Chapter Eighty-Seven The house was too quiet.Alex moved through the corridors of the abandoned De Rossi estate like a shadow, each step measured and silent. The air hung heavy with the scent of old wood and faded cologne, remnants of a life once lived within these blood-stained walls. The deeper he went, the more the silence screamed, pressing into his skull like a whisper from the dead.Sophia was here.He felt it.Not long ago, his men intercepted a coded transmission—coordinates buried inside the Project Verona files, layered beneath layers of false leads. The location pointed here. And Alex didn’t believe in coincidences, especially not when it came to Lucien De Rossi.“Clear upstairs,” Luka’s voice crackled in his earpiece.“East wing, negative,” came from another guard.Alex’s jaw tightened. His fingers brushed the grip of the Glock holstered at his side as he pushed open a narrow door at the end of the hallway. The hinges whined softly, revealing a spiral staircase winding do
Chapter Eight-SixSophia’s mind struggled to process what her eyes couldn’t deny.Matteo De Luca.Not a hallucination. Not a twisted joke engineered by Vale’s drugs. But flesh and blood, standing before her in tailored black and a smile carved from menace.He looked so much like Alex — same sharp cheekbones, same storm-gray eyes — but colder. Emptier. Like all the warmth that made Alex who he was had been extracted and replaced with raw calculation.“You’re not supposed to exist,” she whispered.He knelt before her, brushing the back of his knuckles across her cheek. She flinched.“I existed long before you did, Sophia. I just had the misfortune of being buried alive by my blood.”Her eyes narrowed. “Alex would never—”“Alex didn’t.” Matteo’s smirk sharpened. “But he benefitted. My death made him the heir. Made him hungry. Don’t pretend you haven’t seen the monster under his skin.”She tugged weakly against the restraints. “He’s nothing like you.”Matteo leaned in, voice low and intim
Chapter Eighty-Five The room was silent, but Alex’s heart was a war drum in his chest.The still image of a man with De Luca blood stared back at him from the screen — grainy but unmistakable. Same jawline. Same eyes. But colder. More calculating.Dominic broke the silence, voice low. “That’s… that’s Matteo.”Alex didn’t answer.He couldn’t.Because saying his name made it real. And it wasn’t supposed to be.Matteo De Luca — the prodigal son. The older brother lost years ago during the Terni Massacre, whose body had never been found. He’d been declared dead after Lucien’s betrayal tore the De Luca family apart.But now…Alex zoomed in on the image, knuckles whitening around the mouse. “This footage is less than a year old. Taken in Montenegro. Why is he with Lucien? Why is he on the Project Verona files?”Dominic exhaled sharply, his expression unreadable. “We all buried Matteo. I carried his blood-soaked ring to your father myself.”“Then who the hell is this?” Alex snapped, voice c
Chapter Eighty-Four The warehouse was dead silent, save for the low hum of the fluorescent lights overhead. Dust motes danced through the stale air as Alex stood over the table, a single flash drive plugged into his encrypted laptop. His jaw was clenched so tightly it ached, but he didn’t loosen it. Not when the file loading on the screen had the potential to detonate everything he thought he knew.“PROJECT VERONA - Classified Level Omega.”The header glared back at him.The warehouse was a graveyard of silence.Alex’s footsteps echoed as he moved through the desolate space where they had found the last traces of Sophia. Her broken phone lay in an evidence bag, cracked and scorched, the final message on it incomplete. Every instinct in him screamed she’s still alive—but where? And how long did he have before the silence turned into a coffin?Dominic stood across from him, arms crossed, face etched with tension. “We know Lucien took her. The men guarding the west perimeter saw a black
Chapter Eighty-ThreeThe room was colder than it should’ve been.Sophia’s wrists throbbed from the tight leather restraints biting into her skin. A single bulb flickered overhead, casting erratic shadows across the concrete floor. She sat in a steel chair, arms bound, ankles tied to its legs. There were no windows. Only silence and the distant thud of music from somewhere beneath her. She had been in enough of Lucien’s hideouts before—this one was different. It wasn’t just a message. It was a statement.Lucien didn’t just want to hurt Alex.He wanted to ruin him.The door groaned open.Heavy boots echoed off the floor as Lucien De Rossi stepped in, his designer coat trailing behind him like a cloak of arrogance and cruelty. He clapped once, slow and deliberate.“Well, well,” he said smoothly. “The queen, caged. I expected more fight from you.”Sophia didn’t flinch. Her voice was hoarse but steady. “Let me guess—this is the part where you monologue?”Lucien smirked. “Still got that mou
Chapter Eighty-TwoThe old estate on the edge of the city was a graveyard of memories. Alex hadn’t been there in years, not since the fire—the one that had changed everything. It stood now like a monument to pain: ivy-choked, scorched black in places, windows shattered like broken promises.Yet something pulled him back.He stepped from the armored SUV, boots crunching against gravel slicked with rain. His men fanned out quickly, securing the perimeter, but Alex barely noticed. His gaze was locked on the front door—ajar. Waiting.He drew his gun anyway. He trusted no one.The inside smelled of mildew and burnt wood. The walls bore the scars of the past—flames that once devoured secrets and silenced screams. He moved carefully through the corridor, past charred photo frames, past echoes of a childhood that had ended far too soon.And then, he saw it.A symbol etched crudely into the wall in fresh paint: a red phoenix encircling a black crown.Lucien’s mark.Alex clenched his jaw. “So y