The Viper Donna：Stepmother’s Mafia Justice Chapter 04
The Silent Scream
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
The mansion kept me awake. Wind hit the windows. Pipes knocked behind the walls.
At two a.m., I got up for water. Barefoot, I walked down the hall.
Leo’s room was at the end of the hall. I almost walked past it.
Then I heard the crying.
Muffled and choked. The kind of crying a child keeps quiet because loud crying gets punished.
I stopped.
A second voice. Older. A boy’s voice. Cruel and low.
“Shut up. Shut UP. You want me to tell my mom? She’ll lock you in the basement again.”
My hand found the doorknob.
I didn’t knock.
The door swung open and I saw it all at once.
Marco, Elena’s nine-year-old son, was sitting on Leo’s chest.
One hand pinned Leo’s wrist to the mattress. The other held a lit cigarette inches from Leo’s face.
Leo wasn’t fighting back. He lay there stiff, tears running into his hair, jaw clenched tight.
He wasn’t fighting because he’d been taught that fighting back made things worse.
Marco looked at me. He looked annoyed, not scared.
“Get out,” he said. “This isn’t your business.”
I crossed the room in three steps.
Grabbed Marco by the back of his shirt.
Lifted him clean off Leo’s body.
He kicked and squirmed. “Let go of me! My mom’s gonna kill you!”
I dragged him to the balcony door, shoved it open, and dumped him onto the second-floor terrace.
He landed on the outdoor couch. Not injured. Just terrified.
I locked the balcony door.
He pounded on the glass. “LET ME IN! I’M TELLING MY MOM!”
“Go ahead,” I said through the glass. “Tell her I said hi.”
I turned back to Leo.
He was sitting up now, shaking.
He wiped his face fast, trying to hide the tears before I could mention them.
I sat on the edge of his bed.
“How long?” I asked.
He didn’t answer.
“Leo. How long has he been doing this?”
His voice came out cracked. “Since I was seven.”
Three years of this, and nobody had stopped it.
“Why didn’t you fight back?”
He looked down. “Aunt Elena said if I ever hurt Marco, she’d tell my dad I was violent. She said he’d send me away. That I’d never see Mia again.”
My hands went cold.
That woman had used Mia to control him.
I leaned forward. “Leo. Look at me.”
He looked.
“A Moretti man can die fighting. But he does not lie on his back and take it. You understand me?”
He blinked.
“Marco touches you again, you break his hand. I don’t care if Elena screams. I don’t care if Nonna faints. You break it, and then you come find me. I’ll handle the rest.”
“But—”
“No. No buts. You are not a punching bag. You are Dominic Moretti’s son. The only person in this house who gets to decide your future is you. Not Elena. Not her brat. You.”
He looked at me for a long time.
Then, slowly, he nodded.
I pulled his blanket up. “Go to sleep. I’ll be right outside.”
I stood in the hallway for the next hour, arms crossed, back against the wall.
At some point, Marco stopped banging on the balcony door. He curled up on the outdoor couch and fell asleep.
Good.
Let him learn fear for one night.
By morning, Elena was pounding on my bedroom door.
“WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON? HE WAS OUTSIDE ALL NIGHT! HE COULD HAVE DIED!”
I opened the door. Still in my robe. Coffee in hand.
“Your son was burning mine with a cigarette,” I said. “Be grateful I only put him on a balcony.”
Her face went white. Then red.
“If you ever touch my child again—”
“If your child ever touches mine again, a balcony will be the least of his problems.”
She opened her mouth.
I shut the door in her face.
Behind me, I heard something I had never heard in this house.
Leo was laughing.
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