Chapter 2 Giuliana’s Pov

Seven years.

Seven years since I had lain bleeding on the cold marble floor of the Leonetti villa while my father’s shadow loomed over me like the devil himself. 

Seven years since I had been branded a traitor, beaten and discarded like yesterday’s trash. Seven years since I had sworn through the blinding agony and salt searing my wounds that I would return—not as the naive daughter of an underboss but as something much, much more.

And now, here I was.

The jet’s door hissed open and the warm Sicilian air, thick with the scent of the sea,

curled around me. The sun dipped toward the horizon and casted the tarmac in amber and gold. My Louboutins clicked against the concrete as I stepped down with steps that were deliberate, controlled and callculated.

I had not come back as a girl seeking her family’s approval.

I had come back as a woman they would learn to fear.

A small hand which slid into mine grounded me immediately.

It was that of Giorgio, my son.

At six years old, he was already a force. His posture was straight, his grip firm and his presence was unnervingly composed. He was far too young to understand the weight of the name he carried and yet he bore it with a quiet dignity that unsettled men twice his age.

His sharp blue eyes—so hauntingly familiar it sometimes stole my breath—swept the airstrip and missed nothing. 

It was assessing and calculating.

“Is this where you grew up, Mamma?” His voice was quiet as he spoke but there was a certainty in it that no child his age should possess.

I squeezed his fingers. “Yes, amore. This is where it all began.”

A movement caught my eye just then. 

A figure leaned against a sleek black Maserati and a thick cigarette burned between his fingers while he watched me with the kind of scrutiny that usually made weaker people wither.

I recognized him at first glance. 

He was Domenico Salvatore, the Fourth Capo of the Salvatore family.

He hadn’t changed much— he was tall, dark and still exuding that effortless Sicilian arrogance. He was wearing a tailored suit that fitted like a second skin and he looked at me the way a predator studies a rival that had stepped into its hunting ground.

I let him look and let him wonder why I was here.

I could bet he was speculating if it was because my father was dying.

My full lips curved in a slow smile as I thought of the curiosity that would be burning his insides right now. 

He exhaled smoke through his nose and his gaze remained on me as I turned away and stepped toward the private terminal.

The double doors opened when I almost reached it and Maria was waiting at its entrance. 

For the first time in seven years, my mask nearly slipped as I gazed at my only true friend in this godforsaken world.

She hadn’t changed much—her dark hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, her leather jacket worn at the seams and her green eyes looking sharp as always.

She looked like the survivor that she was… just like me.

She stopped abruptly when her gaze flicked down to Giorgio. I saw the moment it hit her…the moment she realized I hadn’t just returned alone. That I had returned with an heir.

“Dio Santo,” she breathed out loud in way that expressed her shock. “You brought a whole legacy back with you.”

Giorgio tilted his head slightly as he studied her with the same calculating intensity she studied him with.

Maria crouched slightly just then as her black painted lips twitched. “What’s your name, piccolo principe?”

Giorgio didn’t blink. “Giorgio Ricci.”

She raised a highly curved eyebrow at that. “Not Giorgio Leonetti?”

A flicker of something sharp flashed in my son’s eyes as he said, “Leonetti is a name borrowed not earned.”

Maria let out a low whistle at that and shook her head in a way that caused her black curls to bounce around her face. Then she stood up and looked at me with amusement in her green eyes. “Mio Dio. He’s really yours.”

I placed a hand on Giorgio’s back as I smiled at her. “Come. We have things to discuss.”

Few minutes later, we slid into the back of a bulletproof Mercedes and the doors were shut with a heavy thud. As we pulled onto the highway that led toward the Leonetti compound, Maria turned to me.

“You heard about your grandfather?”

I nodded. “Stage four pancreatic cancer.”

She exhaled and shook her head. “He’s not long for this world.”

“No.”

Maria drummed her fingers against the leather seat. “Francesca has been consolidating power.”

I didn’t need to ask who she meant. Francesca was my father’s wife and the woman who had wormed her way into his bed and then into the business thereby stripping control from anyone who threatened her grip.

“She has both the legitimate operations and the underground networks under her thumb,” Maria continued. “Your father’s too weak to fight her.”

I stared out the window and watched the olive groves that blur past before saying calmly, “My father was never strong to begin with.”

Maria’s gaze flicked toward Giorgio and the meaning of the glance was clear—there were little ears in the car. But Giorgio simply stared out his own window while his little fingers tapped a silent rhythm against his knee. He was obviously lost in his own thoughts as the car moved on. 

Maria shifted uncomfortably as she turned towards her friend. “There’s something else,” she said in a strained voice. 

“Of course there is.”

She hesitated and then said, “Enzo.”

I turned my head slightly to look at her but I kept my expression carefully neutral as I asked. “What about him?”

Despite my calm, Maria watched me carefully as she answered. “He’s marrying Isabella.”

For a moment, silence stretched between us. Then I laughed a soft and amused laughter. 

Maria frowned as she watched me laugh. She certainly had not expected this kind of reaction from me at all. 

“That’s all?”

I leaned back against the seat while I let a smirk linger. “If our engagement could be broken by family politics, it was never worth keeping.”

Maria shook her head as she muttered under her breath. “You’ve really changed, Giu.”

I met her gaze and said steadily. “I had to.”

Then I looked far ahead and saw the Leonetti compound which loomed in the distance and waited to swallow me whole once again.

This time, I was ready.