Chapter Twenty

The calm before the storm

The ocean was black again. 

Amara stood at the edge of the cliff behind the Moretti estate, the wind knotting her hair into wild ropes, her coat whipping behind her like the wings of a dark angel. Below, the Tyrrhenian Sea slammed against the jagged Sicilian coast — relentless, angry, and rising. 

She felt like the sea. 

Untamed. Deep. Unforgiving. 

The calm kills never lasted. 

Behind her, the estate lights flickered like stars on earth. Inside those walls, her empire was holding its breath — guns loaded, allies braced, shadows waiting to move. 

Because Rafael Romero hadn’t responded with words. 

He responded with blood. 

It started with a courier. 

A young man with shaking hands and a bloody shirt, dumped outside the gates. 

He was missing three fingers. 

A message carved into his chest. 

“You stole my dog. Now I’ll take your pack.”

Silva confirmed it — the courier had worked for Amara’s Mexico operations. Quiet. Loyal. Clean. 

Rafael had made him an example. 

Mateo burned the body before dawn, but the meaning lingered in every hallway like gunpowder. 

Amara didn't flinch. 

She didn't mourn.

She built a list.

By morning, the hit had expanded. 

Two shipments destroyed in Valencia.

One allied family — the Barbattis — wiped out in their villa, throats slit and gold rings left on the corpses. 

A signature.

Rafael wasn’t hiding anymore. 

He was hunting.

And Amara was the prize. 

In the war room, maps and monitors glowed like a battlefield altar. 

Silva leaned over the satellite feeds. “Three Romero convoys on the move. One from Tangier, one from Berlin, one from Istanbul. All headed south.”

“Toward us,” Luca muttered. 

Mateo confirmed it. “The Istanbul convoy has six vehicles and a private jet trailing. That’s not cargo. That’s a strike team.”

Amara’s voice cut clean through the tension. “He's trying to force me into open conflict.”

Luca looked at her. “He's trying to corner you.”

“Good,” she said. “Let him try.”

She turned to Silva. “Any trace of Rafael himself?”

“Ghost,” Silva said. “No movement under his name, but the Valencia explosion was triggered by a signal that came from Geneva. Someone logged into one of his burner accounts from a black satellite. Only five people have access to that kind of uplink.”

“And?”

One of them is Rafael.”

Amara’s eyes narrowed. “So he's not just pulling strings. He's playing puppeteer from up close.”

Mateo’s voice was low. “You want me to take a team there?”

“No,” she said. “Not yet. Not until he thinks I’m breaking.”

That night she pulled the trigger herself. 

Not on a gun. 

But on a trap.

She called the press. 

A single photo leaked: Amara Varela at the old Varela estate — estate — the one burned down after her father’s death — now rebuilt in secret. 

She stood there, draped in red silk, fire in the background, and the words burned across the gates: 

“Rafael. Come home.”

The underworld lit up. 

Old allies called. 

Enemies circled. 

The silence before the quake shattered. 

In the quiet that followed, Luca found her in her suite, staring out over the cliffs with a glass of blood-red wine. 

“You just painted a target on your chest,” he said.

She sipped slowly. “Good.”

“What if he fires first?”

“Then I won’t miss when he return it.”

He stepped closer, his voice softer. “You don’t always have to be steel.”

She looked at him. 

“I do, Luca. Because no one else was.”

He was quiet a long moment. 

Then he said. “You scared me.”

She arched a brow. “When?”

“Zurich. When you walked out of that vault with blood on your hands and didn’t blink.”

“I had to become her.”

“I know,” he said. “But I miss the girl who laughed.”

“She died in a cage.”

“No,” he said. “She evolved.”

He touched her wrist.

“Just don't lose her completely.”

She let the silence bloom between them. 

The turned, gently setting her wine down. 

“I can give you a night,” she whispered. “But not a promise.”

“That's all I've ever asked for.”

They didn't speak as he stripped her down.

Didn't speak as she pulled him onto a bed. 

Only heat. 

Only mouths.

Only the ache of needing to feel something more than strategy and vengeance. 

He kissed her like it was the last time.

She kissed him like he was the last real thing she might lose. 

And in that dark room, lit only by moonlight, two broken empires merged for a breath of peace. 

Until the storm came. 

It hit at dawn. 

Not gunfire. 

Not bombs. 

A message. 

Delivered to Silva’s encrypted line by an untraceable drone. 

One photo.

One sentence. 

Amara opened the file. 

And everything inside her stilled. 

The image was of Zeyna — their Dubai contact — bloodied and bound. 

Behind her, a wall painted in crimson.

“One more move, and she dies. Let me finish what Raoul started. Or watch your world fall.”

– R.R.”

Silva paled. “He has her.”

Luca cursed under his breath. 

Amara closed the file. 

The war had just turned personal. 

Later, in the chapel again, Amara lit three candles. 

One for the courier. 

One for Zeyna. 

And one for herself. 

Not a prayer. 

A warning. 

Luca stepped behind her. “What now?”

She didn't turn. 

“I go to Geneva.”

“You're not going alone.”

“No,” she whispered. “We go together.”

And when I leave, she thought, 

 Either he dies, or I do.