All Chapters of UNDER THE DON’S PROTECTION: Chapter 71 - Chapter 80

Luca’s POVThe Gulfstream banked hard over the Atlantic, engines straining as we diverted south Geneva’s ashes barely cooled behind us. Moreau’s dead man’s switch had lied: the vaccine lots weren’t the end. They were the spark. Feeds exploded mid-flight Port Harcourt, my hometown, now ground zero for the final strain. Oil refineries shutting down as workers collapsed mid-shift, streets emptying under curfew, hospitals overflowing with the silent fevers. The outbreak elaborated in horrifying detail: first cases in the waterfront clinics fishermen coughing blue-tinged blood onto docks, then spreading to markets, schools, the crowded buses snaking through Eleme and Diobu. Nadia’s code had laced the strain into local water sources rivers contaminated from upstream Baikal seepage? Or deliberate seeding during her rogue ops? Symptoms hit quiet: mild headaches, then euphoria masking the rot inside. Organs failed without warning livers liquifying, hearts arrhythmia-ing in sleep. Thousands in

Luca’s POVThe Gulfstream leveled out over the Atlantic, engines a low drone beneath the cabin’s tense hush. Geneva’s destruction still burned in memory Moreau’s blood on the vault floor, the Palais des Nations sub-basement collapsing in blue fire but the feeds refused to let us rest. The swarm’s final strain had rooted itself in the delta city where my old life ended: the humid coastal sprawl where I once balanced ledgers for a consulting firm that laundered Bratva money without my knowledge. Now that same city choked on Nadia’s legacy.Reports streamed in real time cases climbing past 120,000, hospitals rationing oxygen, makeshift morgues filling school gymnasiums. The strain had perfected silence: no dramatic hemorrhages, just creeping exhaustion. People woke with mild headaches, spent the day working through a strange euphoria, then simply didn’t wake the next morning. Families found loved ones cold in their beds lungs filled with nano-induced fluid, hearts stopped without warning

Luca’s POVThe Hägglunds crawled across the Ross Ice Shelf under perpetual Antarctic daylight—midnight sun turning the horizon into a pale, endless line. We had left McMurdo two days earlier, traversing forty kilometers of pressure ridges and sastrugi, the vehicle’s treads chewing through snow bridges over hidden crevasses. Wind howled constant—katabatic gusts slamming the cab, visibility dropping to meters in whiteouts. Inside, the air was thick with the smell of diesel, sweat-soaked thermals, and the faint metallic tang that now haunted every breath we took.Katarina monitored the portable terminal—red ping steady at the coordinates: 77°51’S 166°40’E. Beneath us, under two hundred meters of ice, lay the last node—Alexei’s deepest secret. A Cold War Soviet listening post, repurposed in the 2000s: geothermal-heated tunnels, redundant servers, cryo-vaults drilled into bedrock. No surface access except the single shaft we’d located—camouflaged as a seismic monitoring station, abandoned

Luca’s POVThe Gulfstream leveled out over the Pacific Christ church falling away behind us, Antarctica a memory of white silence and burning ice. No destination filed; the pilot had instructions to orbit until we decided. The cabin lights dimmed to evening mode soft amber glow, engines a steady hum beneath the hush. Anya slept in the rear berth under sedation vitals stable, fever gone, the last of Nadia’s poison flushed from her blood. Katarina sat forward terminal closed for the first time in weeks staring out at clouds streaked gold by setting sun.Dante unbuckled moved to the seat beside me. Rocco followed squeezing in on my other side until our shoulders touched. Three bodies scarred, tired, alive pressed close in the narrow space.No words at first. Just breath syncing. Hands finding hands. Dante’s fingers laced through mine thumb tracing old scars from zip ties. Rocco’s palm rested flat on my chest feeling heartbeat steady, no longer racing from fever or fear.Dante spoke first

Luca’s POVThe over-water bungalow on the Maldives atoll had never felt like an ending more like the beginning we’d fought for. No dramatic declaration marked the moment we stayed. It happened quietly one morning six months after Antarctica: Dante stood on the deck watching the sunrise paint the lagoon gold, coffee mug in hand, and said without turning, “I’m not leaving.” Rocco already shirtless, fishing rod propped against the railing looked at me, then at Dante, and nodded once. That was it. We wired the money that afternoon. The deed arrived by courier boat three weeks later. No fanfare. Just keys, a signature, and the certainty that this patch of turquoise water was ours.Time softened the edges of everything. The first year passed in gentle rhythms: dawn swims when the water still held the night’s coolness, lazy breakfasts on the deck where Dante and Rocco still bickered over who made better eggs (neither did, but I never said so), afternoons reading or sketching tide charts for