The Don Of The North

Cara woke to the sound of murmured voices, muffled, as if underwater. Her head throbbed, and for a moment, darkness was so complete that she wasn’t even sure if her eyes were open.

She tried to sit up, but a wave of nausea knocked her back down. The floor beneath her was cold. Unyieldingly cold.

Where was she?

She forced her eyes open again, blinking until her vision sharpened. She was in a room; dim, bare, with concrete walls and a single flickering light overhead. There was an iron door to her left, the only exit. Her wrists were bound tightly behind her, cutting into her skin with every movement.

It was freezing. She felt the chill biting into her skin. The air there was different. Crisp. Sharp. Nothing like the warmth of home, Sicily. She knew she was far from home, far from anywhere familiar.

She glanced around, keeping silent and assessing. She kept her face calm. 'Don’t let them see anything,' she told herself. 'Trust no one.'

Footsteps. Slow, deliberate. They came closer. A man stepped out of the shadows. His boots were the type suited for cold, rainy days.

She glanced up to assess him. The man was tall and imposing, dressed in dark clothes with a handsome face as hard as stone. He looked like the pretty hell she’d been envisioning for herself, where she might pay for her sinful life.

The man was studying her, looking down with an expression that seemed to hold something personal… Recognition.

He thought he knew her.

“Agata,” the man said, his voice low and accusing.

Her heart lurched. Agata? Her sister, who was now no more. She stayed silent, forcing herself to breathe steadily. Why was he calling her Agata? Why did he think she was her?

The man moved closer, his face hard, unforgiving. “Do you have any idea of the damage you’ve caused?” His words landed like blows, heavy and loaded with a meaning she didn’t understand. “The way you abused the last hope of trust?”

She opened her mouth but stopped. He thought she was Agata, but she needed answers. She kept her face blank, hiding the confusion and rising anger inside her.

“You disappear without a word after making empty promises months ago, then expect me to find you myself?” The man laughed bitterly. “You underestimate me, Agata.”

It hit her. This wasn’t just any man. His presence... the coldness... the command in his voice. He was someone important. And if he was one of the shark families after them, La Rosas, there was no way she wouldn’t recognize him.

This one was just as strange and unfamiliar as the one who had captured her.

“Agata? Are you even listening?” The man’s voice was cold with impatience.

Her heart pounded. What should she say? That she wasn’t Agata? Maybe, but she didn’t correct him. Right now, she didn’t even know where she was, or why she was there. Keeping her mouth shut might be an advantage.. not just for her, but for her father and the entire La Rosas Famiglia as well.

The man sighed, stepping closer. She caught his scent - surreal, like the ocean. How could one smell like a cold ocean?

His eyes narrowed as he took her in with a blend of anger and resentment.

“You’ve got a lot of nerve playing me.” He stepped back, shaking his head. “You played all of the North for fools, and oh, you’re going to pay for it.”

She kept her expression neutral, hiding her confusion. Her mind raced to piece things together. The North... the cold... Could she be somewhere in northern Italy? Nothing else made sense.

She’d heard the stories. Everyone in the south had. Of the syndicates that ran the north. They didn’t squabble like the gangs in Sicily, each one clawing for a piece of territory. No, up here, they worked like a single machine, every organization answering to one name. Il Noce (The Walnut).

And this man?

His words and the cold look in his eyes told her everything she needed to know. He was one of them.

“Agata,” he said again. This time low and threatening. “I know that look. You’re trying to play innocent, but it won’t work here. Edmondo D' Avi doesn’t tolerate traitors.”

D' Avi.

The name twisted something inside her.

She may have been new to their territory, but she wasn’t blind to the power they held. A power that stretched like vines through every corner of northern Italy, choking everything in its path.

Unlike Sicily’s chaotic mess of alliances and vendettas, Il Noce controlled everything here, and the D' Avi family stood at its core.

Her stomach churned.

This man, he was a son of the D' Avi.

Edmondo D' Avi.

She knew that name. He was the Don. Il Don del Nord. The Don Central of the North.

His voice dropped lower, dripping with contempt. “I thought you were smarter than this, Agata. The firearms, Agata. Where are the guns? And what about the dossiers? The one you promised to get from the Yakuza.”

Cazzo!

Yakuza again?

Fuck Agata!

She gritted her teeth, every instinct screaming to tell him she wasn’t Agata. That she didn’t know what he was talking about. But that wouldn’t have been smart. Not then. He didn’t know who she was yet, and until she knew why she was there, she wasn’t risking anything.

Just then, the door creaked open, and she saw him.

It was the stranger from last night, the one who smelled like mist, the strange bastardo who had ambushed her, tased her, and dragged her out of her father’s territory like she was nothing.

Her muscles tensed instinctively, anger surging up again. But she kept it contained. Barely.

He nodded to the Don, addressing him with a formality that confirmed it; this man was in charge there. “Signore, it’s time.”

The Don gave her one last, icy look before nodding. “Take her back to the blue room.”

She met his gaze, defiant even as she was dragged out of the room. 'Is he blind to not know I’m not Agata? Or is he just plain stupid?'

“Agata, what the hell have you done?”