Marcella Bellandi violently struck six-year-old Vivia across the face, sending the little girl crashing onto the marble floor clutching her late mother’s tattered dress

"Nico, be reasonable!" Leo Vance shouted, pushing forward against the chests of the bodyguards, his face flushed with desperate bravado. "She is my bride! We just took our vows an hour ago! You touch her, and my father will view it as an act of war! Our families will tear this city apart!"

Nico turned his head slowly, his cold, piercing gaze locking onto the groom. The bright chandeliers cast sharp shadows across his angular, deeply masculine face.

"Your father answers to me, Leo," Nico stated, his voice resonating with absolute, unchallengeable authority. "My syndicate moves seventy percent of the freight through the eastern ports. If I cut your family off, your father will be bankrupt by Christmas. Do not mistake a business alliance for equality."

"You can't murder a woman on her wedding day!" Leo pleaded, his American accent cracking under the immense pressure. "Turn her over to the syndicate council! Let the bosses vote on her punishment!"

"The council does not bleed for my wife," Nico replied, taking a deliberate step toward the groom. "The council does not comfort my daughter when she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night. This is Bellandi blood, and it will be handled by the Bellandi patriarch."

Nico gestured sharply with his hand. "Rafe. Break his jaw."

Rafe Calder moved with the brutal, unflinching efficiency of a veteran enforcer. Before Leo could even raise his hands to defend himself, Rafe stepped into his space and delivered a devastating right hook. The crack of bone echoed loudly through the ballroom. Leo crumpled to the floor, instantly unconscious, his expensive tuxedo sliding across the polished marble.

A unified gasp rippled through the remaining guests, but no one dared to intervene. The message was crystal clear: Nico Bellandi was the absolute authority in this room, and anyone who opposed him would be destroyed.

"Nico... you are a monster," Marcella whispered, her fair skin devoid of all color, staring in horror at her unconscious husband.

"I am exactly what you wanted me to be, Marcella," Nico said, looking down at her ruined wedding dress. "You wanted a ruthless Mafia boss who prioritized the syndicate over his own humanity. You wanted a killer. Well, congratulations, sister. You have his undivided attention."

Nico turned back to the laptop. "Rafe, scroll down. Was there anything else in the folder?"

Rafe leaned over the keyboard, his eyes scanning the bright screen. "There are a few more audio files, Boss. And a sub-folder. It's heavily encrypted."

"Crack it," Nico ordered.

"It might take a few minutes," Rafe said, his fingers flying across the keys as he initiated a brute-force decryption protocol. "Elena must have used a military-grade cipher to lock this down."

"She knew the risk of gathering this evidence," Nico murmured, his eyes softening for a fraction of a second as he looked at the tattered dress Vivia was still clutching. "She sewed it into the only thing she knew Marcella wouldn't touch. A dress she thought belonged in the gutter."

"Boss," Rafe said, his voice suddenly tight with tension. "The decryption is at ninety percent. But look at the title of the sub-folder."