Semua Bab Kingdom of Ash and Blood : Bab 211 - Bab 220

LUCA Sicily felt different when it was quiet. The sea no longer roared with war—it whispered. The air smelled of salt and smoke, and the ghosts of everything he had done seemed softer under the morning sun. Luca stood in the courtyard of the villa, sleeves rolled to his elbows, watching the workers rebuild what the last storm of violence had torn apart. Every brick laid was an act of defiance—a promise that peace, though fragile, could be built with bloodstained hands. He hadn’t slept since Naples. Not really. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw Mateo’s face—the smirk, the betrayal, the final silence. He didn’t regret what he did, but he felt the weight of it in his bones. A brother lost twice—first to ambition, then to the bullet. “Luca.” Her voice came from behind him, soft, carrying the sound of the sea with it. He turned, and there she was—Amara, barefoot again, hair falling like ink down her back. The bruises beneath her eyes had faded, but her gaze still held that q

LUCA Moscow greeted him with the kind of cold that gnawed at the bone. The tarmac was slick with black ice, and the city lights shimmered through a curtain of snow as he stepped off the jet. Two black SUVs waited at the edge of the runway, engines idling like growling beasts. The Bratva didn’t send chauffeurs. They sent wolves. “Signor Moretti,” one of them said, voice clipped, Russian accent thick. “Welcome to Moscow. Mr. Vashenkov awaits.” Luca gave a half smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Then let’s not keep the dead waiting.” The men exchanged a wary glance, but said nothing. He slid into the backseat, leather cold beneath his palms, and watched the city blur past — endless gray towers, smoke rising from iron chimneys, and the faint reflection of his own face in the window. Moscow was a graveyard of empires. And he was walking into another one. The convoy stopped before a mansion that looked more fortress than home — all black stone and mirrored glass, the Russ

LUCA The plane descended through clouds the color of gunmetal. Below, the coast of Sicily curved like a blade. Luca’s fingers flexed against the armrest, though no one would have known it was nerves. The last time he’d seen Palermo from this height, he’d been leaving it behind in smoke — blood still fresh on his knuckles, his father’s funeral pyre burning in the hills. Now he was coming home. Not as the heir, not as the prodigal son. But as the man who had dragged every sin of their bloodline into the open. Amara sat across from him, silent as always, face unreadable. Her coat was dark velvet, her hair sleek and pinned. If the fire from Moscow had touched her, she didn’t show it. She looked like power in human form — sharp, deliberate, lethal. The hum of the engines filled the quiet between them. He broke it first. “You don’t have to come.” Her gaze flicked to him, cold and amused. “You tried that line in Moscow. It didn’t work there either.” “This is different,” he s

Luca The air in the study was heavy with betrayal. I could still smell the storm that had broken over Palermo hours ago—the rain had rinsed the city clean, but not my conscience. Not my house. The Moretti estate still carried the weight of bloodlines and sins that refused to die. Mateo stood across from me, his face too calm, too collected for the truth that had just detonated between us. “You want to say that again?” I asked, voice low, deadly. “Because I swear, if I heard it wrong, you still have a chance to walk out of this room alive.” He didn’t flinch. “You heard me perfectly, fratello.” That word—brother—cut sharper than any blade. “Father knew,” he continued. “He made me his contingency plan. If you fell, I was meant to inherit everything. Not you.” The silence that followed was thick, unbreathable. My fists clenched at my sides, nails biting into flesh. For the first time in years, I felt the edge of something close to disbelief. “You’re lying.” My voice dropp

Amara Palermo slept under the weight of thunder. Every window trembled with the coming storm, and every street reeked of fear. I wore black — not as armor, but as mourning. Palazzo Nero loomed ahead like a corpse dressed in gold. Inside, the Consiglio would be waiting. The men who ruled the underworld with rings on their fingers and blood on their tongues. And at the center of that table — the empty seat that once belonged to my husband. I shouldn’t have come. But I couldn’t stay away. Every step echoed down the marble hall. The guards didn’t stop me. They didn’t need to. The look in my eyes said enough — I came for war. Mateo stood near the doors, half-shadowed, half-smiling. “You came,” he murmured, voice smooth as smoke. “I wasn’t sure you would.” “Let’s make this quick,” I replied. “I don’t enjoy being your pawn.” “Oh, you’re not my pawn, Amara.” He tilted his head. “You’re the queen who forgot how the game is played.” Before I could answer, the doors op