Alle Kapitel von He Let Our Son Die for His Stepsister, So I Burned His Empire Down: Kapitel 1 – Kapitel 10

Rumors spread through the DeLuca estate.Word was that the Family Elders were furious with Lilia."What right did Lilia have to take young Noah out on her own?""Noah was the Family heir, and he died because of an outsider! What will the East Coast think of us?!""Lilia is a curse on the DeLuca Family! She owes us a blood debt!"The family members erupted in outrage, ready to execute Lilia on the spot.Lilia's face was deathly pale. She hid behind Matteo, trembling uncontrollably.Matteo narrowed his eyes. His cold gaze landed on me."Sera," he said in a tone that left no room for argument, "go explain to the Elders."I looked up at him."Explain what?""It was your misjudgment that caused Noah's death. Lilia is innocent. You are the one responsible."It felt as if a fist had closed around my heart. The pain stole my breath."My son is dead, Matteo. And now you're saying it was my fault?"Matteo's expression darkened instantly. He leaned close to my ear, his voice low enough for only t

Back at the DeLuca estate, I repaired Noah's urn with painstaking care.The cold beneath my fingertips did nothing to quench the fire inside me.When I finished, I fell asleep with tears still on my face.I had no idea how long I slept before frantic barking, snarling, and ripping sounds jolted me awake.Instinctively, I looked toward the table.In the next instant, every drop of blood in my body ran cold.Noah's urn was gone.Lilia's laughter rose above the barking, sharp enough to pierce my skull.A terrible premonition seized my heart.I followed the barking to the back courtyard, and what I saw dragged me straight to hell.Lilia was lounging on a garden swing, watching her pit bulls tear at something in a frenzy.It was Noah's urn!The box had been chewed to pieces. My son's pale ashes were scattered across the ground.Those animals were lapping the powder off the dirt with greedy tongues!"No!!"A roar filled my head. The last thread of my reason snapped.I pulled the Browning fro

(Matteo's POV]The day Sera left the DeLuca estate, Matteo discovered in horror that every cent in the Family's accounts had been drained.He tore his study apart, but all that rage couldn't recover a single dollar.Just as the Elders began bombarding him with calls, even worse news came in. "Don! We have a crisis! The old Don and Donna went to the cathedral, and their car has been rigged with bombs!"By the time Matteo and his men reached the scene, the sight before him turned his blood to ice. A timed explosive had been planted beneath each of his parents' seats.Mario, the Family's second-best bomb disposal expert, was drenched in sweat as he explained:"They're paired pressure-release bombs wired in parallel. The instant either of them gets up and the pressure drops, both devices will detonate!"Matteo checked the timer. Ten minutes left.He grabbed Mario by the collar and roared, "Disarm them, and stop wasting time!""Don... they're linked pressure-release devices... I can't..."M

(Matteo's POV]When Matteo's men hauled him off the floor, the metallic taste of blood still filled his mouth.The Dons of every Family in the cathedral cast one final, contemptuous glance before filing out.Within moments, only members of the DeLuca Family remained.Matteo's phone buzzed relentlessly in his pocket. One call after another.The calls came from Colombian arms dealers and underground bankers who laundered the Family's money...Every single one was cutting ties with the DeLuca Family.Then the Family's treasurer came stumbling to Matteo's feet, waving a tablet."Don... we have a crisis!" he rasped, waving the tablet. "We... we've already... already lost half our core assets to the Moretti Family!"Matteo snatched the tablet, his bloodshot eyes boring into the asset transfer report."Sera!!" Matteo let out a beastlike howl and charged out of the cathedral, searching wildly for her.Sera had to have been coerced by Victor. That was the only reason she would have moved the as

Victor handed me the coffee. His eyes were fixed on the curved screen."Confident?"There was an unusual edge of tension in his voice.I took the cup and smiled.Streams of data raced across the massive curved display in front of me.I was in the Moretti Family's war room, working to crack the largest underground arms trading network in North America.It was called Hellhound.Countless arms dealers and mercenaries used Hellhound, but no one had ever identified its architect. Victor's tech team had spent three years trying and found nothing. That changed when I came along."Of course I'm confident."I hit Enter.Every chaotic thread of data on the screen instantly converged, funneling up to a single name at the top.Everyone in the war room drew a sharp breath.The name was Bellandi.The network was a shadow asset of the Bellandi Family."As of now, the master access to Hellhound is in our hands."I sipped my coffee. "The Bellandi Family's accounts are wide open. All we have to do is wa