The meeting took place in a windowless room beneath a vineyard in Siena. Donatella Conti sat across from Eleni, her expression unreadable behind a cloud of expensive cigarette smoke. The last time they had met, Eleni was a bargaining chip. Today, she was the one holding the deck.
"You've been busy, cara," Donatella said, flicking ash onto the stone floor. "Silas is losing his mind. Three of his shipping hubs in the Aegean were raided by Interpol this morning. Someone leaked the manifests. Someone who knew exactly which crates held the morphine and which held the marble."
"I told you I'd give you his routes," Eleni said, her voice steady and cold. "The raids were just the appetizer. I want Silas isolated. I want his allies to see him as a sinking ship."
Donatella leaned forward, her eyes narrowing. "You've cost him forty million euros in forty-eight hours. But you've also made him a cornered animal. Silas has sent his best 'cleaner' to Italy. A man they call The Architect. He doesn't use guns, Eleni. He uses accidents."
"Let him come," Eleni replied. She slid a tablet across the table. "This is the layout of Silas's private island off Sicily. It's a fortress, but it has a weakness. The entire security system runs through a single satellite relay in Malta. If we take that down, he's blind."
Donatella looked at the schematics, then at Eleni. "You want my soldiers to storm a private island? That's not a business move. That's a massacre."
"It's a takeover," Eleni corrected. "You take the territory. I take the man."
While the women plotted in the dark, the first move of the counter-attack had already begun.
Leo was in the villa's kitchen, trying to distract Mia with a drawing book. The guards Dimitris had hired were stationed outside, but the air felt heavy, charged with a static electricity that Leo didn't like.
"Leo, why is the water in my glass moving?" Mia asked, pointing to her juice box on the table.
Leo looked. The liquid was vibrating in rhythmic pulses. He stood up, his heart skipping a beat. He remembered what Ben had taught him during those long nights in the safe house: "If the ground shakes and there's no earthquake, the monsters are coming."
"Mia, get under the table. Now!" Leo hissed.
He barely got the words out before the kitchen window imploded. It wasn't a brick or a bullet—it was a flash-bang grenade. The world turned into a blinding white roar.
Leo lunged for Mia, shielding her with his body as shadows moved through the smoke. These weren't Silas's usual thugs. They moved with a silent, surgical precision. One of them grabbed Leo by the collar, slamming him against the wall, while another reached for the screaming child.
But the "Architect" had underestimated one thing: Dimitris.
A roar echoed from the hallway as the old sailor appeared, a sawed-off shotgun in his hand. He didn't care about "accidents." He fired once, the blast catching the lead attacker in the chest.
"Get her to the cellar, Leo! Move!" Dimitris barked, reloading with a flick of his wrist.
Back in the war room, Eleni's phone buzzed. It was a video feed from the villa. She saw the smoke, heard the screams, and for a second, the "Midnight Queen" mask shattered.
"Mia!" she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.
Donatella stood up, signaling to her men. "The Architect is at your door, Eleni. If you want to save them, you have to play your final card now. No more slow-burning. No more games."
Eleni looked at the silver drive. She looked at the woman who had been Ben's enemy. She realized that the only way to save her family was to become the very thing Ben had died to protect her from.
She picked up the drive and plugged it into the main console. "Valeria, release everything. Not just the names. Every bank account, every offshore shell company, every bribe. Send it to the International Monetary Fund and the Greek Prime Minister's office. Now."
"Eleni, if you do that, Silas will have nothing left to lose," Valeria warned. "He'll come for you with everything he has."
"He's already here," Eleni said, her eyes turning into shards of flint. "Tell Donatella's pilots to get the helicopters ready. We're not waiting for him to come to Sicily. We're going to meet him half-way."
She turned to Donatella. "You wanted his empire? It's yours. All of it. Just give me the coordinates to that glass factory in Mestre. I'm going to find what's left of the man I love."
Donatella looked at the florist-turned-warlord and felt a rare shiver of respect. "The factory is already surrounded by my men. But Eleni... if Silas is still there, he won't let him go easily."
"I'm not asking for a trade," Eleni said, grabbing her coat and the handgun Ben had taught her to clean. "I'm going there to collect a debt."