Chapter 2

I tapped play on the viral clip.

The video opened with a tracking shot of my closed office door. The text overlay read: "Finally got the balls to stand up to the syndicate boss for basic holiday respect."

Cut to a dramatic zoom-in on Beatrice's face at her desk, looking completely crushed. Text: "Was told I was a parasite and didn't understand how the underworld works."

The footage spliced in audio snips of my voice from our encounter, but it was heavily distorted, pitched down, and chopped up to make me sound like a ruthless, bloodthirsty tyrant.

The clip ended with her staring dead into the camera, her voice cracking right on cue.

"I don't need raw gold," she whimpered, squeezing out a few tears. "I just wanted a traditional Thanksgiving turkey, you know? Just a tiny bit of family spirit from the syndicate I sweat blood for. Is that… is that a crime?"

The engagement section below was an absolute war zone.

【Imagine running a whole criminal empire and being too broke to buy your workers a single meal. Embarrassing.】

【Leaking their front companies to the feds right now. Let’s see how much gold she has left after a massive IRS raid.】

【This mob boss thinks she’s untouchable. It’s 2026, sweetheart—time for the internet to take down the syndicate.】

I let out a harsh, dry laugh. Ten pure gold bullion coins had somehow been spun into "nothing."

The next morning, I'd barely poured my coffee when Beatrice and Marco walked into my office. Marco kept his hands rammed deep in his pockets, trying to play the harmless mediator.

"Victoria, look," he started, nervously shifting his weight. "Beatrice was just looking out for the crew. Nobody meant to disrespect the family. We all just want this to be a brotherhood we can be proud of, you know? True street solidarity. Everyone is talking on the encrypted group chats right now… maybe you could just meet the floor halfway?"

Beatrice stood right beside him, arms locked over her chest, radiating pure arrogance.

She held up her phone. "Victoria, this isn't just my fight anymore. The whole crew wants blood."

"Family policies," I said, my voice completely level, "are not rewritten by a public temper tantrum on social media."

Beatrice let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

"Gold is just cold cash. A turkey is respect. They are two entirely different things. And if you can't see that, Victoria, I'm sure the internet and the federal task force would love to explain it to you." It was an overt extortion attempt. "The livestream clip only has a few million views right now. If you don't play ball, I can't guarantee what internal family ledger leaks next."

An intern was actively blackmailing a mafia Don.

Right then, my assistant burst through the door, her face drained of color.

"Victoria, look at X. Beatrice’s clip was just picked up by major true-crime communities. The hashtag #ExposeTheRomanoFamily is trending nationwide."

I refreshed my feed. There it was.

But what actually sent a chill down my spine was scrolling through the list of accounts that liked her post. Right near the top was an encrypted profile picture I recognized instantly.

It was Elena. A senior logistics manager who had run the distribution desks for nearly a decade. Last year, when her oldest son got deep into debt with an underground loan shark syndicate, they threatened to send his severed fingers to her doorstep. I didn't just authorize a hundred thousand dollars in clean cash from my personal account to wipe his ledger clean—I personally sent my top enforcers to ensure the loan sharks broke their own pens, wiped the records, and understood that touching her blood meant war with me.

And now, here she was, silently giving Beatrice’s blackmail video a supportive little double-tap.

Beatrice caught the shift in my eyes. A vicious, triumphant smirk spread across her face. She tapped her screen, showing me the live view count ticking up by the thousands.

"So, Boss Lady," she said, her voice dripping with artificial pity. "Do you still think I'm the only one who feels this way?"

Right on cue, my desk phone buzzed violently. It was the front desk.

"Victoria, our public lines are melting down. People are calling us monsters and screaming death threats. Two of our main shipping partners just called panic-stricken, asking if we are about to hit a massive federal RICO indictment."

A catastrophic media firestorm, ignited by an ungrateful brat and a goddamn Thanksgiving turkey.

I looked at Beatrice’s smug, untouchable face and Marco’s pathetic, two-faced betrayal. And suddenly, the fatigue hit me.

Feed a stray dog steak for years, and the moment you offer them prime rib instead of gold, they will try to bite your hand off. I had shielded these people with my family's ultimate protection, and they had completely forgotten whose house they were standing in.