Chapter 3

Unspoken Desires - Chapter 3

Matteo

I’ve been calling and texting both Sophia and my mom for hours now, but there’s still no reply.

If I hadn’t agreed to Sophia’s request for privacy, her insistence that she had a right to move freely without being monitored. I would’ve tracked their location already. I’d already be in the car, halfway across the city, showing up wherever they are and sliding into the seat beside them like it was just some casual coincidence.

But she made me promise. No tracking. No surveillance. No control. She’s stubborn like my mother, who also won’t allow my father to track her movements.

I let out a slow breath and sink deeper into the leather of my office chair.

My last meeting ended almost fifteen minutes ago, but I haven’t moved. The laptop is still open in front of me. The glass of whiskey on the desk hasn’t been touched. All I can think about is Sophia.

It’s maddening, the way I want her. It’s not the same way I used to want women. That was only a temporary need. Just something to take the edge off when I needed to forget who I was.

This is different. Sophia’s in my bloodstream now. In my mind the moment I wake up. In the weight of every word I speak. She’s everywhere. Consuming. And the worst part is, I didn’t even see it coming.

She’s ruined me. And somehow, it feels like the only truth I’ve ever known.

I used to think I understood love. But Marcella’s suicide taught me I didn’t. Marcella was beautiful, all refined and composed. The perfect daughter of our world.

From the time we were old enough to walk, we were told we belonged to each other. That one day we would marry and rule the Camorra together.

That kind of early conditioning does something to you. Makes you believe you’re lucky. That you’re chosen. That this is what destiny looks like.

But Marcella didn’t love me. Not really. And I didn’t really love her. It took me years to admit that.

We were just two children raised inside a gilded cage, reciting lines from a script someone else wrote for us. She had her own ambitions, and I had mine. We kept our secrets. Lived separate lives beneath the same spotlight. And we called it loyalty.

We were too stupid to realize that obligation isn’t affection.

When she died, something inside me cracked. Not from grief - not the kind everyone assumed. It was the realization that everything I’d believed in was built on a lie.

So I did what any self-righteous bastard drowning in pain and power would do. I went looking for a perfect version of what I thought Marcella should have been.

And I found Sareena. She was everything Marcella wasn’t.

She was softer, but too soft. She was sweeter, but too sweet to be the wife of a Capo. She was bookish and quiet. Innocent to a fault. All things I am not.

And she was Marcella’s half-sister, which helped with the illusion. All three sisters had that same haunting beauty, the kind that stayed in your mind long after they left the room.

But Sareena had no real fire. No bite. No real rebellion. She didn’t fight back as hard as a person who was being held against their will. She caved.

I told myself I wanted her because she was untouched, because she wouldn’t lie to me or betray me. I convinced myself it could turn into love.

It wouldn’t. It was desperation disguised as affection. Control disguised as care. It was ego. A need to mold something safe, something perfect, something mine.

And then, Sophia.

She wasn’t part of the plan. She was thrown at me like bait, part of one of my father’s sick games. A pawn meant to distract or destroy.

She had fire in her eyes and blood on her hands. A DeLuca by birth, but with the Morelli’s fire in her bones.

She wasn’t supposed to matter. She wasn’t pure. She wasn’t untouched. She’d done things. Dark, violent things.

But she mattered.

From the second she looked at me like I was nothing, I couldn’t stop watching her. From the second she screamed at me, I couldn’t stop listening. And from the second I saw her cry, I knew I’d burn the whole damn city to the ground just to see her smile again.

And now she isn’t answering my call.

Matthew

I boarded the plane around 11 p.m., leaving behind the damp, bone-deep cold of Lithuania and heading home.

Seven months. Seven long, grueling, goddamn months chasing that bitch across half of Eastern Europe.

Every time I got close - every time I thought I had her cornered, either the Russian Pakhan or one of his ghosts would slip between us. Like they were always one step ahead. Like someone had tipped them off.

And maybe they had. But this time, I’m not coming back empty-handed.

I’ve got intel. Real intel. Not just whispers or shadows but real evidence. The kind that still clings to the dried blood on my boots.

It’s time for the U.S. Bratva to slip back into the background. I’ve been hunting in the shadows all this time, but now I’m back. And this time, I’m hunting on home soil. They’re the outsiders.

Before takeoff, I call Damian to give him the rundown on everything I found: the files, the photographs, the fragmented notes we pulled from Svetlana’s hideout. And the list. A list of names I’m ready to chase down one by one.

Most of it was in Russian. Spoken, I can manage. But reading it? That’s a different beast. Still, what we managed to translate was enough to freeze the blood in your veins.

That rotting little farmhouse. All quiet, tucked in the middle of nowhere, held more than just dust and secrets. It held their plans.

Photos of Sareena and Sophia. Surveillance logs. Their schedules. Routes and routines. Even their brand of toothpaste.

This wasn’t just about vengeance. This was strategy. A blueprint to dismantle us from the inside out. Starting with the women we’ve bled to protect.

One word kept showing up, over and over again. Scribbled in the margins beside network maps and encrypted codes:

Предатель. Predátel. Meaning the Traitor.

That’s what they called the Camorra defector. Feeding her intel. The traitor has been unlocking doors we thought were sealed.

We don’t know who he is. Not yet. But we’re sure of one thing, he’s not working alone. Some of our men have started to flip. Quietly and subtly.

We found the proof. Messages exchanged, access codes leaked, missing weapons turning up where they shouldn’t be, but no names.

And it’s not just us. There are fractures forming inside the Camorra, too. Not everyone is loyal to Miguel Cattaneo anymore. That’s what makes this worse.

Whoever Predátel is, he’s already inside. Embedded. And he’s building a following.

I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes for just a second. But the thoughts wouldn’t let go.

We thought things were finally starting to settle. That the worst was behind us.

But now?

Now we’ve got moles in the house and they’re bleeding us dry from the inside.