By dawn, the letter was ready.
Three names. Three envelopes. Three invitations to loyalty—or exile.
Alba signed them with her mother's old fountain pen, sealing each with wax pressed by the family crest: a lion, crowned in flame.
She had learned two things since Enzo's death.
First—every man has a price.
Second—every price has a trail.
She needed eyes that could see in shadows and ears that bent in silence. Men who owed her father more than gold. Men who still whispered his name with fear, not fondness.
And she needed them tonight.
---
Luca, the gardener's son, now a wiry man with scars beneath his collar, arrived first.
"I was told to burn vineyards, not bury your father," he muttered.
Alba nodded. "I'm not asking you to forgive. I'm asking you to repay."
He looked at her—dressed in black silk, hair pulled back like a widow of war—and saw a ghost he recognized.
"I'm in," he said.
By midnight, two more joined.
And by morning, the Circle of Silence had been born—loyal only to her.
---
Gianni
She moved quicker than expected.
Luca. Then Matteo. Then Anselmi.
All pieces Gianni once discarded as weak or disloyal. Now back under Alba's banner, and worse—quietly.
But that was fine.
Let her gather her dogs.
He still had the leash.
For now.
---