CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR (LUCA'S POV)

The moment the front door creaked open, my heart stuttered in my chest.

My voice had grown hoarse, raw from hours of shouting into phones, cursing at silence. Matteo had paced near the fireplace, tension rippling through his shoulders like waves on choppy waters. He hadn’t sat down once. None of us had.

Now he stood beside me as we watched the figure walk in.

The entire estate was locked down—guards at every corner, drones sweeping rooftops, our tech team on overtime trying to trace a digital ghost.

Eli had vanished.

No signs. No leads. No chatter on the streets. It was like he’d been swallowed whole by the night.

His phone had gone dead. No outgoing calls. No pings. No activity on any of his devices. Even the street cams we hacked into lost him after he passed the third block from Nathan’s building. After that—nothing. Just smoke and static.

We’d feared the worst.

A kidnapping. A hit. A betrayal.

All o