Chapter 5: The Weight of the Crown

The red dot of the laser sight danced across Elena’s chest, settling right over her heart. Marco’s face was a mask of cold professionalism. In the chaotic vacuum of a power struggle, the enforcer had realized that a dead Moretti legacy was worth more to the rival Rossi family than a living one was to a crumbling Don.

"Marco, wait," Elena gasped, her hands instinctively shielding her stomach. "Lorenzo will skin you alive. You know what he does to traitors."

"Lorenzo is a ghost," Marco sneered, his finger tightening on the trigger. "He just doesn't know he’s dead yet. And the boy? He’s a bastard with a hero complex. The Rossis pay in gold, not in 'loyalty'."

The silenced thud of a gunshot echoed in the narrow corridor.

Elena braced for the impact, her eyes slamming shut. But the pain didn't come. Instead, she heard the heavy, wet thud of a body hitting the floorboards. She opened her eyes to see Marco slumped against the wall, a neat, dark hole blooming in the center of his forehead.

Dante stood at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the flickering orange glow of the fires spreading below. He looked like he had crawled out of hell. His face was smeared with soot and blood, his shirt torn open, and he held a heavy tactical pistol with a steady, practiced hand.

"I told you," Dante panted, his voice a raw friction of exhaustion and adrenaline. "Trust the dark."

He reached her in three long strides, grabbing her hand. His grip was frantic, his skin burning. "We have to move. Now. The garage is surrounded, but the old service tunnel under the wine cellar is clear. My men—the ones who didn't flip—are waiting on the other side of the ridge."

"My mother, Dante! I can’t leave her!"

Dante paused, his jaw tightening. He looked toward the study where the sounds of shouting and gunfire were intensifying. "Lorenzo has her. He’s using her as a human shield because he knows I’m coming for him. If we go back for her now, we all die. If we get out, we have leverage."

"No!" Elena pulled her hand away. "He’ll kill her the moment he realizes I’m gone! I did all of this to save her, Dante! I won't let her be the price for my escape!"

Dante looked at her, and for a second, the predatory light in his eyes flickered. He saw the girl who had married a monster to buy a heart surgery, not the "Queen" he wanted to sit beside him on a stolen throne.

"Fine," he hissed. "Wait in the cellar. If I’m not back in five minutes, take the tunnel and don't look back."

The study was a tomb of mahogany and broken glass.

Lorenzo Moretti sat behind his desk, the heavy revolver resting in his palm. He looked remarkably calm, even as the smoke from the hallway began to curl under the door. Elena’s mother, frail and wide-eyed with terror, was sat in a chair beside him.

The door didn't burst open; it was kicked off its hinges.

Dante stepped into the room, his weapon leveled at the man who had raised him.

"End of the line, 'Father'," Dante said.

"Is it?" Lorenzo asked, his voice chillingly steady. He didn't raise his gun. He simply looked at the monitor on his desk, which was still running on emergency battery. It showed the perimeter of the estate. "The police are four minutes away, Dante. I called them myself. A 'terrorist' attack on my home. When they arrive, they will find a rogue son who murdered his father and his father’s wife. I’ll be the tragic survivor. You’ll be a headline."

"You’d kill her too?" Dante gestured to Elena's mother.

"She is a witness," Lorenzo said simply. "And in our world, witnesses are liabilities."

Dante’s finger twitched on the trigger. He could end it now. He could kill the man who lied to him, take the keys, and run. But he heard a floorboard creak behind him.

Elena hadn't stayed in the cellar.

She stood in the doorway, clutching a heavy glass decanter she had grabbed from the hall. Her eyes weren't on Dante, and they weren't on Lorenzo. They were on her mother.

"Lorenzo," she said, her voice echoing in the smoke-filled room. "You said you loved me because I was pure. Because I wasn't like the others."

Lorenzo’s gaze shifted to her, his expression softening just a fraction. "I did, Elena. You were my peace."

"Then let her go," she pleaded, stepping into the room. "Let them both go. If you want a legacy, take me. I’ll stay. I’ll tell the police Dante kidnapped me. I’ll tell the world the baby is yours. I will live in this cage forever and never speak his name again. Just... let my mother live."

Dante whirled around, his face contorted. "Elena, no! You don't know what you're saying!"

"I know exactly what I'm saying," she whispered, her eyes locked on Lorenzo.

The Don looked at his wife, then at the son who wasn't his, and finally at the revolver in his hand. The sirens were audible now—a distant, wailing chorus of justice that had no place in a house built on blood.

Lorenzo stood up. He walked around the desk, the floorboards groaning under his weight. He stopped in front of Elena and reached out, his hand trembling slightly as he tucked a stray hair behind her ear.

"You really would give up your soul for her, wouldn't you?" he asked.

"In a heartbeat," she replied.

Lorenzo turned to Dante. The two men—the old lion and the young wolf—stared at each other. For the first time, they looked identical.

"Take them," Lorenzo said, his voice a ghost of itself. "The tunnel leads to the boathouse. There’s a key in the desk for the Ferrari. Go."

"Why?" Dante asked, his gun lowering an inch.

"Because," Lorenzo said, looking at Elena one last time, "I want to see if you’re man enough to keep her safe without a cage. And because a Moretti always pays his debts. She paid mine with her company; I’m paying hers with her life."

He turned his back on them, facing the window as the first blue and red lights began to flash against the trees.

"Go!" Lorenzo roared.

Dante didn't hesitate this time. He grabbed Elena’s mother with one arm and Elena with the other, dragging them toward the hidden passage behind the bookshelf.

As they plummeted into the darkness of the tunnel, a single gunshot rang out from the study.

Elena stumbled, a sob breaking from her throat, but Dante didn't let her stop. They ran until the air turned salty and cold, emerging at the edge of the lake just as the estate above them erupted into a pillar of fire.

Six months later.

The Mediterranean sun was warm on Elena’s skin as she sat on the balcony of a small, nondescript villa in Greece. Her mother was inside, napping in the afternoon heat, her health finally stable.

Elena looked down at the infant in her arms—a boy with a shock of dark hair and eyes that were already far too observant.

A shadow fell over her. Dante leaned against the stone railing, his face scarred but his eyes clearer than they had ever been in the mansion. He reached out, his finger tracing the baby’s cheek.

"He looks like a king," Dante whispered.

"He looks like a boy who needs a father, not a Don," Elena replied, her voice firm.

Dante looked out at the sea. They were safe, for now. But the Moretti name was a ghost that didn't stay buried. News had reached them that the Rossi family was looking for the "lost heir." The war wasn't over; it had just moved to a different shore.

"I’m going into town," Dante said, checking the weight of the pistol tucked into his waistband. "Stay inside. Lock the doors."

Elena watched him walk away, the same predatory grace in his step. She looked down at her son and felt a familiar, cold shiver. The secret was out, the husband was dead, and the lover was a fugitive.

But as she shifted the baby, a small piece of paper fell out of his swaddling clothes.

It was a hospital record she had never seen before. A DNA test, dated a week before the fire.

She opened it, her breath catching.

The results didn't list Dante. They didn't list Lorenzo.

The father was listed as Unknown, but there was a handwritten note at the bottom in Lorenzo’s elegant script:

The world thinks he is mine. Dante thinks he is his. But only you know the truth of that night at the gala before he arrived. A secret for a secret, Elena. Sleep well.

Elena felt the world tilt once more. She remembered the gala. She remembered the masked man in the garden. She remembered the blackout.

She looked at the baby, then at Dante’s retreating back.

The real war had only just begun.