The Principessa’s Mafia Trial: From A Stripped Bride To A Crimson Queen Chapter 08
The Iron Beasts
One hundred black industrial tank trucks rolled in, each one fitted with a high-pressure nozzle.
They drove through the broken walls from every side, engines roaring.
The ground shook so hard the wine glasses on the head table rattled off and smashed.
Falcone soldiers scattered. Some ran for the gates. Some pressed against the walls.
A few raised their guns, but Cain’s men had already disarmed them.
Dominic stood in the center of the courtyard, wine dripping from his jaw, watching the trucks surround him.
“What the hell is this?” he breathed.
Cain walked past him without answering. He climbed onto the lead truck and pulled himself up to the cannon platform. One of his men handed him a headset.
He looked down at Dominic.
“You wanted to play with liquid, Falcone.” He flicked the ignition switch on the main pump. “Let me show you what real pressure feels like.”
The cannon nozzles on all one hundred trucks rotated into position. But the liquid inside these tanks wasn’t wine.
Fermented grape concentrate. Raw. Undiluted. Thick enough to burn skin on contact and stain anything it touched for months.
Dominic finally understood.
“Wait—”
“Too late for that.”
Cain looked at me.
I was standing near the lead truck, still wrapped in his ruined coat, still covered in wine and blood. One of his men had helped me to my feet. Another had offered me water. I’d refused it.
I didn’t want water.
I wanted justice.
“Vivian,” Cain said. His voice carried across the courtyard. “Your call.”
Every truck waited for my order.
I looked at Dominic.
He was still standing in the middle of the courtyard, Lucia clutched to his side.
His soldiers were pinned against the walls. His gates were rubble. His estate was surrounded.
“Vivian,” Dominic said. His voice had changed. Softer now. Careful. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Now you want to talk?”
“I went too far. I admit it. But this—” He gestured at the trucks. “This is insane. You’ll start a war.”
“You started it the second you put me on my knees.”
Lucia pulled at Dominic’s arm. “Dom, do something! Tell her to stop!”
Dominic ignored her. He took a step toward me, hands raised.
“Vivian, I’m sorry. Okay? I said it. I’m sorry. Now call them off.”
I studied his face. I had loved that face for eight years. I had trusted every promise that came out of his mouth.
He did not look sorry. Just scared.
He wasn’t sorry. He was scared.
“Give me back the necklace,” I said.
Dominic spun toward Lucia. “Give it to her.”
Lucia’s hand flew to her throat. “What? No! Dom, you said—”
“Give it to her now!”
Lucia’s lips trembled. She unclasped the Cavallo Heart with shaking fingers and held it out.
I didn’t take it.
“Put it on the ground,” I said.
She dropped it. The pendant clinked against the wet stone.
I picked it up and closed my fist around it.
The white gold was still warm from her skin. I hated that.
I turned to Cain and nodded once.
He didn’t hesitate.
“All units,” he said into the headset. “Fire.”
One hundred cannons erupted at once.
The sound was deafening. The force was unreal. Dark red concentrate blasted from every nozzle with brutal force.
Falcone soldiers went flying. Tables flipped. Chairs shattered. The head table where Dominic had sat all night splintered into pieces.
Red concentrate covered the courtyard in seconds.
And I stood at the edge of it, dry, watching every single one of them fall.
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