Chapter Twenty-Seven

Naples wasn't a city.

It was a labyrinth — all cobbled chaos and ancient blood soaked into the stone. It breathed like a beast beneath the surface, all smoke and secrets, and Dante Romano ruled it like a dark priest of sin.

Amara had never set foot here before. She'd avoided it for years, out if respect for her father's warnings… and later, out of disdain for his Cowardice. 

But now?

Now she came to burn it.

She stood at the balcony of a high rise safe house overlooking the Gulf, the moonlight gliding the water silver the city stretching out like prey beneath her.

Behind her, Zeyna clicked through aerial footage on a tablet.

“Romano’s compound is nestled in the Quartieri Spagnoli. Tight streets. Old fortification built under a church, like some kind of medieval bunker.”

“How many exits?”

“Four. One underground. One rooftop. Two through courtyards.”

Amara turned.

“And how many bodies will it cost to breach it?”

Zeyna didn't blink. “At least fifty.”

Luca spoke from the shadows. “Or we draw him out.”

Amara looked at him.

‘And how do we do that?”

Luca's eyes gleamed. “By playing a dirtier game than him.”

The following morning, Amara met with a man called Greco.

Ex-Carabinieri. Now a fixer with loyalty to no one but euros and survival. 

He handed her a flash drive in exchange for a leather pouch full of diamonds. 

“This is his network,” Greco said. “Smugglers, assassins, front companies. Every skeleton the Devil buried in this city.”

Amara flipped through the files. Photos. Contracts. Surveillance. 

Greco licked his lips nervously.

“You are going to go after them, aren't you?”

She mixed.

“I'm going to gut them.”

By nightfall, two fronts of Romano’s empire collapsed.

One: a casino front in Chiaia went up in flames, the blaze dancing like sin across the water.

Two: his lieutenant's daughter was kidnapped and dropped at Amara’s doorstep with a warning etched in her arm.

“You bleed if he breathes.”

Romano didn't strike back.

Not yet.

He was waiting.

Calculating. 

Which made him even more dangerous. 

Luca found Amara on the rooftop just past midnight.

She stood alone, cigarette between her fingers, dressed in black like a requiem.

“You're spiraling,” he said gently. 

“I'm focused.”

“You haven’t eaten. Haven't slept. You keep going like this, you'll break.”

She turned to him.

“I'm not allowed to break.”

Luca stepped closer.

“You can. With me.”

Her jaw clenched. 

“I don't need softness right now.”

He nodded once. “Then you'll get steel.”

They kissed like rival's.

Fierce. Brutal. Starved.

He shoved her against the wall, hands tangled in her hair.

She clawed his shirt off, teeth at his throat, claiming him like territory.

There was no sweetness between them.

Just war, heat, and the tension of two blades pressed too close.

When it was over, they didn't speak.

Didn't cuddle.

Just lay there, catching breath, listening g to the city below them to prepare to scream.

The next strike came from Romano. 

Subtle..

Sharp.

A car bombing meant for Silva. Planted beneath her driver's seat.

It missed — but only by seconds. 

Amara stared at the wreckage, knuckles white.

“No more warnings,” she said.

“Agreed.” Luca growled. 

They planned the final assault that night. 

Romano’s compound. Midnight raid.

Two teams. One distraction. One infiltration. 

Amara would lead the latter. 

“I want him alive,” she said. “I want to see him fall.”

Zeyna hesitated. “You sure that's smart?”

“No,” Amara said. “But it's necessary.”

Hours later, dressed in tactical black, she stood in the alley behind a church older than time, her heart silent, steady.

Luca was beside her, gun loaded, eyes burning.

“You know what comes next, don't you?” He said.

She nodded.

“If we win,” he whispered, “we'll still lose something.”

She looked at him. 

“I've already lost everything that ever made me soft.”

They breached the compound at 12:03 a.m.

Silva's team detonated the decoy blast two blocks over — and in the chaos, Amara’s team slipped through the underground tunnel, weapons drawn, eyes sharp.

It was cleaner than expected. 

Too clean. 

As they reached the inner sanctum — a marble hall beneath the chapel — Amara's stomach turned.

No guards. 

No resistance. 

No gunfire.

Just candles burning on the altar. 

And Dante Romano, sitting at the head of the table, waiting.

“I knew you'd come,” he said softly.

“Then you knew you'd bleed.”

He looked at her, eyes gleaming like dark glass.

“I wonder if you realize, Amara… I made you.”

She raised her gun. “No. You buried my father.”

“And in doing so,” he whispered, “ I gave birth to you.”