Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 41 - Chapitre 50

Marco’s POVI’d spent the day avoiding everyone, trying to pretend I hadn’t seen the photograph. It didn’t work.Every time I blinked, it was there, burned into the back of my mind. Dante and Lorenzo. Together. The one person I loved most in this world, locked in a kiss that stripped the air from my lungs.The photo wasn’t grainy or taken from a distance. No, it was clear, cruelly so, Dante’s hand gripping Lorenzo’s collar, their mouths crushed together under the soft wash of club lights. I’d told myself that Dante’s silence meant he was still in danger, that his messages hadn’t reached me because he was protecting me. I built an entire world around that illusion, every sleepless night justified by the thought that love, at least, hadn’t turned on me. But now…Now there was proof. Proof that while I was breaking apart trying to find him, he’d found comfort in his ex lover.The irony was almost poetic.When Father called that morning, I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. But he’s a man used t

Dante’s POVThe road to Villa Corvini wound through narrow cliffs and quiet olive groves, where the air smelled of salt and pine. By the time we reached the iron gates, dusk had already fallen, painting the horizon in bruised shades of violet and ash. The headlights of the convoy washed over the walls , high, old, and scarred by time.It had been years since I last set foot here. The villa had belonged to my grandfather, a man whose silence had been sharper than any weapon. He built this place to keep the world out, and for the first time, I understood why.The gates creaked open, and I stepped out of the car. The gravel crunched beneath my boots as I walked through the courtyard. Weeds had begun to push through the cracks, but the bones of the place still stood proud, fountains dry, shutters half-broken, the scent of rain clinging to the stones. My men trailed behind me, carrying crates and rifles, voices low and efficient.Inside, the air was cold. Dust motes drifted in the faint l

Dante’s POVThe night sky over northern Italy was ink-dark, the kind that swallowed light whole. From the cliffs overlooking Lake Garda, the villa shimmered like a bright gem, all glass and stone, built to look ancient but wired with more security than most government compounds. Music drifted through the open courtyard, which clashed with the hum of conversation. Expensive suits, diamonds, cigars. Men and women who ruled empires, both visible and invisible, filled my home like ghosts come to feed. Politicians whose campaigns I’d quietly funded. Industrialists who owed me their fortunes. Old soldiers from the syndicate days who’d once sworn blood oaths in darker rooms.Every one of them had received a black envelope sealed in wax.No name. No address. Just a single word: Rinascita.Rebirth.I had returned.A soft voice broke my thoughts.“Signore, they are all here.”Genci, my oldest guard, my right hand since Naples. His beard had gone gray, but his eyes still carried that steel cal

Dante’s POVThe papers hit the stands before sunrise.By noon, every television screen in Rome was showing my family’s crest, the phoenix, rising over the word “Scandal.”They called it the Palermo Foundation affair.Millions in offshore accounts, funneled through ghost companies tied to my father’s name.The senator smiled through his interviews, swearing it was a misunderstanding, a bookkeeping error, a political trap.He wasn’t wrong about the last part.It was a trap.He just hadn’t realized it was his.I watched it unfold from the villa’s study, the windows open to the sea. The wind carried the smell of rain and paper, the remnants of another front I hadn’t started but would finish.“Rome is buzzing,” Elena said, standing by the map table. “Powell’s planted this well. Journalists are chasing ghosts. You’re the story again.”“I’m not the story,” I said, still watching the TV in silence. “The senator is.”She tilted her head. “You really think you can make him fall without touching

President Powell’s POV“ WHITE HOUSE LINKED TO PALERMO FOUNDATION TRANSFERS IN ROME.”“TOP US DONOR CONNECTED TO POWELL ALLIES UNDER INVESTIGATION.”“SECRET SURVEILLANCE ORDERS TIED TO POWELL ADMINISTRATION.”The headlines screamed in print, bright and accusatory. The television feeds looped the same images: the senator’s crest, the word scandal, the black coin on a parliamentary desk. Social media had already tossed the story into a thousand tiny bonfires. “Eleanor,” I snapped before I could temper it with strategy, “call a press conference. Now. We cannot let this metastasize.”She was already moving. “I’ll pull the comms team,” she said.I paced the study, the headlines framed in my mind like blows. “We need to dominate the tempo. Move the facts before the story hardens.”She returned almost instantly with a folder “What do you want to say?” she asked. “ As people want to know the truth, the court of public opinion is building its own verdict.”I slammed my palm on the desk. “I wi