705 "Sixty powerful guests laughed when the maid fell into the pool, but they stopped smiling when her four-year-old daughter asked why nobody was helping her mother.

Inside the grand foyer, Adriano walked down the curved marble staircase alone, his hands tucked casually into his pockets, looking down at Marcus and his armed entourage.

"You brought weapons into my home, Marcus," Adriano said calmly. "That is a breach of protocol."

"Protocol died the moment you let a maid and a street brat dictate how you run this syndicate!" Genevieve sneered from the doorway. "You've gone soft, Adriano! You care more about dead ghosts than the empire we built!"

Marcus drew a silencer-equipped pistol, pointing it directly at Adriano’s chest. "It’s over, Adriano. The board has voted. They think you've lost your mind. Hand over the ledger keys and sign the transfer documents, and I might let you leave Rhode Island alive."

Adriano stopped at the bottom step, looking at Marcus with a cold, mocking gaze. "Did you really think I didn't know, Marcus?"

Marcus frowned slightly. "Know what?"

"About West Virginia. About Thomas Hail," Adriano’s voice echoed. "You thought you were clever, moving weapons through his county. Thomas saw your men unloading military gear and took down a license plate. You panicked and had him killed. And then you brought his widow here, keeping her hidden in my own house so you could monitor her if she ever remembered anything."

Genevieve stepped back, her confidence wavering. Marcus’s eye twitched, but he tightened his grip on the weapon. "It was business, Adriano! He was a nobody!"

"He was better than you," Adriano growled. "And you made one fatal mistake."

Adriano raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

Suddenly, the glass dome of the foyer shattered above them. Tactical enforcers loyal to Adriano descended on ropes, weapons drawn. At the same time, the heavy oak doors behind Marcus slammed shut as Luca and twenty armed Falcone loyalists flooded the room, aiming red laser sights directly at Marcus and his men.