Burning The Syndicate For My Broken Girl

I was the daughter of a powerful Mafia Capo, but behind the grand estate doors, my parents treated me like a defective asset.

My only comfort in this brutal world was a stray kitten named Tangerine.

When my mother found out, she threw my kitten into a dumpster, and my father whipped my back with a heavy metal belt buckle for daring to shed a tear.

I fled to the Syndicate Academy for sanctuary, only to find everyone staring at me in terror.

My mother had weaponized our family's power.

She broadcasted forged medical documents to the entire underworld, diagnosing me with severe schizophrenia and violent delusions.

"She is completely detached from reality," my mother lied to the public.

No one believed my bloody wounds, and the Academy ordered me to be sent back to my abusers to be locked away forever.

I wasn't sick, I was just terrified of them.

Why did a system built on "honor" protect monsters who gaslit their own blood and called it discipline?

Stripped of all hope, I threw myself off the roof of the Academy to escape them.

But my story didn't end when my broken body hit the cold cobblestones.

Floating above my own corpse, I watched Dante, the most ruthless boss in the Syndicate, pick up my fractured phone.

He uncovered the truth, rescued my surviving kitten, and turned his lethal gaze toward my parents.

"I will protect your truth, even if I have to burn this whole city to the ground."

Chapter 1

Anya POV

The veal bled into the porcelain.

My mother had ordered the meat prepared al sangue-barely seared-and the juices, thin and pink, seeped across the white plate like a slow bruise. I watched a single drop slide down the rim and pool against the gold filigree. The sight made my stomach clench, a tight fist of nausea pressing up under my ribs.

My hidden phone vibrated. The buzz traveled through my thigh and up into my chest, a second heartbeat.

I slipped my hand into the pocket of my dress, thumb sliding across the cracked screen. One message. A kitchen boy from our estate, the only servant who still slipped me scraps for the kitten when no one was watching.

Your mother found the orange kitten. I heard her order the guards to dispose of it in a dumpster inside rival territory. I'm so sorry, miss. Run, or you will lose the only thing you love.

My breath stopped.

Not slowed. Stopped. The air locked in my throat, trapped there like a bird with broken wings. The red fluid on the plate blurred and doubled. I stared at it, unblinking, and behind my eyes I saw orange fur, small paws, a round belly that purred against my chest in the dark.

Tangerine.

The fork in my hand rattled against the porcelain rim. Sharp. Brittle. The sound cut through the dining hall like a bone snapping. My fingers convulsed around the silver handle, knuckles straining white. I could feel the tendons in my wrist pulling tight, the ache spreading up into my forearm.

Above us, the patriarch's portrait stared down from its gilded frame. Painted eyes, hollow and black, fixed on my straining fingers. He had built this Syndicate on blood and fear. His descendants had perfected it.

No one spoke.

The silence wasn't empty. It was a living thing-thick, cold, pressing in from all sides. It settled on my shoulders like a weighted coat. I could feel it in my eardrums, a low pressure that made every small sound too loud: the clink of silver against china, the wet shift of my mother's tongue against her teeth.

Camilla slammed down her wine glass.

The crystal base cracked. A hairline fracture snaked up the stem, and a bead of deep red Cabernet slid down the side like blood from a wound.

"Stop that trembling." Her voice sliced through the silence. She didn't look at my face-she looked at my shaking fingers, her upper lip curling back from her teeth. "You pathetic stray. Your depression. Your anxiety." She spat the words like they tasted foul. "Fabricated diseases. Weakness. You bring shame to this bloodline before our honored guest."

I didn't look at the guest. I don't remember who it was. Some associate. Some uncle. It didn't matter. They were all the same.

My legs pushed against the floor. The chair groaned, oak against polish, and the sound echoed through the cavernous hall like a warning.

"I need to go." My voice came out wrong-scraped raw, barely a whisper. Every word burned in my throat.

"Sit down."

My father, Carlo, spoke from the head of the table. He didn't raise his voice. He never needed to. His baritone carried the weight of absolute authority, the kind that had governed his territory and his family with the same closed fist for twenty years.

"I have to go."

The words came out louder this time. I could hear the desperation bleeding through. Tangerine. Three weeks I'd kept him hidden-in a shoebox in my closet at the Academy, lined with my old sweaters. I'd syringe-fed him warm milk every three hours. I'd woken at dawn to clean his tiny messes before my roommate could report the smell. He was the only living creature who looked at me without expectation. Without disgust. Without the cold calculation of what a Mafia princess was worth.

"You are not going anywhere."

Camilla raised one manicured hand and snapped her fingers. The armed soldiers flanking the doors moved in perfect synchronization, stepping inward, blocking the exit. Their hands rested on their holsters. Their faces were blank, empty-carved from the same dark wood as the paneled walls.

"I know about the rat you hid in your room," Camilla said. She examined her nails, a ghost of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. "I ordered the guards to dispose of it. A Capo's daughter does not play with street filth."

The words hit like ice water injected straight into my veins.

"No." The sound tore out of me, raw and animal. My vision swam. Hot pressure built behind my eyes, blurring her face into a smear of pale skin and dark hair. "Please tell me they didn't hurt him. Please. Please, Mom."

The word Mom cracked in half on my tongue.

Camilla laughed. Soft. Hollow. A sound with no warmth behind it, like wind through dead branches.

"You're crying over a cat?" She tilted her head, studying me with the detached curiosity of a child examining a crushed insect. "You're mentally unstable, Anya. You need discipline."

I ran.

I didn't think. I just moved-legs pumping, lungs burning, the side door the only thing in my vision. I made it two paces. Maybe three.

My father's hand closed around a fistful of my hair and yanked me backward.

The pain was instant and blinding. My scalp screamed. My neck snapped back so hard I felt something grind in my cervical spine. The Persian rug rushed up to meet me-thick wool, woven with gold thread, a ten-thousand-dollar family heirloom that smelled of dust and old wine. My tailbone struck first, then my shoulder blades, and the impact jarred every tooth in my skull.

"You disrespect your mother." Carlo's voice came from above me, calm and measured. A judge delivering a sentence. "You disrespect me. You disrespect the Don."

I heard the sound before I understood what it was.

Clink. Metal sliding through leather.

He unbuckled his custom belt-black Italian cowhide, a heavy silver buckle engraved with the family crest. The strap pulled free of the loops with a wet, hissing rasp that sent ice flooding through my stomach. Every muscle in my body locked. The cold started at my spine and spread outward, finger by finger, toe by toe, until my hands were numb and my feet were blocks of lead.

"I'm teaching you loyalty."

The belt whistled.

The buckle hit the center of my back, and the world went white.

I couldn't breathe. The pain was too big for my body to contain-a supernova blooming between my shoulder blades, radiating outward in waves of liquid fire. The thin silk of my dress split open. Cold air hit wet, exposed flesh. A second later, I felt the heat of my own blood sliding down my skin, slow and thick, tracing the ridges of my spine.

I curled into a ball. My teeth sank into my lower lip, deep, and the taste of copper flooded my tongue. I would not scream. I would not. His enforcers stood like caryatids against the walls, their faces blank, their eyes empty. To them, this wasn't a girl being beaten. This was a defective asset being corrected. They didn't see me. They never had.

He hit me again.

Lower this time, across the ribs. I felt something crack-a thin, sharp snap that echoed inside my chest. The second blow hurt worse than the first. The third stole the breath I'd managed to draw.

"Look at her." Camilla's voice floated somewhere above me. The click of her heels circled my prone body, slow and deliberate. I heard her kneel, felt her fingers slide into my pocket. "Secret phones. Fake illnesses. Disobedience."

She pulled out the burner. I watched through blurred vision as she stood, raised her heel-red-soled Louboutin, six inches, sharp as a blade-and brought it down.

The first stomp spiderwebbed the glass.

The second crushed it inward with a sickening crunch. The phone's frame bent, the motherboard inside cracking audibly-a sharp, final snap of dying electronics.

I felt the tiny vibration through the hardwood floor. A death rattle. The screen flickered once, a weak pulse of light, then went dark.

Before she could kick the shattered pieces away, I lunged. My fingers closed around the broken device, the cracked glass biting into my palm. I shoved it deep into my pocket, pressing it against my thigh, feeling the faint warmth of the dying battery against my skin. Even broken, it was proof. It had to be proof.

My father wrapped the belt around his knuckles. The leather creaked, stretched over his heavy fists.

"Get up." His voice was flat. No anger. No heat. Just cold, mechanical command. "We're going to your uncle's house. You will smile. You will apologize to the family for your disgusting behavior tonight. And you will mean it."

I pressed my bleeding palm against the dead phone in my pocket. Somewhere across the city, a tiny orange kitten was alone in the dark. And no one was coming to save either of us.