All Chapters of Chains of Velvet, Heart of Fire: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The war council had once gathered in ruthless synchronicity. Each voice held weight. Each silence—threat.But today, when Ciro Vale returned to the compound hidden deep in the Albanian highlands, it was not triumph in the air—it was suspicion.The wind screamed along the crags, and inside the repurposed monastery that served as their base of operations, tension dripped from the walls like mold.Adriana walked behind Ciro, chin lifted, lips drawn into a flat line. Her wrists were bruised. Her eyes burned with the kind of fire that only prison forged.Cristiano Marchesi was the first to rise from the long stone table. “She’s not supposed to be walking in on her own.”“She’s not a hostage,” Ciro replied, voice cold. “She’s a weapon. And we don’t cage weapons. We aim them.”Amaru Dell snorted. “That depends on whether she still knows which direction to p

The Marchesi estate was quiet, but Lucien’s mind was not.He stood on the upper balcony overlooking the vineyards that stretched endlessly across the Sicilian valley. Below, harvesters moved in near-silent coordination, clipping clusters of late-season grapes by hand. Further off, flatbed trucks wound up dirt roads leading to refrigerated cellars beneath the cliffside.From here, the estate looked like peace.But he could feel the fracture forming far beyond the vines—just like the tremor before an earthquake.Lucien’s enemies were moving again. Sloppily. Desperately. And worst of all—together.The war council in the Albanian highlands might have lasted longer than expected, but power-hungry men and jealous women always broke themselves before their enemies could. He didn’t need to strike yet. He needed to wait.Because nothing rotted an alliance faster than silence.Inside the main house, Vincenzo approa

Matteo Marchesi had learned to trust his instincts before he learned to fire a gun.And right now, every instinct screamed one name: Dario Nucci.Deep inside the secured lower archive of the estate, Matteo leaned over a glowing terminal beside Anton, the interface before them running facial recognition, behavioral logs, and archived correspondence between Giorgio and his former operatives.The name Nucci appeared again and again—alongside another that neither of them had expected.Isolde Beretti.Anton let out a low whistle. “This can’t be coincidence. Giorgio blacklisted her in ’09. Said she meddled too deeply in external routing. Claimed she was coordinating off-ledger.”“And Nucci helped her do it,” Matteo said grimly. “This file—it’s a letter. Nucci wrote to Giorgio directly, apologizing for routing a shipment through an unsanctioned Croatian harbor under Isolde’

Cristiano Marchesi always thought the streets of Naples would be his.They had been once—through inheritance, intimidation, and the convenient loyalty of men more afraid than inspired.But now, with every call left unanswered and every safehouse coming up cold, he knew something had shifted.Lucien had made his move.And unlike the subtle bleed of influence Cristiano had once feared, this was a siege. Sudden. Merciless. Surgical.It began with the Fall of Pozzuoli—a coastal warehouse that Cristiano had used for nearly a decade to move arms from North Africa into southern Europe. When the place erupted in flames at midnight, no fire alarm went off, no sirens came.Only ash remained.Within hours, Torre del Greco went dark—his port manager vanished, his shipments frozen under anonymous sanctions with documentation forged so perfectly even Cristiano’s legal team couldn’t unwind them.Then the shell acc

The city of Kotor had never looked so still. Moonlight dusted the stone rooftops with silver, and the ancient fortress walls that once withstood centuries of siege now bore silent witness to a much subtler war.Seraphina Vale stepped onto the narrow bridge that crossed over the inlet of the old city, her coat long and dark, her hair twisted back into a severe knot. She wore no jewelry, no visible weapons.She wanted Julian to see her exactly as he remembered—His muse. His prize. His illusion.Except this time, she was the one holding the blade.Behind her, hidden in the shadows of the upper towers, Lucien Marchesi watched through a long-range thermal scope. He had insisted on personally overseeing the extraction point, though he had promised not to intervene—unless absolutely necessary.“Everything looks quiet,” Anton’s voice crackled in his earpiece. “He’s going to take the bait.”