I looked outwards at the sea of people, that all contained my loyal men and women, and I coughed, causing the room to fall to silence and all heads to turn to me. It was time to rally the forces.

"You all know Sav, well, she is a part of this family. She is an honorary Russo. My mother, Donna, sees her like one of her own, my brothers and sister see her as a sister and I... I see her as something more. What happens if someone kills a Russo?" I shouted. There were various cries out, like death, torture etc.

"Do you know who ordered her death? DOMENICO, the scumbag Domenico." There was a roar of anger throughout the room, and the slamming of hands on the table.

"If someone kills a Russo, we torture them, we kill them in the most inhumane way there is," I yelled, and cheers erupted around me. "We cannot let Domenico and his men treat us this way, can we?"

"NO," they all yelled.

"We deserve to be on top, not a woman-beating, child-smuggling, innocent-killing beast who kills and hurts for the fun of it, without a real reason why!"

"YEAH," they shouted back to me.

"Tonight, the head of a Bosnian company of assassins (Haris Velic) and all his employees, and the head of the Bosnian mafia (Nasir Velic) and all of his men are arriving. Tomorrow, Aleksander Koltun, head of the Polish mafia is arriving. When they arrive, we will make a plan, and we will take what is rightfully ours!"

"YEAH!"

"And we will find Domenico, and all his men that have done cruel things, and we will kill them. Now, I want you to scour the CCTV footage, follow his car, and find that dickhead. Get a good night's sleep tonight, you will need your energy for this war!"

There were cheers and 'woops' and 'yeahs' and all sorts of 'hoots' and clapping, and everyone was hyped up for the war, which is exaclty how I wanted them to be.

Once they had left and I was back with my capos, we discussed where all these people would stay, and decided on renting out the entirety of one of my hotels, also offering rooms in my house to the likes of Haris, Nasir and Aleksander, and a few others if they wanted. I told the maids to get everything ready, and called up the hotel to prepare for the arrival, and to move everyone currently in the hotel into rooms in my other hotels in Rome, paying only the same price as the original room and having a discount on food and their next booking.

There were still two hours until Haris and Nasir arrived, and my mother saw this gap as an opportunity to drag me into the kitchen and cook lunch with her; I guess she wanted to spend time with me or something. We chatted as we cooked about all sorts, she told me how she had a nice evening last night meeting up with some of her girl-friends, and she told me how she missed me, and she asked after Sav, and I suddenly realised I had asked her to stay with Sav, but she told me Loretta was there still. I was slightly irritated, but I moved on quickly.

After lunch, I decided I would visit the hospital, to see Sav before I had to spend the whole evening being a good host. When I walked into the hospital, I saw Loretta was sitting in the soft-seating area outside the intensive care unit.

"Why aren't you next to her?" I hissed.

She held up her hands in defence. "Someone else came."

"And you let them?!"

"She said they knew eachother, and she wanted time with her, so I left them to it," she replied.

I grunted, but then softened. "Hey, I'm sorry you didn't really have as big of an eighteenth birthday as you hoped for... we will make it up though," I smiled at her and she smiled at me back.

I turned and went into the ward. Next to Sav's bed was a woman, who looked a similar age to Sav, with a long bob of jet-black hair, which looked really silky, and I noticed not a single hair was out of place. She turned to look at me, and I made eye contact with her cat-like eyes. I felt like she was seeing right into my soul, and I felt like confessing to things I had never done. She was wearing, what was obviously, a classic white Chanel suit, with the black accents that matched her hair, but contrasted against the white, and there was a Chanel logo pin attached to her left breast. She wore a pair of red Louboutins, and black chanel bag, with a quilted outside and a handle at the top. I noticed she had great posture, and sat completely upright in the chair.

"Hello," stood up the woman, holding out her hand, "you must be Don Sandrino."

I shook her hand, "and you are?"

"Nadia. I'm... basically like a sister to Savannah," she said forlornly, looking over at Sav.

"Savannah?" I asked.

"Oh, did she use a different name?" Nadia looked at me questioningly.

"She just said her name was Sav," I replied.

"Ah," she gave a slight smile, "so tell me who did this," her eyes turned to pure rage and burned with fury, but the rest of her facial expression didn't change, "because I want to... I want to kill them, in a cruel, dark way, to put it simply."

"Who are you?" I asked, confused, she didn't seem just like a friend.

"I run the company of assassins in London, Savannah is my closest... only friend, and she is one of my employees. You must already know she is the Thorned Rose hm? I knew her since she was very young, we trained together, although I was later to starting than her. She is an amazing assassin," she turned her head to look at me, "so who did this?"

"A man called Domenico..." I explained the whole story to her, who Domenico was, what had happened, what was about to happen, and afterwards she nodded her head.

"I want in," she stated, plain and simple.

"I- I don't know..."

"It was a statement, not a question. Now, take me to your home and introduce me to everyone. I will call my best women and men to fly out now." Nadia walked over to Sav, kissed her on the forehead, whispered something inaudible in her ear, picked up her bag and turned to me. "Lead the way." I quickly went over to Sav and held her hand for a few moments, before turning and heading out. As I passed Loretta, I told her to go back, and to call mum if she wanted a break. She smiled and headed back in.

By the time I got back, Haris, Nasir and a handful of, what I assumed were, their men were sat with my capos and my twin brothers, chatting away. They looked up at me, and I was just about to introduce my company, when Haris shot up, "Nadia!" he exclaimed, running over to hug her. I guess they are friends.

"Hello everyone, I am Nadia," she said with a straight face and a monotonous voice.

"Ah Nadia, always so serious my dear," joked Haris, she shot him a warning glare, before smiling at him. Weird relationship they have, but okay. "This is Nadia," started Haris, "she is the me of the UK," when some people looked confused, he explained further, "just like I run a company of assassins in Bosnia, she runs one from the UK. I contacted her to get an assassin to help kill an evil man terrorising and murdering my employees, and she sent the Thorned Rose, Anastasia."

"Anastasia?" Nadia turned around confused.

"Yes, that's what she announced herself as, Anastasia Hills," replied Haris.

"Well, it is Savannah. Anastasia is an alias name," Nadia corrected.

"Savannah what?" asked Haris. Nadia glared at him and he shut up. Nasir stood up and shook Nadia's hand, "thank you for sending her, whatever her real name is, she saved my daughter's life." Nadia smiled, slightly, and welcomed him.

"What the fuck is going on?" exclaimed Mateo, who was clearly very confused.

"Yeah someone needs to fuckin explain, now," added Romeo, also very confused.

"You two are so slow," laughed Rico.

"Nadia runs a business of assassins from the UK, Haris runs a business of assassins in Bosnia. An ex-assassin from Haris' company started killing other assassins from the company. Haris called Nadia to get an assassin of hers, preferably Savannah, which is her full first name by the way, as she is the Thorned Rose, but no one else knew she was the Thorned Rose, to go to Bosnia and kill the man, which she did. She killed the man successfully, in the kitchen of a lady called Ajla, as the ex-assassin was about to kill her, her wife and their child. Ajla is Nasir's daughter. Haris and Nasir are brothers. When we went to visit Bosnia to get Haris and Nasir to join us, Sav used an alias name, Anastasia Hills, because she is very secretive about who knows about her name, and even we only knew her as Sav until I met Nadia in the hospital, who told me her name was Savannah. Anything I missed?" I explained, turning to look at Haris, Nadia and Nasir, who shook their heads.

"Thank you," sighed Romeo, leaning back in his chair.

"Now, as you showed me your culture's food when I was in your house, today, you experience mine," I said, "follow me."

We ate in the larger dining room because there were so many of us, and the table was covered with various foods, like minestrone, ciabatta, foccacias, various pizzas, different types of pasta dishes, including gnocchi and a lasagne, three types of risotto, various meat dishes and a whole array of vegetables. Then for dessert we had cannolis, fruit, ice cream, panna cotta, zuppa inglese, and my favourite, tiramisu. I swear I saw Nadia and Dimitri flirting, but I assumed it was just the alcohol and I shook the thoughts away.

After dinner we all sat in the main living room again, stuffed with food, and we drank until we decided to go to bed.