LOGINWith Chapter Sixty-Eight, we step into the world of Santiago de la Cruz, a man born into legacy, not luxury. His family once ruled the criminal underworld with unquestioned authority, and now, watching Lucien Moretti rise to power has left him seething. Santiago speaks more Spanish than English, grounding him in his roots and rage. This chapter serves as a warning: there are older powers stirring. He doesn’t want to share a throne, he wants it back. Let this be the calm before a blood red storm. Santiago is coming. And he doesn’t believe in mercy.
The estate was already trembling under the weight of gunfire when Emilia took a step forward. The air cracked with chaos, shouts, bullets, glass shattering like rain. The marble floors of Dario Vescari’s mansion gleamed beneath the strobe of muzzle flashes.Dario’s guards scrambled for cover, shouting orders that dissolved into screams. It all happened too fast for them to understand; they didn’t realize the men outside weren’t reinforcements in case anything went wrong. They were executioners. Emilia had briefed them for war.She didn’t blink.Her hand lowered from the small detonator she had pressed. Her voice came steady, even as the walls shook.“One thing I’ve learned from Lucien,” she said softly, “is that you never give an enemy a second chance to hurt you.”Her father turned sharply, fury flaring through his shock. “What have you done?”“What Lucien would have done,” Emilia replied. “Ended the problem. Permanently.”Dario’s eyes widened as realization dawned—too late.“You…”“
The gates of Dario Vescari’s estate opened with the slow hum of betrayal. Emilia didn’t wait for an escort. She walked through alone, her boots echoing against marble like a clock counting down.Her men were already in position beyond the fences, engines off, radios quiet, the night heavy with waiting.Inside, the air smelled like smoke and secrets. Classical music drifted from somewhere deeper in the house, soft and deceitful. Two guards by the door exchanged uncertain glances when she passed. None dared to stop her.Every step she took through Dario’s corridors was measured, no hesitation, no fear. Only the quiet certainty of a woman who had already decided how the night would end.When she reached the glass doors of the main room, she paused. Through the reflection, she saw him.Her father.The Vulture.He was seated at the far end of the room, a tumbler in hand, voice sharp as he barked orders into his phone.“Santiago needs to let us strike by dawn! Moretti’s men are scattered, i
Dawn bled slow and gray over the Moretti estate. The smoke from burned curtains and scorched beams hung low, a ragged halo that made the house look less like a palace and more like a battlefield shrine. I stood on the balcony overlooking the courtyard, cloak pulled tight around my shoulders though the air had the raw bite of early autumn. Below, men moved with the focused, clean violence of those who had done this before: loading crates, checking magazines, fastening straps, stacking cases of ammunition into the back of battered trucks.The sight should have sickened me. It did not. It steadied me.They were my makeshift army now. They had followed a man they called boss for years; they would follow me today because I gave them a reason to. Because this was no longer only about vengeance. This was about cutting out the rot before it ate the whole house. About ending the war started with my name.Raul stood at the top of the stairs, his sling a dark reminder of the night we had lost Jul
Rain hammered the city that night, a heavy, relentless downpour that turned the streets to black glass and washed the blood off walls that had seen too much.Inside a dimly lit penthouse overlooking the port, the man known only as the Vulture stood by the window, watching the lights shimmer on the water. His reflection stared back at him, a gaunt face, sharp eyes, the kind that had learned to hide rage beneath civility.He had traded his soul for control long ago. Tonight, he was paying for it.A phone buzzed on the glass table behind him. A single word flashed on the screen: Santiago.He answered without turning.“Tell me you have good news,” the Vulture said, his voice low, smooth, and venomous.Silence stretched for a beat before a man’s voice came through, tired, gravel edged, but still carrying that unmistakable weight of pride.“You won’t like what I have to say.”The Vulture turned now, pacing slowly toward the table. “Speak.”Santiago de la Cruz exhaled audibly. In the backgro
The air inside the Moretti estate smelled like smoke and iron.Every corridor bore scars from the war, bullet holes in marble, blood streaks on the walls, the faint echo of chaos that refused to die. But in the days since Lucien’s collapse, the silence had changed. It wasn’t just grief anymore. It is now discipline too. And I was the reason why.Men who once only looked to Lucien now turned to me. They watched me cross the hallways with a quiet kind of reverence, heads lowered, eyes following every step I made. There was no crown on my head, no title before my name, but the weight of command clung to me all the same.Lucien’s empire had not fallen. Not while I could breathe.“Gather the list,” I said to Raul Navarro as I stepped into the strategy room.It was a mess of cracked glass tables, torn maps, bloodstained ledgers. Raul had been trying to rebuild some order, but even he looked exhausted, his arm in a sling, his jaw set in quiet defiance.He turned when he heard me. “List of wh
Lucien slept like a ghost refusing to leave the body.The steady rise and fall of his chest was the only proof he was still with me. Every time the candlelight fluttered the shadow on the blankets, I held my breath, waiting for the silence to swallow him whole.But he kept breathing.And I kept watching.Rosa hadn’t left his side all night. She sat in a chair near the bed, head bowed, fingers wrapped around a rosary that was missing two beads. Dried blood streaked her forearms like battle ribbons. She looked exhausted, and yet when she looked up she was all steel.“He’ll live,” she murmured when she felt me watching. “You saved him.”I shook my head. “No. You did.”She looked at me the way a woman who’s buried half her life in other people’s wounds looks at a child she knows better than the child knows herself. “You both did. Each in your own way. But you…” Her voice softened. “You have that look again, ragazza. The one that means you’re about to make a decision that will either ruin y







