LOGINIn this chapter, we see Emilia stepping fully into her role, not just as Lucien’s partner, but as someone who belongs in the heart of his world. Her reaction to the summit, to Lucien’s ruthlessness, and her desire to claim him in an act of intimacy despite the risk, marks a pivotal turning point in their dynamic. This moment underscores her growing pride, boldness, and emotional investment in him, and it also reflects the dangerous intensity of their bond. As the stakes rise, their chemistry becomes both a strength and a vulnerability. What happens when something so powerful becomes something others might exploit?
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,
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
The fire hadn’t stopped eating the walls.It hissed and screamed and spat, as if the house itself was dying with them.Lucien’s hand slipped from his gun first. Then his knees buckled.“Lucien..."I caught him before he hit the ground, but the weight of him nearly took me down too. His body was solid, heavy with blood and exhaustion. He’d been fighting on nothing but vengeance and adrenaline, but now both were running out.He swayed once, his breath rasping in my ear, and then he fell.“Lucien!”His eyes were half open, glassy, unfocused. Smoke curled through the hall, making the air burn in my lungs. I pressed my hands to his chest, to the place I’d seen bleeding hours ago, the wound that had reopened. Hot, slick blood oozed between my fingers.“No...no, no, stay with me,” I whispered, shaking him. “You hear me? You don’t get to fall now. Not after all this.”Around us, the night was collapsing. The grand hall was nothing but fire and wreckage; the walls that once held paintings and c







