Chapter 8
"Alessandra, stop!" Vincent roared, stepping forward, his patriarchal facade finally cracking under the weight of total ruination. "You can't do this! You are stripping us of everything! How will we live? Where will we go?"
"You will go wherever people go when they have nothing," Alessandra replied coldly, lowering her phone. "You have thirty minutes to pack one suitcase each. No jewelry. No cash. You will be escorted to a private airfield, and you will be flown to a location of my choosing. If you ever attempt to contact anyone in this city, or if I ever see your faces again, I will not hesitate to order a far more permanent solution."
"You are a monster!" Bianca screamed, trying to stand up, but her legs gave out, and she collapsed back into the chair, sobbing hysterically. "You are taking my son's inheritance! Mason is the rightful heir!"
"Mason," Alessandra said, her dark eyes shifting to the ten-year-old boy who was now trembling uncontrollably behind his grandfather. "Mason is a bully who attacks children smaller than him because he knows he can't fight a fair battle. If he stays with you, he will grow up to be a weak, pathetic man who relies on the family name to survive."
She took a slow, deliberate step toward the boy. Mason shrank back, whimpering as the terrifying Mafia Boss loomed over him.
"I am offering you a choice, Mason," Alessandra said, her voice softening slightly, though it still carried the lethal weight of an ultimatum. "You can leave with your mother, and live the rest of your life as a nobody in exile. Or, you can stay here, under my supervision. I will teach you what true strength is. I will teach you how to protect your family instead of destroying it. But if you stay, you will never see your mother again."
Bianca let out a horrifying, breathless shriek. "Don't you dare touch him! He is my son! You can't take him from me!"
"He is old enough to understand the consequences of his actions," Alessandra stated, ignoring her sister's frantic cries. She looked down at the boy, extending her hand slightly. "What is your choice, Mason? Do you want to be a prince in exile, or a soldier in my house?"
Mason looked at his mother, who was bleeding and crying on the chair, completely stripped of her power and arrogance. He looked at his grandmother, who was shaking violently, clutching her pearls in a pathetic display of lost grandeur. And then he looked at his aunt, a woman who possessed absolute, terrifying control over everything in their world.
The ten-year-old boy swallowed hard, his fair, rosy cheeks pale with fear. He slowly stepped away from his grandfather. He didn't reach for Alessandra's hand, but he moved to stand beside her, his head bowed in silent, trembling submission.
Bianca wailed, burying her face in her hands, her heart shattering as she watched her son choose the protection of the monster who had just destroyed their lives.
Francesca collapsed into the dining chair, her elegant facade entirely broken, weeping silently into her manicured hands.
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Alessandra looked at the broken family before her, feeling absolutely no remorse. She had excised the cancer. She turned to the capos waiting by the doors.
"Escort them to their rooms," Alessandra commanded, her voice ringing with absolute finality. "Thirty minutes. And then get them out of my sight."
