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Chapter 3

Penulis: Shelley
The sun was sliding down. The clouds along the horizon had gone deep red.

But the dockyard at Porto Scuro was lit up like noon. Dozens of torches turned the stretch of pavement bright as day.

A few hundred people, torches and crowbars and chains and fishing gaffs, packed in around the four of us.

The air had a weight to it that made it hard to breathe.

Rosa was clutching Giulia, both of them shivering, neither daring to make a sound. Marco was propped against a rusted iron anchor, gray-faced, his chest spasming with every breath.

Don Salvo had climbed up onto the warehouse steps, holding a fat book he called the "Town Code" — really just a private compendium of the punishments the local underworld families had decided on, year by year. He looked down at us from up there.

"Marco Conti broke town rules. He let his wife pull a knife on locals. Disrespect to his elders. Sentence — both legs broken, expelled from Porto Scuro, forbidden to return. As for that shrew Sofia — three days on display in the dock square. Conti family warehouse and dock share, confiscated. Property of the Dockworkers' Association."

The crowd cheered. The greed in their eyes wasn't even hidden anymore.

Esposito's wife jumped highest of all, jabbing a finger at me.

"Yes. Do it. See if she's still got that mouth on her after that. Sell her off to a farm in Sicily. Let her sweat for a change."

I looked around at all those greedy, ugly faces, and started to laugh. The sound carried in the night.

So this was the place I'd hidden my whole self in for three years, for love. The old saying held — backwater breeds bastards. They wore the face of decent folk and underneath there was nothing but calculation and grasping.

I gripped the stiletto. My nails were cutting into my palm. Threads of blood worked out between my fingers.

"Salvo. What are you, exactly, that you think you can hold a kangaroo court? You think Porto Scuro is some independent kingdom? There are still laws in this country. This is murder."

Don Salvo found this funny. He threw his head back and laughed.

"Laws. In Porto Scuro, I am the law. The capital is far away and the king doesn't care. We kill you tonight, push you into the sea, who's going to find anything? Get on with it. Get the woman."

A dozen heavy-set men closed in, rubbing their hands, looking me up and down without bothering to hide it.

Marco let out a despairing sound and tried to lift the fishing knife — choked on his own blood and started coughing it up.

"Don't move." I forced him back, planted myself between him and them.

I licked my dry lips. Something old and dark was rising behind my eyes.

"Whoever steps forward, I put ten holes in him. Anybody not afraid to die, you're welcome to try."

I dragged the blade across my own forearm. My blood ran down the steel and dripped on the stones.

That stopped them. The crazy kind of move stops people every time.

Nobody wanted to be the first man through the door. They were here to watch a show and pick at the carcass after — none of them was looking to die for it.

Bruno panicked. He hopped out of the line, snarling.

"Useless cowards. She's one woman. All of you, together. Two thousand euros to the first man who lays a hand on her."

Two thousand euros, in this town, was more than a season's catch.

The men looked at each other. The greed lit up. They lifted their sticks and chains together and brought them down.

Nowhere to go. I took it.

Two heavy thuds.

A chain caught me across the back. The pain went through me like a hot wire — I felt it in my organs.

Something coppery came up my throat. I swallowed it down, used the momentum to drive the stiletto into the next man's thigh.

Another scream went up.

But two fists can't fight four. The sticks kept coming.

Marco shoved me hard and put his back between me and them.

"Sofia, run. Don't worry about me. Go. Just go."

His voice was thinning out. His back was already a mess of broken skin and blood, soaking the stones.

"Marco—" I screamed it. Tears blurring everything. My chest splitting.

Bruno had gotten close in the chaos. He was holding an old revolver — the kind that gets passed around the Porto Scuro black market, no serial number, no paper trail.

The black hole of the muzzle was an inch from Marco's head.

"Die, dog. Be smarter next time around."

His finger was tightening on the trigger.

My head went white. Whatever was left of reason was gone.

My father had taught me, when I was small: if a man's coming for your life, you go for his whole family first. With evil men you have to be worse than they are.

I lunged at Bruno.

I kicked the torch stand on the way. A burning piece of pinewood came down across his shoulders.

The revolver fired.

The crack was deafening, and my ears rang.

The bullet skimmed past Marco's scalp and smashed into an old wooden plaque on the warehouse wall. Splinters everywhere.
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  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 10

    Six months later.The Ferrante family's seaside villa, just outside Naples. Strung with lights. Wall to wall with luxury cars.It was the loudest wedding Naples had seen in years.The groom: only son of Director Conti, head of the Anti-Organized Crime Division in Rome. Recently decorated for service. Inspector Marco Conti.The bride: only daughter of Don Enzo Ferrante of Naples and the iron-willed Donna Carmela. Their pearl.Everyone who mattered — police, government, business — was there. The whole top of the country.I walked down the rose-strewn aisle on my father's arm, in a dress made for me.At the end of it, Marco. Dark blue dress uniform. Decorations on his chest. Standing the way he always stood — straight as a line.He watched me come down the aisle. Eyes only on me.My father put my hand in his. His own eyes looked a little wet. The voice still came out hard."Boy. I'm giving you Enzo Ferrante's daughter. If you ever treat her badly, I don't care if you're an inspector — I'l

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 9

    Naples. San Paolo Hospital. Private wing.The smell of antiseptic. The steady beep of the monitor.Marco had been under for three days. Three days I hadn't left the side of the bed. My eyes had gone red from it.My parents came every day and brought every kind of expensive thing they could find. Even Director Antonio Conti himself came, leaning on his cane.The old man wept when he saw me. He kept holding my hand and saying the Conti family had wronged me, that they'd put me through too much.The TV was running the evening news, the anchor's even voice filling the small room."In recent days, authorities along the Bay of Naples have broken up a major transnational arms-smuggling case. The smuggling ring led by Bruno Sacco has been dismantled at every level. The mayor of Porto Scuro, Don Salvo, is removed from office and remanded to a special tribunal on charges of providing protection to organized crime, severe corruption, and obstruction of national security operations.""Bruno Sacco,

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 8

    The inspector pulled a file out of his case. The cover was stamped with the seal of the highest classification.He looked around. His voice carried."Marco Conti. Italian National Police, Anti-Organized Crime Division. Senior undercover officer, rank of Inspector. Three years ago, in pursuit of a transnational arms-smuggling operation crossing the Mediterranean, he was assigned undercover, identity sealed, embedded in Porto Scuro, tasked with gathering core evidence on the syndicate.""The smuggling network has now been comprehensively dismantled. Inspector Conti's mission is complete and successful. Per the order of the Director, Anti-Organized Crime Division, his rank and identity are reinstated effective immediately. He is to report to Rome HQ."The townspeople went the color of dead fish. Mouths open. Nothing coming out.The man they'd kicked around all year, the broken-down vet, was a senior undercover officer. He'd gone to hell and back for this country.Don Salvo's eyes rolled b

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 7

    Greco was running cold sweat. He nodded into the phone, bent at the waist."Minister, I was wrong. I didn't know it was Mr. Ferrante. I'll pull back, right now, please give me a chance—"The minister's voice on the other end was ice."You won't be pulling back. Anti-Corruption is on the road as we speak. The things you've done are enough to keep you behind bars for the rest of your life. You can spend your retirement reflecting in there."Click. Dead air.Greco's face went the color of ash. His sidearm fell out of his hand and clanged on the stones. Whatever was holding him together gave out.The officers he'd brought in looked at each other. They quietly holstered their weapons. None of them was about to make a move. If a deputy commissioner had just gone down, what were street cops going to do?Bruno had given up. He'd folded onto the ground and was muttering, "It's over, it's over."I watched it. I should have felt some kind of satisfaction. I didn't. The only thing in my head was M

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 6

    Giulia held the crowbar in both hands. They were shaking. Her face was bloodless.Luca's eyes went wide. He was scrambling backward."Giulia, I'm your husband. You can't do this. I'll never lay a hand on you again, I swear. I'll treat you like a queen — please."The fear in Giulia's eyes turned over. Underneath it was years of hate. Her eyes went red."Husband. When you beat me until I lost the baby. When you made me wash all the family laundry in cold water in the dead of winter. Were we husband and wife then? When your mother forced those filthy folk remedies down my throat and told me to die if I couldn't give you a son — were we husband and wife then? You're not human. You're a thing in a man's skin."Giulia raised the crowbar over her head and brought it down on his.Thump.Blood ran down Luca's forehead and into his eyes.That blow cracked something open in her. She wasn't the nodding little wife of the village anymore.She came undone. She swung again, and again, sobbing as she

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 5

    My father, Enzo Ferrante, in that black cashmere overcoat of his, a Cuban cigar clamped between his teeth, every hair in place. He stood there and the weight of him hit you — the Don of Naples, no act, no posing, just the real thing distilled out of decades of blood and fire.Don Salvo stared. His lips trembled, just a little. He'd worked the docks half his life and met every kind of man who walks in our world, but the one in front of him was different. The men he knew — when they walked into a room, they checked where the exits were. The man in front of him walked into a room, and everyone else in the room started thinking about how to get out.Behind him came my mother, Carmela — the Donna of the Ferrante family — in heels and a wine-red coat. Lipstick on. Eyes like winter."Dad. Mom—"I'd been holding it together all afternoon. Now it broke. The stiletto fell out of my hand and rang on the stones.When my father took in the blood and the torn dress, the hand holding the cigar shook.

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 4

    The burning wood seared Bruno's bare arm — blisters rose in seconds. He was screaming. The revolver clattered onto the stones.I rode him down. Drove my knee into his chest. Put the stiletto right under his eye, close enough that the tip felt his lashes flicker."Tell every one of them to back up. O

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 2

    I had her hair half ripped out of her scalp. Her face twisted, her hands clawing at the air."Help! Murder! The Ferrante woman's gone crazy! Outsiders are coming after Porto Scuro folk, somebody help!"I slapped her, hard. Her teeth rattled. Blood ran down from the corner of her mouth, and one side

  • The Revenge of Don’s Secret Heiress   Chapter 1

    The phone rang in the empty office. There was something almost funny about it — the Don of Naples, working as my switchboard.The line connected."Yeah." My father Enzo Ferrante's low voice came through, glasses clinking faintly in the background — somewhere a private club was running a big deal."D

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