The flip phone in Clara’s trembling hand looked like a relic, its plastic casing cracked and the screen glowing with a faint, sickly green light. In a church filled with silk, diamonds, and men who controlled the city's pulse, this piece of garbage commanded absolute silence.

Raphael did not look at the phone. He looked at Clara. He saw the way her knuckles were white, the way her chest heaved with a fragile, erratic rhythm.

"Play it," Raphael said. His voice was not a command; it was a quiet permission.

Clara pressed the center button.

The audio was distorted, filled with the static of a fifteen-year-old recording, but the acoustics of St. Leonard’s Church amplified the voices perfectly.

“He’s walking down the avenue now. The kid is with him.” The first voice was rough, nervous.

“I don’t care about the kid,” the second voice replied. It was a voice that every man in the first three rows of the church recognized instantly. It was smooth, arrogant, and distinctly aristocratic. It belonged to Lorenzo Moretti.

The bride’s father.

“Just hit the old man,” the recorded voice of Lorenzo Moretti continued. “Make it look like a drunk driver lost control in the rain. Do it now, before he reaches the corner.”

The recording ended with the screech of tires and a sickening thud.

The silence that followed was heavier than stone. Two hundred and thirty people turned their eyes toward the front pew, where Lorenzo Moretti sat frozen, the color completely drained from his face. Beside him, at the altar, the bride, Isabella Moretti, let out a trembling, choked gasp.

Raphael did not shout. He did not reach inside his tailored charcoal jacket.

He slowly looked at Isabella, the woman he had been prepared to merge empires with. Then, he looked at her father. Raphael’s hand rose to his jaw, his thumb brushing against the thin scar he had carried since he was nineteen years old. The scar from the broken glass. The night his father died.

"You told me it was the Irish who ordered the hit," Raphael said to Lorenzo. His voice was barely a whisper, yet it carried to the back of the church.

Lorenzo stood up, his chair scraping violently against the marble. "Raphael, this is a setup! This is some trick by a crazy cleaning woman—"

Raphael raised one hand. Milo, Raphael's driver, stepped out from the shadows of the side aisle. Three other men moved simultaneously, blocking the exits.

"Milo," Raphael said softly. "Cancel the reception. And lock the doors."