All Chapters of Love wasn't in the contract: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Chapter 21The video kept playing.Damon didn’t blink.The screen showed Luca standing inside the warehouse, shadows cutting across his face. Armed men surrounded him. Their voices were muffled by the recording, but Luca’s words were unmistakably clear.“I want the contract on Damon Moretti.”The clip ended.The tablet screen went black.For a moment, the world felt unnaturally quiet.Damon’s chest tightened.“That’s not the full video,” he said slowly.The detective studying him raised an eyebrow.“You’re certain?”“Yes.”“Why?”Damon hesitated.Because the truth sounded ridiculous.Because trusting Luca after seeing that footage felt almost irrational.But Damon still said it.“Because Luca wouldn’t say something like that without a reason.”The detective folded his arms.“Mr. Moretti, the man was arrested in a syndicate warehouse filled with illegal weapons and hired killers.”“I know.”“And you’re still defending him.”Damon’s jaw tightened.“I’m saying the situation isn’t what it

Damon forgot how to breathe.For one suspended, impossible second, all he could do was stare at the screen.His mother.Alive.Moving.Looking directly at him.Not as a memory.Not as a portrait on a wall or a voice trapped inside grief.But real enough to make his chest cave in.Evelyn Moreau sat at a polished desk, her posture still elegant despite the tension in her shoulders. She wore a dark silk blouse, her hair pinned back the way she always did when she was preparing for something difficult.There was fear in her eyes.Not panic.Not helplessness.Fear sharpened by certainty.Damon moved closer to the laptop without realizing he had stood.His fingers pressed against the desk hard enough to ache.On screen, Evelyn took a slow breath.“If you’re watching this, Damon…”Her voice wavered only slightly.“…it means Matteo finally made his move.”Damon shut his eyes briefly.Then opened them again.He couldn’t look away.“He may not move like other men,” Evelyn continued. “That has a

Chapter 25The gunshot cracked through the dark like a body splitting in half.Damon flinched instinctively, the sound ricocheting off concrete and steel until it seemed to come from everywhere at once.Then silence.Thick. Heavy. Breathing silence.Not dead silence.Not yet.“Luca”“Down!”Luca’s voice tore through the black a split second before Damon dropped hard to the concrete floor.Another shot rang out.Closer this time.The bullet slammed into the wall above where Damon had been standing a second earlier.Concrete dust rained down over his shoulders.His pulse exploded.He couldn’t see anything.Not Matteo.Not Luca.Not where the hell the gunfire was coming from.Only darkness and the sound of his own breathing going too fast.“Damon,” Luca snapped from somewhere to his left. “Crawl.”“What?”“Now!”Damon obeyed without thinking.Hands and knees scraping across cold concrete, he moved toward the sound of Luca’s voice while trying not to imagine how easy it would be for anoth

Chapter 27The explosion didn’t come all at once.It came in layers.First, a violent metallic crack somewhere deep in the wall behind the generator housing.Then a burst of sparks bright enough to blind.Then the floor itself seemed to jump.The blast wave hit Damon in the chest like a giant fist.He was thrown backward hard enough to lose all sense of direction.Concrete.Heat.Sound tearing apart into white static.His shoulder slammed into something unforgiving.His head clipped the floor.For one awful second, everything disappeared.Then pain came back.And so did fire.The chamber roared.Smoke swallowed the air almost instantly, thick and black and choking.Emergency lights shattered overhead in showers of glass.Damon pushed himself upright on instinct, coughing so hard his ribs screamed.“Luca!”No answer.Only alarms.Only the crackling scream of overloaded electrical systems.Only the ugly, hungry rush of flames catching somewhere they absolutely should not have.Damon’s v

Chapter 29Matteo’s second gun gleamed black in the rain.Damon’s heart dropped so fast it felt physical.“Luca!”The warning tore out of him too late.Matteo raised the weapon with unnerving calm, one hand steady despite the blood soaking through his shoulder. No panic. No desperation. Just that same old, terrifying composure as if shooting the man Damon loved was no more emotionally significant than signing a contract.Luca saw the movement a split second later.He pivotedAnd the world exploded again.Two shots cracked almost at once.Viktor fired from one knee.Matteo fired from the tree line.Luca twisted mid-step, his body moving with that impossible, brutal precision Damon had seen before the kind forged by training and trauma and too many years of surviving by fractions of seconds.One bullet tore through Luca’s jacket sleeve.The otherMissed.Barely.So close Damon heard it split bark behind him.Then Luca fired back.Once.Twice.Three times.The clearing erupted into movem