Ch. I Watch 10 I Watch 10

Chapter 10 

Another three months passed. Vittorio invited me into his private study. 

“There’s a job. It’s dirty, and it’s highly dangerous.” 

The old man pushed a locked black leather folder toward me, the key resting beside it. “But it’s more important to the Family than anything we’ve dealt with in decades. You can refuse, Serafina. No one will blame you.” 

I opened the folder: Southern Border, Blacksand. 

A smuggling route spanning three countries had recently been choked off by a smuggling boss named Salazar. 

His men had already butchered two batches of negotiators sent by San Celano, dumping their bodies in the desert. They didn’t even send the heads back. 

The Family needed someone to go there in person, bearing leverage, to get a ceasefire agreement signed. 

“I’ll go.” 

“Think it through.” Vittorio’s gaze was heavy. “Those outlaws don’t play by the rules. Going there is a death sentence.” 

“I have,” I said. “My father didn’t calculate the odds when he went. If he could do it, I have no reason to back down. 

11 

On the night before my departure, I walked down the long corridor into the old study on the second floor of the 

estate. 

Vittorio was already there. He sat in an old leather chair by the fireplace, a deep red velvet cloth spread across his lap. He was looking down, polishing an antique pocket watch. 

The dancing flames cast a soft glow over his graying temples. 

On the wall, my father’s oil painting watched over us silently. 

“Uncle Vittorio.” 

He looked up, offered a small smile, and motioned for me to sit. “Come to pay your respects?” 

“Yes.” 

We stood side by side in front of the fireplace, quietly gazing at the man in the painting-the man who once controlled the laws of the underworld. 

“When your father went to negotiate with the Five Families, he carried this exact pocket watch.” 

“We all begged him to bring his most elite gunmen, but he said, ‘If I bring guns, they will draw theirs. If I don’t go, hundreds more bodies will litter the streets tonight.”” 

“So he went alone. Staring down the barrels of a dozen guns, he calmly drank the poisoned wine.” 

“He watched the second hand on this very watch, calculated the precise moment the poison would take hold, and forced those bosses to sign the peace treaty.” 

Tears pricked my eyes. Vittorio held out the freshly polished watch to me. 

“Serafina.” Vittorio solemnly placed the watch in my palm, his old fingers pressing down gently. “Come back safe. 

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Your father is watching over you.” 

I looked down at it, my fingertips brushing over a faint, old scratch on the casing. 

“I will. For him, and for the unbreakable rules of our world.” 

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