Seventy-five-year-old Adelaide Carbone sat weakly beside a stone planter with a decorative metal chain looped around her throat

Salvatore ignored the stunned crowd of capos and bodyguards. He crouched slowly beside his mother, his polished shoes avoiding the rolling apples and crushed ice. The lethal, intimidating aura that had just decimated two people softened slightly as he looked at the seventy-five-year-old woman.

"Mother," Salvatore said, his voice returning to that slow, low, measured cadence. He gently took her frail, trembling hands in his own heavily tattooed ones. "Look at me. You are safe now. Nobody is going to put a chain on you ever again."

Adelaide kept her eyes averted. A tear slipped down her pale, wrinkled cheek, catching the bright natural light. "I am ashamed, Salvatore. I was weak. I should have fought them."

"You survived," Salvatore corrected her, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Now, I need you to tell me why they were doing this. What question were they trying to make you answer?"

Ella stepped up, wrapping her small arms around Salvatore’s neck, burying her face into his unbuttoned shirt. Salvatore held his daughter close, but his cold eyes remained fixed on his mother.

Adelaide finally raised her head. She looked at her son, her expression trembling with a fear that went far deeper than the physical abuse she had endured. She leaned in close, her voice dropping to a fragile, broken whisper.

"I saw them," Adelaide whispered, her lips quivering. "I saw them force your wife into a car with a stranger."

The words struck Salvatore like a physical blow. The world around him seemed to stop spinning. His wife—Ella’s mother—had been missing for a week. The official story from Hattie and Nolan had been a sudden, unannounced trip to Europe for a fashion gala. It was a lie. A lie constructed to cover a kidnapping, orchestrated by his own blood.

Salvatore slowly stood up, keeping Ella balanced on his hip. He turned his head, his thick, wavy hair shifting in the breeze. He glared at Nolan, who was just beginning to regain consciousness, groaning amidst the hammered-metal ice trough.

Salvatore walked over to the ruined associate. He stood above him, casting a long, dark shadow over Nolan’s fair, bruised face.

"I will ask this once," Salvatore said, his voice dead calm, carrying a murderous promise in every measured syllable. "Where is my wife, and who is the stranger?"