CHAPTER 109: WHAT BREATHES IN THE SILENCE (PART 1)

The corridor outside Aria’s room was colder than Luca expected.

He stepped into it with the precision of a man who had lived too many mornings like this one, mornings where danger felt close but remained unseen, like a shadow moving behind frosted glass. Nico stood at the far end of the hall, his posture stiff, arms crossed tightly over his chest.

The moment Luca closed the bedroom door, the silence broke.

Nico straightened. "Boss."

Luca adjusted his cuffs, though his hands were steady and his eyes colder than the steel fixtures lining the hallway. "Talk."

Nico hesitated, just long enough for Luca’s pulse to tighten.

"It is about the man we captured last week," Nico said.

Luca’s jaw hardened. "The one from the northern docks."

"Yes."

Luca stepped closer. "I told you to transfer him to the holding safehouse. Why are we discussing him now?"

"Because he talked," Nico said.

Luca paused.

The air shifted.

Nico swallowed once. "He said the Circle had a second tier. A shadow faction. The ones who supplied weapons, money, intel. Vittorio was only the public face."

Luca’s eyes narrowed. "You think he is lying."

"He is not Don," Nico replied. "Because he gave names. And one of those names showed up at the east perimeter thirty minutes ago."

Luca felt the world still, the gravity inside his chest shifting like stone.

"Who?" he asked quietly.

Nico looked him in the eye. "Adrian Mendez."

The name hit like an old bruise being struck again.

Vittorio’s half brother.

The strategist.

The one who never appeared in intel photos.

The one who had remained a ghost even through all the war.

Luca’s voice dropped, low and dangerous. "He is supposed to be dead."

"So were half the Circle’s lieutenants," Nico muttered. "Adrian is alive. He is here and wants to talk."

Luca stared at him. "Talk?"

"He asked for you by name."

Luca’s silence was louder than any shout could have been.

Nico cleared his throat. "The guards have him at gunpoint outside the main gate. He made no move to run. He claims he came alone."

Luca’s eyes darkened. "Claims."

Nico nodded. "We scanned the perimeter twice. No heat signatures, no vehicles, no weapons detected on him."

"Men like Adrian Mendez do not approach alone," Luca said.

"That is what worries me Don," Nico replied.

Luca’s mind moved fast. Calculating. Measuring. Assessing.

Adrian Mendez approaching the DeLuca estate after the Circle’s destruction was not desperation.

It was not surrender.

It was intention.

It meant the war was not over.

It meant there were pieces on the table Luca had not seen yet.

Pieces that mattered.

"Where is he now?" Luca asked.

"Still at the gate. Kneeling with his hands behind his head. He has not moved."

Luca breathed once, slow and deliberate.

"Bring him to the interrogation room."

Nico stiffened. "Boss, we have Aria upstairs. The doctor said she needs—"

"I know what she needs," Luca interrupted. His voice was calm, dangerously calm. "And what she needs is for this threat to end before it reaches her again."

Nico nodded once.

Luca turned, starting down the hall, but Nico followed him quickly.

"There is something else," Nico said.

Luca stopped.

Nico hesitated. "He asked for you. But he also asked for her."

The air dropped several degrees.

Luca turned his head slightly, his expression shifting into something sharp, lethal, and ice cold.

"He asked for Aria?" Luca repeated.

"Yes," Nico said quietly. "By her full name. Aria Morrelli DeLuca."

Everything in Luca’s body went still.

"Did the guards react?" Luca asked.

"They did not acknowledge it."

"Good."

Luca began walking again, slower, more controlled. "If Adrian knows her name, it means he knows too much."

"Boss," Nico said carefully, "we need to consider the possibility that he did not come here to negotiate. He may want to be captured."

Luca nodded. "I know."

Nico exhaled. "This feels like the start of something."

Luca’s voice was low. "It is."

They reached the staircase. Luca paused, glancing upstairs toward the closed door of the room where Aria rested.

"You think she heard anything?" Nico asked.

"No," Luca said. "And she will not."

Nico nodded, understanding the warning.

Luca started down the stairs, each step deliberate, his mind already calculating the possible shapes of the threat forming around them.

Vittorio had been arrogant, violent, predictable. But Adrian Mendez was something else. A strategist. A ghost. A man who preferred puppets to soldiers.

If he had resurfaced now...

Then the Circle’s fall had only revealed a deeper rot.

At the base of the stairs, Luca stopped again, hand gripping the railing.

Nico watched him. "What is it?"

Luca’s jaw tightened. "Adrian asked for Aria by name." His voice lowered until it was almost a growl. "Which means he knows she exists."

Nico swore under his breath.

Luca continued. "He likely knows she is carrying my child."

Nico froze.

"That is why he came," Luca said. "Not to negotiate."

Nico swallowed. "Then why?"

Luca raised his eyes, the fury inside them controlled but unmistakable.

"A man like Adrian does not come to kill," he said quietly. "He comes to take."

For a full second, neither of them moved.

Then Luca straightened, his expression settling into the cold, lethal calm that had once made him feared across Sicily.

"Prepare the interrogation room," he said. "No one enters until I do."

Nico nodded and turned quickly, heading down the corridor.

Luca paused one final time, his eyes lifting toward the second floor where Aria slept.

A shadow curled in his chest.

The dream she could not remember.

The fear she could not explain.

The sense that something was coming.

She had felt the storm before the sky even darkened.

Luca stepped into the hallway, his voice low.

"No one touches my family."

And he walked forward, ready to face the man waiting at his gate.

Ready to confront the shadow returning from the ashes.

Ready to end the threat before it breathed.