Chapter 32

The Family feast was a cathedral of power dressed in silk and candlelight, five hundred guests arrayed beneath crystal chandeliers that threw fractured light across the ballroom of the Valente-owned Grand Palazzo hotel. The air was thick with the mingled scents of Florentine perfume, aged bourbon, and the invisible undercurrent of fear that attended every gathering where all Five Families shared the same room. I stood next to Dominic, my hand tucked into the crook of his arm, the emerald silk of my gown brushing the obsidian marble floor with each small shift of my weight. My smile held. It had to hold. Around us, senators shook hands with men who could have them killed before dessert, and wives of capos laughed with the precision of women who understood that a social misstep at a Family feast could carry consequences no apology would undo.