Chapter Eighteen : Into the Wolf's Den

It was raining heavily.

It fell like a hailstorm on the convoy of black SUVs moving in silence through the Apennine foothills. Five vehicles. Twenty-seven soldiers. Three objectives.

Capture. Extract. Eliminate.

Serena sat at the head of tge convoy.She was silent, focused, she seemed like a shadowed fury beneath a bulletproof vest and matte-black gloves.

They were headed for Castello Lupo, an abandoned fortress once used by the Romanos before their purge. According to intercepted comms, it was now Aureliano’s command post and ground zero for the rising resistance.

Serena didn’t flinch as the mountain road twisted beneath the tires. She had no room for fear. Not anymore.The road was rough and bumpy but it didn't seem to bother her at all.

She'd stared death in the eyes, and she was done blinking.

---

In the passenger seat, Mara adjusted her headset, scanning the terrain.

“We’ve got thermal movement. Twenty-plus heat signatures ahead. Perimeter guards, probably snipers on the north ridge. If we’re lucky, this ends fast.”

Serena’s voice was low. “We’re not lucky.”

Behind them, Matteo sat in the second SUV, despite Serena’s protest that he stay behind and safeguard the estate. He hadn’t answered her when she told him goodbye that morning—he just loaded his weapon and followed her out the gate.

Now he watched her through the bulletproof windshield.

There was no denying it anymore.

She was more than a bride.

She was the storm.

And he was in love with her.

---

At 3am the convoy cut engines half a mile from the fortress. The team moved on foot—silent, like wolves in the night.

Serena took point with Pietro and Mara.

They reached the tree line just before the castle came into view.

“Drones up,” Mara ordered. “Pietro, stay low.”

Serena studied the outer defenses.

There were guaards on the towers. Infrared sensors. Old-school mines buried in the clearing.

No easy entry.

Except—

“There,” she said, pointing to a drainage culvert just beyond the north tower.

Mara groaned. “That’s an eight-hundred-foot crawl through rat piss and rust.”

“Then we better start crawling.”

---

Inside the culvert, time slowed.

Mud caked her elbows. The ceiling scraped her shoulders. Water trickled down from rusted grates above.

For a moment, Serena could hear her father’s voice—the one from old memories and forgotten lullabies.

“Sometimes the only way to take a castle is to bleed for the walls.”

She clenched her jaw.

And kept moving.

They emerged behind a collapsed section of the fortress wall.

And that’s when all hell broke loose.

A sensor tripped and alarms began to wail.

Gunfire erupted.

“Move!” Serena shouted, diving for cover as bullets shredded the moss-covered bricks.

Pietro fired back, taking down two guards from the upper balcony.

Mara launched a flash grenade toward the inner corridor.

“Go, go, go!”

Serena sprinted across the courtyard,her heart pounding, and slammed into a side hall where three men waited.

The first she shot through the chest.

The second lunged—she attacked with her knife and drove the blade into his neck.

The third tried to run.

She shot him in the back.

---

Matteo joined the front line seconds later.

He looked at Serena with a flicker of something raw—something bordering on awe.

“You still mad I followed you?”

She smirked, covered in blood. “No. Now I’m just glad I didn’t have to save you.”

They moved together through the halls.

Room by room.

Clearing enemies. Hunting the ghost who had dared send war to their doorstep.

Aureliano.

But he wasn’t in the command room.

Wasn’t in the barracks.

Wasn’t in the armory.

Instead, they found a different monster.

Down in the dungeon of the fortress, they found a man strapped to a chair. Emaciated. Bruised. Half-conscious.

Mara stared.

“Is that—?”

Serena stepped forward slowly, torchlight flickering across the prisoner’s face.

She froze.Because she recognized him.

Angelo Costa.

Her father’s former war chief.

Presumed dead in the Valentino-Bianchi War.

The man who was supposed to have died protecting her father’s name.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Matteo asked.

Angelo lifted his head weakly.

His eyes locked onto Serena’s.

“Isadora never told you the truth… did she?”

Serena’s blood ran cold.

“What truth?”

Angelo coughed, a wet rattle in his lungs.

“Your father wasn’t murdered by the council... he was betrayed.”

The room fell silent.

Serena stepped closer, fists clenched. “Who betrayed him?”

Angelo’s lips twisted.

And he whispered:

“The woman who raised you.”

Serena staggered back.

“No.”

“Isadora set the trap,” Angelo rasped. “She delivered him to Lucien. I saw it. I was there.”

Mara looked stunned. Matteo grabbed Serena’s arm, steadying her.

“She did it to save you,” Angelo said. “Lucien had threatened to burn the Valentino bloodline if she didn’t comply. She chose her daughter... over her Don.”

Serena stared at him, frozen in place.

“If that’s true,” she said coldly, “then why are you alive?”

“Because I refused the order to kill you. Lucien imprisoned me here instead. Said I was a loose thread.”

Serena’s voice was iron.

“Then why did Aureliano keep you alive?”

“I don’t think he knows I’m here,” Angelo murmured. “Lucien never told anyone. He didn’t trust even his own.”

Serena turned away, her mind reeling.

Everything felt fractured.

Matteo stepped forward.

“Do we believe him?”

Serena didn’t answer.

Not with words.

She looked at Angelo and said, “You’re coming with us.”

---

They pulled out at dawn.

There was still no sign of Aureliano. The fortress was swept clean—too clean.

It seemed like A trap within a trap.

Serena sat beside Angelo in the evac vehicle, watching him wheeze in silence.

He was a shell of a legend.

But his words wouldn’t leave her.

Isadora set the trap.

She chose her daughter over her Don.

Matteo sat across from her.

“You don’t have to confront her now.”

“I have to know,” she whispered. “Before this war breaks me.”

He took her hand.

And didn’t let go.

---

Back at the villa, Isadora was sitting in the garden when Serena returned.

The sun was rising. Birds sang softly. The blood on Serena’s boots hadn’t even dried.

She walked straight to the chair.

Isadora looked up, smiling weakly. “You’re back.”

Serena stared down at her.

“Tell me it’s not true.”

Her mother’s face faltered.

“What?”

“Tell me you didn’t give him up. That you didn’t sacrifice my father for me.”

Isadora’s silence was louder than a scream.

Serena’s heart cracked.

“You knew they’d kill him.”

“I had no choice,” Isadora whispered. “He was going to destroy the entire council. And Lucien... he had you marked for death. I made the only choice I could live with.”

“You lied to me my entire life.”

“I saved you.”

Serena stepped back, voice shaking. “You don’t get to call it saving.”

Tears filled Isadora’s eyes. “I loved him, Serena. But I loved you more.”

“I’ll never forgive you,” Serena said coldly.

Isadora nodded.

“I wouldn’t either.”

---

That night, Serena sat alone in her father’s old study, the door locked, the fire crackling low.

She read through the files Angelo had hidden in the fortress—maps, names, council memos.

And at the bottom of the stack… a photo.

Lucien. Aureliano.

And another figure between them.

A woman.

Familiar.

Not Isadora.

Her hands shook.

She flipped the image over.

A name scribbled in old ink.

“Elena Romano.”

Her real mother.