The laughter only grew louder.
"Rosalia, have you completely lost your mind?" Sal Vecchio laughed so hard he slapped the table, his tongue darting across his lower lip.
"If you're La Regina, then I must be Don Aurelio Ferrante himself, head of the Ferrante Empire!"
"That's right! That's right!" Others quickly joined in, treating me like a joke.
"If you're La Regina, we'll eat shit right in front of you!"
I swept my gaze over them, my lips curling into a slow, scornful smile. "Aurelio Ferrante is my father, not some ignorant fools like you."
Their laughter faltered for half a second, but I wasn't done. "You don't believe me? Of course you don't. Trash like you, who do nothing but spew garbage and blindly follow the crowd, must be used to eating shit every day."
My words struck a nerve and the room erupted in fury.
"Believe you? Believe that you're nothing but a whore who slept her way to the top?" The crowd's laughter swelled, the back room descending into chaos, their ridicule ringing off the paneled walls.