Semua Bab One Heart, Which Brother?: Bab 131 - Bab 140

The mansion never slept again after that night.Every hallway hummed with the static of radios. Armed guards patrolled in pairs, floodlights washed the gardens in blinding white, and the gates bristled with double the men. But none of it gave Lia peace.She still saw it the red words on Julian’s wall.I see you, Serpent.She scrubbed the walls clean, yet she swore she still smelled the paint. Still felt the violation.Ruben had barely slept, either. He stalked the halls, watching his men, barking orders, rechecking blueprints of the estate’s security system until his eyes burned. But even as he moved like a general at war, there was no mistaking it: something inside him had shifted.The Serpent wasn’t just back. He was hunting.By dawn, Ruben summoned Marco, Daph, and three of his most trusted lieutenants. They gathered in his study, the heavy oak doors locked behind them. Lia remained upstairs, unaware of what her husband was plotting.Ruben spread a city map across the desk. Red cir

The mansion’s study smelled faintly of iron and smoke. The air was heavy, weighted by the unopened box Marco had placed on the desk. Ruben hadn’t touched it yet. He didn’t need to. The scent of death was unmistakable.His men stood in a tense half-circle around him, waiting for orders, their faces grim but watchful. Marco shifted, voice low.“It was left at the gate, Boss. No one saw who dropped it. Cameras caught nothing. It just… appeared.”Ruben finally opened the lid.The finger, pale and stiff, lay on red velvet, as if displayed in some sick parody of a jewel. The card beside it mocked him with its bold emblem, the words bleeding in black ink:“You protect no one.”The room grew colder.Ruben closed the box with deliberate calm, his hand trembling only once before his grip steadied. His men knew that look the silence before the storm.“He wants me off-balance,” Ruben muttered, almost to himself. “He thinks I’ll crumble if he keeps sending me pieces of what’s mine.”His gaze lifte

The mansion was alive with whispers. New faces walked the halls, men who moved like predators in tailored suits, their eyes sharp and calculating. The staff pretended not to notice, but their steps were quicker, their conversations hushed. Something had shifted and everyone felt it.In the study, Ruben leaned over a table littered with maps, weapons lists, and photographs of men with scarred faces. Marco stood across from him, his expression drawn with worry.“These aren’t bodyguards, Ruben,” Marco said, voice low. “These are soldiers. You’re pulling wolves back into the fold.”“They were always wolves,” Ruben replied, his tone measured, controlled. He circled a port on the map with a thick black pen. “And I need wolves to hunt wolves. Ken doesn’t play fair, Marco. If I meet him with soft hands, I’ll hand my family to him on a silver platter.”A knock interrupted them. Javier stepped inside, the scarred lieutenant from Ruben’s past. His presence alone made the room heavier.“I made a

The estate had grown quieter, but it was not the peace of safety it was the silence of a battlefield before the clash. Every hall bristled with armed men, every corner patrolled. Even the air inside the house seemed heavier, as though Ruben’s paranoia seeped into the walls.Lia walked slowly through the corridors, Julian balanced against her hip, his small hand tugging absently at her hair. Her eyes moved over the men Ruben had stationed indoors strangers in black, their gazes sharp, their weapons visible. It no longer felt like a home. It felt like a cage.“Señora,” one of the guards said respectfully as she passed. His voice was polite, but the rifle across his chest made her shiver. She gave a tight smile and kept walking.Julian cooed softly, but Lia’s heart ached. She wanted him to grow up knowing laughter, knowing warmth, not the cold steel tension that now wrapped around every day.In the study, Ruben bent over maps of the estate, red markers circling weak points in the defense

The storm outside beat hard against the tall windows of Ruben’s study, rattling the glass like an omen. The city below was blurred into streaks of light and shadow, thunder muttering low in the distance. Inside, the room was dim but alive with tension the sharp glow of the desk lamp falling over neat stacks of paper, files with old insignias, and a phone that hadn’t stopped vibrating all evening.Ruben ended yet another call, his jaw locked so tight the muscle in his cheek ticked. He placed the phone face down on the desk as though he could bury the voices on the other end. His hands pressed flat on the polished wood, chest heaving in and out. The silence was suffocating, louder than the storm.He had told himself he would never go back. That the day Lia walked away with Julian, he had buried the mafia world with her footsteps. For years, he kept to that promise, raising his son in quiet determination, swallowing his demons in the dead of night. But Ken had changed the rules. Ken had