Page 170 of Double Trouble for the Mafia Prince
My mouth is dry.
"It doesn’t replace power. It...steers it."
We both stare as the next panel loads.
A rotating globe.
Six major cities begin to pulse—Buenos Aires. Brussels. Istanbul. Singapore. Tangier. Kiev. From each, lines radiate outward.
Hundreds of them.
These aren’t just old trade lines.
They’re influence corridors.
My father called them "lanes", I remember now, from the documents I once glimpsed and was never allowed to touch.
He created lanes of leverage.
Through banks.
Through shipping.
Through silence.
Each lane offers a way to direct what cannot be publicly controlled.
Elections. Coups. Regulatory delays.
Even disappearances.
At the heart of it all is a core protocol: voice-activated, blood-bound, accessed only by a Rossi.
I recognize the structure now.
It’s a political labyrinth wrapped in logistical code, built to live off chaos and sustain itself by staying hidden.
The Umbra system wasn’t a failsafe. It was the plan all along.
The moment someone tried to erase us, the entire mechanism would reroute through dead switches and neutral zones, keeping control in Rossi hands even if the name itself vanished.
And I was the key.
I step back from the console.
Dante watches me.
His face is unreadable, but not cold.
"He didn’t plan for this to happen this way, Gianna."
Even now, he is kind to me, my husband, regardless of how his family has bled because of mine.
"No," I say quietly. "Perhaps not."
A silence settles between us.
I turn back to the screen.
