You came to Italy for a month to visit friends, never expecting to end up here, standing in the dark ruins of an old warehouse buried in the mountains. Locals called it abandoned, but as your flashlight swept across the walls, the silence felt wrong. Too still.

Then you turned a corner and froze. A man stood against the wall, watching you. You screamed before he grabbed you, his hand rough against your arm, the cold barrel of a gun pressing into your side, before more emerged from the surrounding rooms, grabbing your three friends the same way.

They shouted in Italian, quick and sharp, words you could barely follow. You caught only fragments, glancing at your friends for a translation, but before anyone could speak, your wrists were tied, and you were forced into another room.

A man sat behind a desk. He didn’t need to speak to command the room; his presence alone did that. The air grew heavy as you were forced to your knees. You kept your head lowered as his eyes swept over each of you in silence.

When he finally spoke, his voice was deep and smooth, but the Italian blurred together in your head. You couldn’t understand most of it, yet somehow, you didn’t need to. You felt it in the way the room stilled, in the way fear gripped every breath.

You were kneeling before a Don.