repeatedly, and she had eventually been allowed inside.

But forty-five minutes of truth had been cut into fifteen seconds.

A paradise for children had been edited into a prison.

My phone exploded with tags and incoming calls. Reporters had surrounded three of our safe houses.

I forced down my anger and ordered everyone to evacuate immediately.

Matteo asked, “Donna, would you like me to send someone to investigate?”

My voice turned cold.

“No. Whoever did this will come to me.”

Right on cue, someone knocked on the door.Right on cue, someone knocked.

Vera Moretti, Marco's mother, walked in with four other women. Liana was one of them.

Vera raised an eyebrow. "Donna, let's talk."

She sat across from me without waiting for permission.

"You've seen the video, I assume?"

I narrowed my eyes. "You leaked it?"

"That's right." She didn't even hesitate. "I wanted everyone to know the truth. You lock our children behind walls and keep them from us. You use them as hostages to keep us loyal."

I laughed. "That's absurd! The school was under a Level Two lockdown. Every parent was notified. We were protecting the children.

"When has a normal drop-off or pickup ever been blocked?"

Vera shot back, "The moment we take our child home, our kid loses the school and its protection. That's not a benefit. You're using our children as collateral to keep us loyal!"

I shot back, "And what do I gain from that? I don't care whether noncombatants stay or leave."

Vera scoffed and pulled a stack of papers from her bag.

"Then let me do the math for you. When our husbands were alive, we got $20,000 a month. After they died for the Family, we got $10,000. And somehow, the academy costs exactly $10,000 per child.

"So where did that money go? Did you take it and pour it into your little school?

"Do our children really cost that much every month?

"The walls were already there. The guards are already on the payroll. Food and a few extra locks don't cost $10,000 per child.

"Where did all that inflated security and tuition go?"

The four mothers behind her lifted their chins as if to back her up.

Vera swept a finger toward the widows behind her. "You take $10,000 that belongs to each of them every month, then decide for them how it gets spent.

"You call it security. I call it collateral!"

They had twisted everything I'd done for them into something ugly. I held back my anger. "What do you want? Say it."

Vera planted both hands on my desk. "Shut down the school. Permanently.

"Put the money straight into our accounts. Give us back the full $20,000 our husbands used to earn. Every cent."

Shut down the school?

Did she have any idea that every child there was on a rival Family's hit list?

Without the school's security behind them, who would protect them?

I rose to my feet and met her challenge head-on.

"No. I won't gamble with those children's lives."

Vera smiled.

"The story's already blown up. The internet is tearing you apart.

"The Family won't tolerate a Donna who steals from widows and uses their children to control them.

"Don Lorenzo isn't in New York. No one's here to protect you."

Vera's smile widened. "The Family Council meets tomorrow. You'd better be ready. We'll see you there."