All Chapters of Blood and Badge : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The rain made ghosts of the city lights. From the driver’s seat of her uninspiring car, Agent Elena Rossi watched them bleed across her windshield, her fingers tightening on the steering wheel. Her gaze was locked on the glowing rose sign across the street: The Vesper Lounge. According to the file, her little sister Sofia had been smiling in security footage here just three hours before her body turned up in a warehouse ten miles away.A single black rose on her chest. The Moretti family’s calling card.“Rossi, confirm comms check.” The voice of her handler, Paul Chen, crackled in her concealed earpiece, pulling her from the memory that was always there, a fresh wound beneath her sternum.“Confirmed,” Elena whispered, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. She forced them to relax. Lia Moretti wouldn’t be nervous. Lia is calm. Lia belongs here.“Remember the sequence,” Chen continued, his tone all business, a brittle shield against the operational dread. “Enzo meets you ins

Being Dante Moretti’s “project” felt less like a job and more like an examination.For two weeks, Elena existed in a state of suspended terror, a fly caught in the difficult, beautiful web of a spider that studied its prey before consuming it. Her new role was ill-defined, a shadow’s shadow. She drove his black sedan, but was never privy to the destinations whispered into his phone. She stood guard outside closed doors during meetings, hearing only the low murmur of threats and deals. She fetched his dark caffeine, no sugar, and learned he preferred the Corriere della Sera folded to the business section, not the crime blotter.He rarely spoke to her. But he was always watching. His gaze was a physical weight, pointing out the way she held a door. This micro-expression flickered across her face when a certain news headline played on the waiting room TV, the almost invisible pauses before she answered any question about her past.She was a specimen under glass, and he was cataloging eve

The ride back from the estate was a silent, moving tomb. Dante drove with a controlled fury, his knuckles pale on the steering wheel. The air in the car was thick with Mateo's aggression, Salvatore’s veiled threats, and the red bracelet of fingerprints around Elena’s wrist.He didn’t take her to her apartment. The car slid into the underground garage of his downtown penthouse tower, a place of gleaming concrete and whispered security. He didn’t speak until the elevator doors closed on them, ascending in a smooth, silent rush.“Show me,” he said, his voice flat.She extended her arm. In the elevator’s cold light, the bruises were a lurid purple.His jaw tightened. A muscle flickered there. It was the only sign of anger. “He marked you.”“It’s nothing.”“It’s nothing.” The elevator doors opened directly into his living space, a vast, minimalist expanse of floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city’s electric tapestry. It was as cold and beautiful as he was. “It’s a message. To you. A

The drive back to the penthouse was a tense, silent autopsy of their situation. Dante’s fingers were a white-knuckled cage around the steering wheel. The black rose on his screen was a ghost in the van with them.Inside his fortress, the violation was evident. He went straight to the guest room, Elena trailing behind. The rose was exactly as pictured, a perfect, velvet-black bloom with thorns like needles, lying on the white linen like a drop of ink on snow. A small, ornate card was tucked beneath the stem.Dante picked it up with two fingers, as if it were contaminated. He didn’t read the card aloud. He just stared at it, his face a rigid mask. Then he crumpled it in his fist.“Who has access?” Elena asked, her agent’s mind overriding her fear.“Five people. Myself. My head of security. My housekeeper. My sister.” He paused, the last name a poisoned dart. “And my uncle, who installed the original system.”Salvatore. Of course. The message wasn’t just about her; it was a demonstration

The estate gates swung open not as a welcome, but like the jaws of a trap. This time, there was no valet, no ambient music. The mansion’s windows blazed with a cold, judgmental light. Two unfamiliar soldiers, Salvatore's personal guards, not family regulars, patrolled the portico, their hands resting on obvious bulges beneath their suit jackets.Dante parked, killing the engine. In the sudden silence, the memory of his kiss burned on Elena’s lips, a phantom brand. He stared at the grand entrance, his profile carved from marble.“Remember the story,” he said, his voice stripped of all emotion. “You are a fixer. Hired by Sofia’s family. You found me. I saw your usefulness. Your motivation is money and closure. Mine is power and consolidation. We have a business arrangement. Nothing more.”“And Giovanna?” Elena asked, the sister’s name a tangible weight in the car.A muscle ticked in his jaw. “She is not part of the story. She is the subtext. The unspoken threat in every word he says. Do