1. New Mafia King

Clara's POV

I was busy solving a case when suddenly the doors to my study burst open. I knew it was my brother, Kaen, and I was about to throw the paperweight at him when his words reached me.

"The Mafia King is dead."

My hand froze midair as my eyes went wide in shock. For a moment, I thought and prayed I heard wrong.

"What? What did you just say?" My voice was barely above a whisper as I slowly set the pen down.

Kaen breathed heavily as he walked inside, his face pale and sweat dripping down his forehead. He picked up the remote from the table and turned on the TV. The TV screen flickered with red alerts and breaking news, but everything inside me went dead silent.

'Julian Kovacs found dead in his estate'

“One single bullet just made seven years of gathering intel, tracing money trails, and building a case to dismantle a mafia empire from the roots up worthless!” Kaen's words snapped me out of my haze.

My fists clenched tight as all I saw was red.

Seven years ago, my father’s body was dragged out of his burnt-out office, framed as a traitor by the very underworld he had tried to expose. I had sworn over his grave that I would strip the Mafia Empire to the bone.

For seven damn years, I had bled myself dry, working day and night to build a case that would rip Julian’s mafia empire to shreds, and I was so... So close to exposing Julian and his dirty business.

But now, with Julian gone, everything I had collected could become nothing but scrap.

"Who did this?" I demanded, looking straight into Kaen's eyes.

His jaw twitched tightly, and a flash of hatred passed through his eyes when he said the name, which drained the colour from my face.

"Dante!"

A deep silence spread in the room that suffocated me for a moment.

Dante Salvatore.

The name I had tried to forget every single day for the past seven years, only for it to haunt me at night.

"He is out of prison, Clara," Kaen stated, "and has already started playing his dirty games. The second Julian’s heart stopped beating, Dante claimed the throne."

My stomach twisted.

“He is hosting a summit tonight at the Grand Hotel to make every single boss in this city bow to him. We lost. It's over"

Kaen collapsed on the chair beside him, exhausted and defeated.

"It’s not over," I said, my shock instantly hardening into pure, white-hot rage. "I cannot let my father's sacrifice be in vain. I cannot see my seven years of hard work becoming nothing!"

I stood up with so much force that the chair scraped against the floor.

"No one can stop me from achieving what I want. Not even Dante"

The taste of his name on my tongue ignited a violent wave of memory. It felt so foreign yet so familiar.

I walked out of the study and into my room. Putting my heart in the backseat, I allowed my mind to take control as I pulled on my black velvet backless dress and strapped a compact 9 mm dagger to a garter.

"What are you doing?" Kaen whirled me around, and all I could see was concern written on his face for his elder sister.

"I'm going to that summit," I told him, with a completely dead and icy gaze.

"Have you gone crazy, Clara? You know what Dante thinks about you. Right? Going to that summit tonight means throwing yourself as a piece of meat to a wounded lion"

"I know, right," I spit back, "and I don't care"

I shoved Kaen’s hands off my arm and walked to the window, watching the entire city buzzing with lights.

"This time I will get inside his empire and finish what he started seven years ago."

And if Dante wanted war… I would give him one.