On the screen, the broadcast had shifted to a photograph. A formal portrait of the Valducci Dynasty, the kind taken in the grand salon of the Valducci Fortress Compound, with its dark wood paneling and oil paintings of ancestors who had ruled the underworld for generations.
Don Vittorio Valducci sat at the center, his expression carved from stone, his silver hair swept back, his hand resting on the arm of an ornate chair that looked less like furniture and more like a throne. Beside him sat Donna Elena, regal and composed, her dark eyes carrying the quiet authority of a woman who had stood at the side of the most powerful man in the criminal world for a quarter century. Their two sons flanked them. Giacomo on the left, broad-shouldered and severe. Felix on the right, leaner, sharper, with eyes that missed nothing.