All Chapters of The Mafia’s Reckoning : Chapter 81 - Chapter 87

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

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 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-EightALEXThe silence in the war room was suffocating.Alex stood over the map table, hands braced on its edge, eyes flicking from the blinking red dots to the satellite feed on the wall. His team moved in controlled precision behind him, tracking movements, intercepting chatter, and cross-referencing coordinates. But none of it dulled the growing pressure in his chest.Every lead they chased led them closer to a truth he didn’t want to admit: Sophia was still in Lucien De Rossi’s hands. And time was running out.“I want eyes on every shipment De Rossi’s moved in the last seventy-two hours,” Alex barked, his voice sharp enough to cut glass. “And someone gets me confirmation on the Venice port schedule. If he’s moving her, that’s the point he’ll use.”A tech analyst shifted nervously. “Sir, if we push too hard, we might alert them—”“I don’t give a damn if we light up every channel in Europe,” he snapped. “We find her. Now.”Dominic stepped into the room, carrying a sea