Lahat ng Kabanata ng Blood and Loyalty: Kabanata 71 - Kabanata 80

*Bianca's POV*By noon, the world knew my name again.Not the name my father had used like a leash.Not the one whispered with pity or speculation.A new one.Moretti.The announcement didn’t come with press or ceremony. It came the way all real power moved — quietly, efficiently, and without apology. Secure calls. Closed-door meetings. Messages passed between men who didn’t need explanations.By the time Erico and I stepped into the main house, the shift was already happening.I felt it in the way people looked at me.Not curiosity.Recognition.Giovanni grinned openly when he saw us. “Well,” he said, clapping Erico on the shoulder, “that escalated beautifully.”Mario leaned against the wall, arms crossed, eyes sharp with interest. “The phones haven’t stopped. Everyone wants confirmation.”Paolo didn’t smile. He studied me carefully, like he was reassessing a weapon he thought he already understood.“You’re steady,” he said.“I didn’t trip,” I replied.That earned me the faintest nod

*Bianca's POV*The box waited on the dining table like it belonged there.That was the first thing wrong with it.It wasn’t large. Not dramatic. Just a simple wooden case, dark and polished, the kind that could hold wine or keepsakes or something passed down instead of taken. No wires. No ticking. No obvious threat.That alone made it dangerous.The house smelled untouched – no smoke, no blood, no signs of forced entry. Whoever had come hadn’t rushed. They had walked. Taken their time. Known exactly where to place it so I would see it first.Erico stood between me and the table instinctively.“Don’t.” He said quietly when I took a step forward.“I won’t touch it.” I replied. “I just want to look.”His jaw tightened. “Looking is how traps start.”Vincenzo entered behind us, calm as ever, his presence anchoring the room. Giovanni and Paolo flanked the doors. Mario lingered near the windows, already checking reflections and angles.“What does the perimeter say?” Vincenzo asked.“No breac

*Bianca's POV*I was done being protected.That was the thought that followed me down the corridor, past the portraits, past the guards who straightened when they saw me, past the door everyone avoided unless summoned.The strategy room.I didn’t knock.Vincenzo looked up first. Nazyr was standing by the window, hands folded behind his back, the sea reflected in the hard lines of his face. Erico was seated near the table, already tense — like he’d felt me coming before he heard my steps.“Stop,” I said.Every movement froze.“No more fragments. No more half-truths,” I continued. “No more deciding what I can and cannot survive.”Vincenzo leaned back slowly. “Bianca—”“My mother was killed,” I cut in. “My father ordered my execution. I was hunted in my sleep and married into a war. Whatever you’re protecting me from no longer exists.”Nazyr turned.His eyes — so like mine it made my chest ache — held something heavy. Old.“You are asking for ghosts,” he said quietly.“I was raised by on

*Bianca's POV*I thought knowing would make it hurt less. It would make me finally be at peace.I was wrong.Knowing didn’t dull the pain — it sharpened it, gave it edges, gave it names. Knowing meant that every memory of my father now carried a second shadow behind it. Every kindness was suspect. Every silence deliberate.By the time Vincenzo summoned us to the archive room beneath the estate, my grief had already begun to mutate.Into focus.Into rage.The archive wasn’t meant for comfort. No windows. No art. Just steel cabinets, climate-controlled drawers, and a long table scarred by decades of decisions that had ruined lives.“This room,” Vincenzo said evenly, “exists

*Bianca's POV*The house was too quiet.Not the tense silence of a war room or the alert stillness of guarded halls — but the kind of quiet that comes after everything has already been said. After truths are laid bare and there is nothing left to shout.Our home.I still wasn’t used to calling it that.The fire in the living room had burned low, embers pulsing softly like a tired heart. Outside, the sea whispered against the cliffs, steady and indifferent to the way my entire world had fractured in the span of days.I sat on the couch with my knees drawn to my chest, staring at nothing.Angelina Siankovski.My mother had lived an entire life before me. A dangerous one. A brilliant one. A doo