Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 81 - Chapitre 90

The sea outside the Romano estate was calm that morning, deceptively so. Bianca stood on the terrace, a silk robe brushing against her legs, the horizon washed in cold light. Below, the tide whispered secrets against the rocks. For a brief moment, she allowed herself to believe in peace.Then Lucia ran in.“Bianca ” she gasped, out of breath, clutching a tablet. “It’s Palermo Port. One of the shipping routes.”Bianca turned, instantly alert. “What happened?”Lucia’s voice faltered. “A bombing. Romano's cargo ship La Fortuna went up in flames an hour ago. Five men died, two of them ours, three Sicilian crew. Surveillance suggests ”“Who?”Lucia hesitated, swallowing hard. “They’re calling themselves the Vipers. Survivors from Serena’s old alliance. They’ve regrouped.”The name hit like cold iron. Bianca’s pulse stilled, her mind flashing to Serena’s eyes the betrayal, the poison, the death she’d sworn was final. Ghosts always had a way of returning to new flesh.Matteo entered then, hi

The storm broke before dawn.Rain lashed the Romano estate, hissing against the marble balconies, flooding the ancient stone like it meant to wash away the sins of its walls. Bianca stood at the window of her private study, the coin Lorenzo had left gleaming in her palm like a warning. She hadn’t slept. The night had been spent dissecting every conversation, every silent glance across her table.Power didn’t crumble from the outside, it rotted from within.The first knock came at six. Sharp. Urgent.Lucia entered, drenched from the rain, eyes wide with something more than exhaustion. “Bianca,” she said, her voice trembling slightly, “you need to see this.”Bianca turned, her tone cool. “What happened?”Lucia crossed the room and placed a folder on the desk. Inside were encrypted messages, lines of numbers and call signs that shouldn’t exist.“I ran a cross-check through our internal servers,” Lucia said. “Someone’s been rerouting intel internal routes, trade manifests, meeting schedul

The night was sharp with sea mist as Matteo’s vessel cut through the Tyrrhenian waters, its hull humming softly against the waves. He’d been traveling north for hours, the Palermo coastline long behind him. Every mile felt like distance from the woman he loved and from the empire they’d built in blood and silence.The storm clouds above hung low, heavy as guilt.He had just stepped onto the deck when headlights appeared on the distant shore. A vehicle idled near the dock ahead, its lights flickering once, twice a signal. Matteo’s instincts sharpened. He reached for his pistol.But before he could react, the air exploded with gunfire.Bullets ripped through the vessel’s frame. Professional hits. Matteo dove behind a crate, firing back, but the attackers moved like ghosts, their faces hidden behind black masks. One of them shouted in Italian, voice distorted through a modulator:“Non uccidetelo! Take him alive!”A flash grenade detonated. Matteo’s world went white.When he came to, his

The first thing Matteo felt was pain dull, deep, crawling beneath his ribs like something that refused to die. The second was warmth. Not from the blankets layered over him, nor from the fire burning low in the hearth, but from the weight pressed gently against his side.Bianca.Her body was curled against his, still in the clothes from the night she’d stormed the captors’ compound. Blood his, hers, others had dried into her sleeves. Her arm draped over his chest as if anchoring him to life itself. Even in sleep, her fingers twitched every so often, like she feared he’d slip away if she loosened her hold.The room smelled of antiseptic, gunpowder, and the faint sweetness of her perfume. Palermo’s dawn light seeped through the heavy curtains, dust motes drifting in its gold haze.Matteo turned his head slowly. The effort made his vision swim. His throat was raw, his lips cracked. But when he saw her lashes clumped from tears, hair matted from sleepless nights something within him broke

The morning broke soft and deceptive gold spilling across the Sicilian coast, birds stirring among the cypress trees, the sea whispering its old secrets against the cliffs. Peace looked beautiful on the outside. But inside Bianca, something restless stirred.She stood in the balcony chamber, the air smelling faintly of salt and ink, the empire’s ledgers still spread across her desk. Yet her mind wasn’t on trade routes or treaties. It was on the nausea curling low in her stomach and the strange flutter beneath her ribs that had been haunting her for days.Lucia entered quietly, setting down a tray of tea. “You should eat,” she said gently. “You’ve barely touched anything since dawn.”Bianca’s gaze flickered toward her, distant. “Does it ever end, Lucia? The rebuilding. The watching. I'm waiting for the next knife.”Lucia hesitated, then spoke softly. “Sometimes, my lady, life gives us something that makes it worth surviving all the knives.”Bianca said nothing. Her hand drifted to her