All Chapters of Bound by blood and lies: Chapter 171 - Chapter 180

Eli’s POVPrague felt different in the daylight.The cobbled streets, with their old tales of war and rich history, looked less like a city and more like a maze designed to trap the desperate and hunted. People bustled despite it being so early, people clutching their coats against the cold, none of them knowing—or maybe pretending not to know—that four wounded men had crept into their city the night before.District 9 wasn’t marked on any map. Not officially. It took hours of wandering, asking the wrong people, and pretending we were just tourists before we found an old drunk who muttered, “Ah, yes... behind the train yards... forgotten place... Lazarov is still standing?”Still standing? What did that even mean?It was nearly dusk when we found it, Lazarov Street.More like an alley than a street. Half the signs were gone. Buildings leaned like tired men. One door was marked with a symbol—an upside-down triangle, carved deep into the rotting wood.Vault Eleven.I knew it.“This is i

Elias’s POVI didn’t sleep.The mansion creaked and groaned with each guest of wind that hit it. Shadows twisted along the walls, my mind kept going through fractured memories and new revelations. Giovanni. Elias. Moretti. Chip. Control. Architect.It all tangled in my head like a bad dream I couldn’t wake up from.By the time light slipped through the trees and touched the stone windows, I was already on my feet. My bones felt cold. My stomach churned.Luciano was already awake.He stood in the hallway dressed in black, his sleeves rolled up, hair combed back. His eyes met mine and something like softness flickered there but it was buried under layers of guilt and exhaustion.“You’re early,” he said, voice low.“Couldn’t sleep.”He nodded, then gestured. “Come. We have work to do.”He led me through a hidden door at the back of the mansion, down a spiral staircase into what must have once been a wine cellar. Now, it had been repurposed, sterilized and rebuilt.Metal tables, surgical

Elias’s POVIt was one of those strange, in-between days.The kind wind blew softly like it had nowhere else to be, the sun was bright but not harsh, and the world felt like it had hit pause. We were safe—at least for now—and it felt unfamiliar. I kept waiting for a knock on the door, the sound of boots, a shadow in the window. But nothing came.Just quiet.And the five of us living in it.I found Luca outside, sitting on the crumbling stone steps that led toward the forest behind the mansion. He had a cigarette hanging between two fingers and a far-off look that told me he wasn’t really here.I eased down beside him, shoulder brushing his. “You know those’ll kill you.”He let out a soft breath. “Too late for that.”We sat in silence for a moment, the sky above us bruised in soft shades of blue and orange.“How’s the side?” I asked.“Hurts like hell,” he muttered. “But I can walk. Not fast. Not far. But I’ll manage.”I looked at him really looked.The tired in his eyes. The blood drie

Eli's pov The phone rang once.Twice.Three times.We were gathered in the main room, standing around the long table again. Ricardo held the burner phone, thumb hovering as the fourth ring came out through the speaker.Then click.Ricci’s voice answered. Sharp. Cold. “Took you long enough.”Relief passed briefly through Luca’s eyes, but it didn’t last. Because Ricci didn’t stop there.“You’ve got some nerve calling me now,” he snapped.His voice was a to our gut as he said it with so much hate, not the calm, mischievous tone I remembered. This wasn’t the composed Ricci we’d made a deal with back in New York. This was someone angry and betrayed.“I haven’t heard from any of you in months,” he went on. “I sent messages. I reached out. Not a fucking word. And now you call me like we’re still partners?”“Ricci—” Luca started.“No, you listen.” Ricci cut in. “You vanished. The day you stepped foot in Italy, it was like none of it mattered anymore. The alliance, the weapons exchange, the m

Lorenzo Ricci’s POVI stared at the silent phone long after the call ended.The screen had gone dark, but my thoughts hadn’t.Elias’s soft, apologetic voice still lingered in my head. The old wound which I thought I had buried has now reopened and a knife was digging into it. I hated that it still affected me, that he still affected me. But this wasn’t about feelings anymore. Not now. Not when the ground was burning beneath my feet.They needed me. And as much as I wanted to slam that door shut and lock it tight, I couldn’t. Not when I’d already thrown away everything for that alliance—my peace, my name, my family.They were all I had left to prove the alliance was worth something.I leaned back in the chair, tossing the burner phone onto the table beside my whiskey. The war with Silas was bleeding us dry. Every day he grew more reckless, more vicious. The older Ricci men looked at me like I’d disgraced the family name by allying with the Rossi bastards.They didn’t understand. They d