Naples never truly slept. The city hummed with the pulse of secrets and scooters, of epresso boiling too long and sins whispered through cracked chapel walls. Amara walked through the shadows of Via Caracciolo, her heels silent against the cobblestones. A blood deal was about to be made, and she was the only one who knew it wasn't a negotiation. It was a funeral in disguise.
They called it The Bellini Summit—a false gesture of peace between her family and the Albanian arms syndicate that had long resented the Diri-Owei reach into the Adriatic routes. The location: a retired monastery turned private club, carved into a cliffside. Men were sipping aged Bellinis in crystal flutes, as if the ghosts of monks weren't watching from the walls.
She wore black. Not for mourning. For intention.
"Amara Diri-Owei," the host announced, as if her name didn't already echo in every mind present.
She walked in alone. No Matteo. No backup. Just her, the anklet, and the weight of a brother unavenged.
At the far end of the candlelit hall sat Marku Drakaj, kingpin in designer linen, flanked by his brothers—each one darker of spirit than the next. He rose slowly, smiling like a serpent with a gold tooth.
"Ah. The Vulture's granddaughter," he said, arms open in mock welcome. "You come as flame or olive branch?"
Amara didn't sit. She poured herself a Bellini from the crystal jug. Sipped. Set the glass down. Then smiled.
"Depends. Do you bleed easy, Marku?"
The room went still.
It was said Amara had once made a Lagos kingpin sign away an entire oil block in exchange for his daughter's life—and then still walked away with the girl. Her legend, like her lineage, carried weight.
Marku laughed. Too loudly.
"Tense, aren't we?" He waved his guards down. "Let's talk real business. Your family wants safe passage through the Adriatic. We want a seat at the Rome syndicate council. Let's not waste wine on old ghosts."
She moved then. Slow. A few steps toward him. Each step a memory: Ekene, falling in the snow, his blood painting Turin red. Matteo's voice in her earpiece warning her not to trust the Drakajs. Her father saying, "Make them believe they're holding the gun, until they realize it's pointed at them."
"You killed my brother," she said softly.
Marku blinked. "You think—?"
She reached into her dress and threw something onto the table. It slid across the polished wood like a blessing.
A rosary. Ekene's. Bloodstained.
The room erupted. Guns drawn. Shouts in Albanian and Italian. But Amara didn't flinch.
Because Matteo was already inside. Dressed as staff. And the other guards? Bought, blackmailed, or loyal to her.
Three precise shots cracked through the air like thunder. Marku's brothers dropped like puppets.
She moved closer. Stared Marku in the eyes. He was trembling now.
"Your mistake," she whispered, "was thinking this meeting was about peace."
A final shot.
Silence.
Amara turned, adjusted her gloves, and walked out into the Neapolitan night. The bell in the old monastery tolled midnight behind her.
---
Back at the safehouse, Matteo leaned against the wall, arms crossed.
"Too quick," he muttered. "He deserved to beg."
"He already was," Amara replied.
She sat, removed her heels, and reached for the Bellini she'd brought back in a crystal bottle.
"To Ekene," she said.
Matteo raised his glass. "To the last honest heart in our bloodline."
They drank.
And as the night stretched long over Naples, Amara felt something shift—not closure, but clarity.
There would be no peace. Only power. And she had just earned her seat at the true table.
Not as envoy.
Not as daughter.
Not even as the Vulture's granddaughter.
But as something new.
Queenmaker.