I didn't know how long I'd been staring at the papers scattered across the desk. Minutes? Hours? The numbers blurred together. The words, too. Everything felt like it was spinning out of control, but it was all undeniable. My hands trembled as I flipped through each file, each page revealing more than I ever wanted to know. My father. My own flesh and blood. A man I had trusted with everything I was. Everything I thought I could be. And yet, here it was. Evidence. Corruption. Dark deals. He wasn’t the man I thought he was. I gripped the edge of the desk, steadying myself. But it didn’t help. My pulse was erratic, my breath shallow as I sifted through photo after photo, some from the day I was born. I didn't recognize it at first—at first, I thought it was just a photo from some family gathering. But then I saw the faces behind me. Different kids. Too many of them. Too many unfamiliar faces that didn’t belong. I blinked hard, trying to force the image away, but it stayed. I h
I didn’t expect to feel it. Not now. Not after everything that’s happened. But there it was—the unmistakable weight of betrayal pressing down on my chest. My heart pounded in my ears as Matteo spoke, the words too much to handle. “Rafael lied to me, Amara,” Matteo’s voice was low, tight. He stood across the room, his fingers drumming against the back of a chair. “He told me your father was the mastermind. That killing him would put an end to this. But I think he set your father up.” The words were like a blow to my stomach. I stumbled back, the cold air around us suddenly suffocating. It felt like the ground beneath me had cracked open, pulling me deeper into something I was never meant to be a part of. “Set him up?” I asked, barely able to form the words. “But why?” Matteo’s jaw clenched as if the answer hurt him too. “I don’t know. But your father wasn’t just some henchman, Amara. He had something more important than just his name on the line. And Rafael—he’s been playing bo
The night was silent except for the faint rustling of the wind outside, carrying with it the scent of rain. I sat in the dimly lit bunker, my legs pulled up to my chest, the cold concrete pressing against my skin. My heart felt like a stone lodged deep in my throat, suffocating me.I had died today. Or at least, the world thought I had.The car crash had been staged perfectly—a fiery explosion that left nothing but ash. Matteo had been the grieving man, the one caught in the middle of it all. He had cried on camera, his emotions raw and public, while I sat in the shadows, hidden away in a place that no one could find. It was all too much, too much to process. How could anyone live in a world where everything, even death, was fabricated?I pushed myself off the floor, my eyes scanning the dimly lit room. The cold walls, the old furniture—it all looked so familiar, as if it had been waiting for me all this time. Matteo had prepared this place long ago, anticipating the possibility of so
The morning light crept through the cracked stained-glass windows of the abandoned cathedral, casting colorful streaks across the dusty floor. I could hear the faint rustling of fabric, the quiet footsteps of someone moving through the shadows. My breath was caught somewhere between anticipation and dread, but there was no turning back now. I had come this far—too far, perhaps. I stepped inside, my heart hammering, but I refused to let fear control me. I had to face this. Whatever this was. And then I saw him. Lazaro Reyes. He stood in the center of the room, his silhouette framed by the sun filtering through the stained glass. His face was sharp, cold—too much like the stories I had heard growing up. The leader of one of the most dangerous syndicates in the world, the very man I had been taught to hate. But there was something different about him now, something that made my chest tighten. Lazaro’s eyes locked onto mine, and for a moment, the world around me faded into nothing. I
The air was thick with tension. Every step I took felt like it echoed in the silent room, my shoes clicking sharply against the polished floors. The walls were adorned with dark, intricate paintings—power, money, blood—they seemed to mock me. I wasn’t just in Lazaro Reyes’ territory now. I was standing on the precipice of a world I had only heard about in whispers, a world where people like me didn’t belong. Lazaro stood at the other end of the room, his back to me, looking out over the city. The view was stunning—everything below looked like it was mine for the taking. I swallowed the lump in my throat, wondering just how deep this game went. “You've come a long way, Amara,” Lazaro said, his voice smooth and measured. “And now, you're in a position to make choices. The choices you never had.” I took a step forward, resisting the urge to turn and walk right back out. This wasn’t some simple meeting. This was an offer. A dangerous, seductive offer. “I don’t need your pity,” I said,
The room was quiet except for the steady hum of the ceiling fan above us, its rhythmic whirr doing little to calm the tension in the air. My heart was racing, a storm of confusion swirling in my chest as Matteo stood before me, his usual confident demeanor replaced with a rare vulnerability. I couldn’t help but notice how his hand twitched at his side, a gesture that betrayed the calm he was trying to project. The weight of the conversation hanging between us was too heavy. It had been too heavy since the moment he told me about the blood contract. “Amara…” Matteo started, his voice low, measured. “You need to understand something. This blood contract—it was forged, against my will. Rafael forced me to sign it. Tortured me until I didn’t have a choice.” I blinked, struggling to process his words. “Tortured you? But you’re the one who…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say. The lies, the manipulation, everything I had known about him felt like a cruel joke. “I had no choice,” he co
The air inside the bunker tasted stale, heavy like it was soaked with grief I was still trying to swallow. I pulled the sleeves of my jacket over my hands, staring blankly at the cracked floor. There was a war outside, a silent one, moving like a shadow across the city.And Matteo Vergara was playing the part of the broken man.I saw glimpses of it on the small TV in the corner. His black suit. His bloodshot eyes. His voice shaking as he gave statements to the media. The world mourned for him, the heartbroken fiancé who had lost everything in one cruel twist of fate.Except none of it was real.I was still here. Hiding. Breathing. Burning from the inside out."You ready?" a deep voice asked from the doorway.I turned my head and saw Nico leaning against the frame, arms crossed, a small smirk playing on his lips. He was one of Matteo’s trusted men, someone who had been with him long before all this chaos started."As ready as I'll ever be," I said, pushing myself to my feet.The past f
Matteo’s POVThe rain had started again. Not the kind that invited umbrellas or window-side poems—this was the cold, punishing kind, the kind that made everything feel heavier than it already was.I sat in the backseat of the black Escalade, silent as the engine idled near the dockyard. Nico was in the driver’s seat, hands on the wheel, eyes watching the storm.He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. We both knew what tonight was. Not a truce. Not a conversation.A reckoning.“You sure about this?” Nico finally asked, voice low.“No,” I said, and meant it.He gave me a look in the rearview mirror, then turned off the engine.We walked the rest of the way.The abandoned warehouse stood like a beast’s carcass—stripped, skeletal, looming. Inside, only one overhead bulb flickered above a steel table, two chairs waiting like vultures.He was already there. Rafael Aragon. Wearing black gloves, sipping from a paper cup like he wasn’t the one who had just pulled strings that nearly end
I wasn’t planning to break anything today. Not locks. Not rules. Not even my own promises. But there I was, standing in front of a door Matteo had explicitly told me never to open. The red room. It wasn’t just locked. It was sealed like a secret. Like it was guarding something so dangerous, even the walls didn’t want to remember. But I needed answers. Not whispers. Not warnings. Real ones. So I picked the lock. The click echoed in the hallway. It sounded too loud, too final. But I pushed the door open anyway. The first thing that hit me was the smell. Dust. Paper. Something older than time. The room was windowless. Red velvet curtains hung on the walls even without windows to cover, and the light was dim, coming from a single bulb swaying slightly from the ceiling. I stepped inside, and the air shifted. The room wasn’t a bedroom or a library. It was something else. A vault of memory. A shrine. Or maybe a crime scene. There were filing cabinets. Stacks of boxes. Shelves filled
The house was quiet in a way that didn’t feel peaceful. It was the kind of silence that pressed on your chest, like it knew what you were hiding. Like it was waiting for you to remember something you'd rather forget. Matteo was resting in the guest room on the lower floor, heavily bandaged and sedated. Rue was with him, sitting in the corner with a book she wasn’t really reading. She'd been shot too, but Rue had always treated pain like it was a mosquito bite—annoying, but not enough to slow her down. I climbed the stairs slowly, each creak of the wood loud in the stillness. Matteo's family house was old. The walls held secrets, and the air was thick with stories no one had finished telling. I wasn’t even sure why I ended up in his old room. Maybe I was looking for a distraction. Maybe I was trying to remember a version of him before the blood, the war, and the hurt. Maybe I just wanted to feel close to him while I still could. The room was cleaner than I expected. There was a
The first shot missed. The second almost didn’t. I heard it before I felt it—the whistle of death slicing through the air, the splinter of stone beside my head as the bullet embedded itself in the wall. Dust exploded near my cheek. "Stay down!" I screamed at Matteo, dragging his heavy body behind the fallen column. His blood smeared across my palms, sticky and warm, like a promise that kept breaking every time I tried to hold on. Another shot rang out. This one hit metal. Sparks. Sniper. I was trained to recognize the rhythm, the way death hums just before it sings. Rafael wasn’t just taunting us. He was orchestrating it like music. A symphony of destruction. And we were the finale. Matteo groaned. "You need to leave me." "Don’t you dare say that." He blinked, dazed. His shirt was soaked through with red. His lips pale. The blood loss was catching up. "We’re not both making it out," he said softly. "Then neither of us is leaving." Our radios were dead. Our allies scattered
The sound of the gunshot echoed louder than my heartbeat. But it wasn’t pain I felt. It was warmth. Not mine. Blood sprayed across my cheek like a kiss from death. Not mine. “Matteo!” He had stepped in front of me. I caught him before he hit the floor, his body heavy, his knees giving out like they had no more strength to fight. His arms tried to hold on to me, but they slipped, and then I was holding all of him, trembling, trying to press against the wound like I could stop the bleeding with sheer will. Lazaro staggered back, his face frozen in shock. “No,” he whispered. “That wasn’t—” “You shot him,” I said. My voice cracked, not from fear, but fury. “You shot him!” His hand was still on the gun. Still trembling. Still aimed. Matteo coughed, blood leaking past his lips like ink from a dying pen. “I’m fine,” he said. But it was a lie. His eyes were already unfocused. “You’re not,” I whispered, pressing both hands on his chest. “Don’t lie to me.” The world around us ha
The sky wasn’t just burning—it was screaming. Flames licked the skyline as smoke spiraled upward like curses cast in ash. Buildings groaned under the weight of war. Sirens wailed far away, too far, like they knew this fight wasn’t theirs to stop. Matteo gripped my hand as we darted through shattered glass and fallen walls, bullets rattling like hail on concrete. We weren’t running from something. We were charging straight into it. "Go low!" he shouted, pulling me behind a flipped SUV. I dropped to the ground just in time to feel a bullet split the air above my head. The scent of oil and blood clung to the dirt, thick and choking. "They hit the southern line first," Emil's voice crackled through Matteo's comm. "Rafael's forces are splitting, but Lazaro's are on the move. It's chaos." "Good," Matteo replied coldly. "Let them burn each other. We'll clean the rest." We moved like shadows through the wreckage. Matteo took lead, always just ahead, always checking my back. He didn’t s
War is a pact of fire. We sign it in blood and light it with a match. I should be afraid. But I’m not. I sit in the war room of the Crimson Line's hidden compound, a place that smells like gunpowder, sweat, and dying prayers. Across from me sits Elias—traitor, father, ghost. The silence between us is louder than bombs. "You’re insane," I say. Elias shrugs. "Probably. But I’m offering you the only shot at winning. Rafael is coming. He wants Matteo’s head and your ashes. I can give him something bigger." "The Vergara estate." He nods. "We let him win. We let him walk in. Then we bury him in it. One click. One explosion. End of story." I study him. The years have turned his face into stone, and grief has hollowed him out. I don’t trust him. But sometimes, you make peace with the devil to burn a worse one. "And after?" I ask. "I disappear. You rebuild. Matteo lives." He stands to leave, but I stop him. "He’s going to kill you," I say quietly. Elias pauses. "Let him try. I’ve g
The silence was deafening. The kind that doesn’t just settle into your ears—it crawls into your bones. For the first time in weeks, no one spoke. No one dared to. We just stared at each other, faces half-lit by the low hanging bulbs of the safehouse, the weight of Matteo’s decision heavy in the air. He had snapped. Not loudly. Not with guns or fury. He broke quietly. Like glass left too long in a fire, beautiful until it just… cracked. “I’m done holding back,” Matteo finally said. I looked up from the blueprints spread across the table. “What are you saying?” He didn’t answer right away. He just walked over, placed Rafael’s video message in the center of the table, and hit play again. His brother’s muffled cries filled the room. Everyone flinched. “This—” Matteo pointed at the screen, “—this is the line. The last f*cking line.” No one argued. Not eve
Betrayal has a sound.It isn’t loud. It doesn’t announce itself with crashing glass or bullets through walls.It whispers.And tonight, I heard it.The whisper of footsteps where there shouldn’t be any. The creak of a hinge. The breath someone holds when they think they’re alone.We had grown too comfortable. Too confident in our shadows and secrets. And now, those same shadows were bleeding.It was Elias.Matteo’s right hand.The one who stood beside him in every war, every negotiation, every moment where death leaned in too close. The one who had once pulled Matteo out of a burning car with a bullet in his shoulder and a snarl on his face.And he was the one leaking information.I didn’t tell anyone at first. I watched.I watched him excuse himself just before major meetings. I watched his phone light up in the middle of blackout drills. I watched him brush off questions with too muc
I had barely stepped into the damp, echoing silence of the abandoned warehouse when the weight of what was about to happen hit me. My breath caught, chest tight with something I couldn’t name. The smell of iron and old leather lingered in the air, mixing with the faint scent of gunpowder that had almost become synonymous with my life.Matteo Monteverde stood just a few steps ahead, his posture tense but resolute. His eyes were trained on the dark figure ahead of us, waiting. Watching. Calculating.Rafael Aragon.We had tracked him here. This was it. The moment we had prepared for. The moment Matteo had sworn would end with blood on his hands. Rafael had pushed too far this time. He had killed too many of us. Torn families apart, burned lives to the ground. There was no turning back now.But as I watched Matteo take a slow step forward, I saw something in his eyes. A hesitation. A flicker of something I hadn’t expected.“I thought this wou