The Mafia Protocol

The rain fell hard against the cracked windshield of Camilla’s beat-up sedan as she pulled into the gravel driveway of her father’s estate. A single dim light flickered above the front door, barely illuminating the ivy-covered walls of the old mansion. It looked abandoned—too quiet, too still. Her heart pounded as she stepped out of the car, high heels crunching over loose gravel. She hadn’t been here in months. Not since the last screaming match with her father. He’d begged her to stay away, told her things were getting dangerous. She hadn’t listened. She never did. Now he wasn’t answering her calls, and his assistant had left her a voicemail in the middle of the night. Come home. Urgently. No details. Just panic in her voice. Camilla shoved open the heavy door. It wasn’t locked. “Dad?” she called out, stepping inside. Silence. The house was too cold, the kind of cold that seeped into your bones—not from weather, but from something wrong. Lights were off in the foyer,

Camilla sat in the back of the blacked-out SUV, her fingers clutched around the hem of the white silk dress Riccardo had laid out for her. Not a gown—nothing dramatic. Just simple, sleeveless, and elegant. The kind of white that dared you to stain it. The irony wasn’t lost on her. She looked down at her hands. No bouquet. No bridesmaids. Just trembling fingers that wouldn’t stop. Riccardo sat beside her, dressed in a black three-piece suit. Not a wrinkle on him. He looked like he was headed to a corporate board meeting, not his own wedding. His jaw was clean-shaven, his expression unreadable, and not once had he glanced her way. This wasn’t romance. It was a branding. “You could at least pretend you’re not dragging me into hell,” she muttered. He finally looked at her. “Hell? Camilla, I own hell. I’m just giving you a front-row seat.” She rolled her eyes, but it was a weak defense. Because beneath her sarcasm was fear—and he could see it. He always could. The church w

The mansion was a labyrinth of power, money, and shadows. Camilla moved through it like a ghost, never truly seen but always watching. Every day brought new pieces of the puzzle, but each answer only led to more questions. She had to know who was behind the debts. Riccardo’s words still echoed in her mind: Your father promised me a daughter. Camilla had been a means to an end. A bargaining chip in a game far too big for her to understand. But that didn’t matter now. What mattered was survival. And to survive, she needed to get to the heart of this empire. The next morning, Camilla woke to find a fresh stack of papers waiting for her on the desk. She hadn’t asked for them, hadn’t even heard a knock at the door, but there they were. As she read through the contracts, her blood ran cold. They were debts. But not just any debts. These were linked to her father’s business dealings with Riccardo’s family and several other powerful families. The amounts were staggering, and the d

Camilla’s pulse hammered in her chest, the weight of Riccardo’s gaze pressing down on her like a thousand pounds. Luca’s hand tightened around her throat, his grip unyielding, yet she could feel the tension in his muscles, like he was waiting for something to happen. Waiting for her to make her move.Riccardo stood there, calm, composed, as if everything was going according to plan. His eyes never left Camilla, the darkness in them unnerving.“You always did have a knack for getting yourself into trouble, didn’t you?” Riccardo’s voice was smooth, cold, almost mocking.Luca’s grip loosened slightly, but his posture didn’t shift. Camilla’s mind raced. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, but there was something more—an overwhelming sense of clarity. She was caught in the web of a game that had no rules. Riccardo wasn’t just a mafia boss; he was a man who saw everything, knew everything, and controlled everything around him.But that didn’t mean he controlled her.“Let me go,”

The door to her room clicked shut behind her with a soft but final sound. Camilla stood motionless for a moment, her heart still racing from the conversation with Riccardo. The weight of his words lingered in the air like smoke—thick and suffocating.The room was lavish, as expected, with a king-sized bed draped in dark velvet, an intricately carved wooden wardrobe, and an oversized desk with a leather chair. But it felt cold, unwelcoming. It was as though everything in the room, even the heavy curtains blocking out the natural light, was designed to isolate her. To make her feel as though she belonged nowhere.She walked to the window, pulling back the heavy curtains to look out at the sprawling mansion grounds. The view was breathtaking, the gardens stretching out beneath the starlit sky. But the beauty of it was lost on her. All she could think of was the cold, calculated man who had orchestrated all of this. The man who believed he had the right to decide her future.Camilla gritt