Chapter Eleven

Smoke and Oaths 

The moment Amara stepped onto the dock, the sea wind slapped her face with brine and memory.

It was just past midnight.

Catania's port was mostly asleep, the fishing boats bobbing in my rhythm with the tide, the industrial loading cranes frozen like skeleton against the dark Sicilian sky. Somewhere down the length of the docks, Sergio Vitale's operation moved like a shadow behind the facade of silence. 

She didn't come alone.

But she didn't tell Luca either.

She couldn’t afford a distraction — especially not one with a possessive streak and a kill-first policy. This was her revenge. Her reckoning. 

The burner phone buzzed in her coat pocket.

Anonymous message: Docks 6-9. Containers marked “Rubino.”

She memorized the info, crushed the phone beneath her heel, and walked on.

She was dressed in katte black, her hair braided into a crown at her nape, her gun strapped thigh-side beneath tailored pants, dagger hidden in her boot. No jewelry. No signature.

A ghost with a vendetta.

Two of her trusted allies from Mexico flanked her — Mateo and Silva, both loyal remnants of her family's scattere network. She'd once bled beside them in tunnels and cartel wars. Tonight, she led them into another.

“Visuals confirm heat signatures at dock nine,” Silva muttered, scanning from behind a pair of night-vision lenses.

“Armed?” Amara asked.

“Light. Two on the roof. One inside the container.”

“Good.” She cracked her neck. “Quiet kill only.”

She made her move.

They darted through the shadows like wolves. In person than three minutes, the guards were down, throat slit and bodies dragged into the sea. Blood slickered the pier, swallowed by the black water.

Then she stood before it — the container marked Rubino. 

She pressed her palm to the cold metal.

Not cocaine. Not heroin.

This was the cargo that had bought her cage three years ago.

“Open it,” she whispered. 

Mateo pried the locks with surgical grace. The door creaked. 

Inside, five women blinked against the sudden moonlight. Emaciated. Silent. Shackled. 

Amara’s breath shattered. 

One if the women was no older than seventeen. 

Another had the bruises Amara once wore like skin.

She stepped inside, kneeling.

“It's over,” she whispered. “You're safe.”

One girl looked at her, dazed. “Who…?”

Amara unclipped a shackle. “The one who came back from hell, for you.”

An hour later, the women were transported to a safehouse in Palermo under false identities. Medics were waiting. No names spoken. Only relief. 

Amara sat on the back bumper of the transport van, hands still stained with blood, her mind spinning.

Sergio was trafficking women. Not drugs. Not weapons. Flesh.

And sine if the faces in those containers… she had seen before.

In Juárez. 

She lit a cigarette with shaking fingers.

Luca was going to lose his mind when he found out she went alone.

Let him.

She needed him angry. She needed fire. 

Because now she had a list. 

And every name on it would die screaming.

When she returned to the Moretti estate just before dawn, the front doors slammed open before she even knocked.

Luca was standing there, shirtless, furious. 

“You lied to me,” he growled. 

She stepped inside, brushing past him. “I told you I needed to move fast.”

“Don’t spin me,” he snapped, grabbing her wrist. “You disappeared for six hours without protection, and I had half of Palermo out looking —”

“I was rescuing girls like me,” she hissed, ripping free. While you were sleeping.”

His breath stilled.

She could see it in his eyes — the flash of guilt. The storm of rage.

Then he noticed the dried blood in her hands.

“Are you hurt?” His voice changed instantly, turning rough, low.

“No.” She looked away. “Not mine.”

He stepped closer, taking her hand in his. His thumb brushed a smear of red from her knuckle.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, softer now.

She met his eyes.

And this time, she didn’t shield him from the truth.

The sun broke over the Sicilian horizon in streaks of crimson and gold as Amara finished relaying what she'd seen in the containers.

Luca sat in the study armchair, one hand fisted at his mouth.

“How many women?” He asked quietly. 

“Five. This time. But there were more. I saw paperwork — this has been happening for years.”

“Under Vitale's name?”

His jaw tightened. 

“And,” she added, “I saw bribes from the Romeros in Mexico. He's using my father's old contacts to grease the trade.”

Luca stood slowly, his rage a quiet, lethal thing.

“He wants war,” he murmured. “He's going to get one.”

Amara rose too. “We need to hit him before he scrambles.”

“He'll expect an attack now.”

“Good,” she said. “Let him.”

He looked at her like she wasn't just a woman anymore, but a weapon.

His weapon.

“Then we strike at the heart.”

By sundown every soldier in Luca's inner circle had been briefed. 

The plan, dismantle Vitale's trafficking chain,dismantle his alliances, and leave his empire bleeding.

Luca insisted on leading the first raid.

Amara insisted on going with him.

“This isn't just your war anymore,” she told him. “You brought me back. You lit this fuse.”

He looked at her — not with softness, but reverence. 

“You are not the same girl I once loved,” he said.

“No,” she replied. “I'm worse.”

They kissed like sinners. 

And suited up for war.

The assault came like thunder at midnight. 

Three Moretti convoys hit Vitale's warehouse front in Agrigento — a false front for laundering. Inside, dozens of his men scrambled to respond. Explosives, suppressed rifles, smoke.

Amara led the infiltration through the back corridor, her boots slicked with blood. She reached the office upstairs, dragging the last of Vitale's capos out by the collar.

“Where is he?” She demanded. 

The man laughed, blood in his teeth. “Too late. He's moved the next shipment.”

“To where?”

But the man smiled wider.

“Ask your fiancé.”

Her heart dropped 

“What did you say?”

“You think he's not feeding both sides?”

She slammed her gun against his temple. “Lies.”

“Is it?”

She pulled the trigger. 

Silence echoed. 

Luca entered the room behind her, eyes sharp. 

“What did he say?” She turned slowly, gun trembling in her hand. 

“He said… you're feeding both sides.”

Luca didn’t flinch. 

But his eyes darkened. 

And that was enough to unsteady the ground beneath her feet.