CHAPTER 98: BLOODLINES AND VOWS

The morning after the storm carried a deceptive calm. Sunlight streamed through the tall windows of the DeLuca estate, painting golden streaks across the marble floor. Outside, the gardens sparkled, fresh and clean after the downpour, as if the world itself wanted to pretend that nothing sinister had ever touched this place. But inside, Aria knew better.

She sat at the breakfast table, untouched coffee cooling beside her, eyes lost in the newspaper spread before her. The headline screamed: RUMORS OF A NEW HEIR IN THE DE LUCA EMPIRE. There was no name, no photo, just whispers. Whispers that had already found their way into every corner of the city.

Luca entered quietly, his movements deliberate, his expression unreadable. He was dressed in a charcoal suit, every inch the Don again except for the weariness in his eyes. "You saw it."

"Yes," Aria said, her voice flat. "And I suppose everyone else has, too."

He folded his arms, watching her carefully. "The council’s already asking questions. The Romano family denies involvement, but I can smell their hand in this."

"Whoever’s behind it," she said, pushing the paper away, "they’re not just coming for your empire anymore. They’re coming for mine."

He pulled out the chair beside her and sat down, his fingers brushing hers briefly. "Ours, Aria. Everything that happens now, happens to us both."

Her eyes softened but didn’t lose their fire. "Then tell me the truth, Luca. How much of this did you already know?"

He looked at her for a long moment, then exhaled. "I suspected Matteo had left something behind. Not a child, necessarily, but... leverage. He was always preparing for the day I’d win and he’d lose. He wanted something that would outlive him, a piece of his legacy to haunt me."

"So you think this ’heir’ rumor is part of that?"

"Maybe. Or maybe it’s someone’s way of drawing us out." He leaned back, eyes narrowing. "Either way, it’s not random."

Aria rose from the table, her silk robe whispering against the tile as she walked to the window. The sunlight made her look ethereal, but the steel in her posture betrayed her fearlessness. "I’m tired of being drawn out, Luca. Every time we think we’ve ended it, the past comes crawling back. First my father, then Matteo, now this... this phantom heir."

He stood and moved behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist. "You sound like me," he murmured.

"Maybe I’ve learned from the best."

"Or the worst," he said bitterly.

She turned in his arms, her hands resting on his chest. "Don’t do that. Don’t carry everything like it’s your fault."

His gaze softened. "If it’s not mine, whose is it?"

"Fate’s," she said. "And maybe fate’s finally trying to give us a way out."

For a moment, the air between them thickened with quiet understanding until the shrill ring of Luca’s phone shattered it. He stepped aside to answer. "DeLuca."

A pause. His jaw tightened. "Where?"

Aria could hear faint voices on the other end, urgent, sharp, laced with tension.

"I’m on my way," Luca said finally, ending the call.

"What happened?" she asked.

"Someone tried to break into the docks. They were looking for shipment ledgers, Matteo’s old routes."

Her brow furrowed. "But those were destroyed after the council hearing."

"They were supposed to be." His tone was grim. "Someone’s resurrecting his network."

Aria stepped forward. "Then we go together."

He shook his head. "No. It’s not safe."

She crossed her arms. "Since when has that stopped me?"

Luca’s lips twitched despite the gravity of the moment. "You really don’t listen, do you?"

"Not when you’re trying to protect me from my own war."

He sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You drive me insane."

"And you love it."

"Yeah," he said quietly. "I do."

By afternoon, they were at the docks, the air heavy with the smell of salt and oil. Men in suits scurried about, voices raised, crates overturned. The tension was thick enough to choke on.

Nico met them near the warehouse entrance. "Whoever did this was smart. They knew where the ledgers were hidden. Security cameras caught nothing but shadows."

"Any casualties?" Luca asked.

"Two guards. Non-lethal. They wanted information, not blood."

Aria scanned the wreckage. "Or they wanted us to know they could reach this close."

Nico glanced at her, visibly uncomfortable under her steady gaze. The men had learned long ago that Luca’s wife was not a decorative figure, she was his equal, his strategist.

Inside the warehouse, the broken safe gaped like an open wound. The ledgers were gone. On the floor lay a single black card embossed with a silver symbol: a serpent eating its own tail.

Aria crouched and picked it up. "What is this?"

Luca’s face darkened. "It’s the insignia of the Circolo Nero, the Black Circle. They’re old money. Older than the DeLucas, older than most of the families in Italy. They deal in secrets, not drugs or weapons."

"So they trade in people," Aria said quietly.

"In power," Luca corrected grimly. "And if they’re involved now, it means this isn’t about revenge anymore. It’s about legacy."

Aria turned the card over. There was something written on the back, a single word scrawled in elegant script: Valencia.

Her pulse stilled. "They’re after me."

Luca’s hand closed around hers, the card caught between their palms. "Then they’ve already made their first mistake."

That night, the mansion was unusually quiet. Luca stood on the balcony, cigarette burning low between his fingers, while Aria leaned against the doorframe, watching him. The city lights glittered below like distant stars, and for a moment, he seemed carved out of that same dark fire, untouchable, unreachable.

"You shouldn’t smoke," she murmured.

He glanced back, a faint smirk on his lips. "You shouldn’t worry."

"I’ll stop worrying when you stop acting like you’re the only one holding the world up," she said, crossing to him.

He exhaled a long stream of smoke, the wind catching it. "You really think I can just stop being who I am?"

"No," she said softly. "But maybe you can start being who you want to be."

He looked at her, and something unguarded flickered in his eyes. "And what if who I want to be isn’t enough for you?"

She smiled faintly. "Then you don’t know me at all."

For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then, slowly, she reached for the cigarette and flicked it away, her fingers trailing up to his jaw. "You don’t have to fight everyone, Luca. Sometimes the war is over. You just have to believe it."

He caught her wrist gently, pulling her closer until their foreheads touched. "You’re the only peace I’ve ever known, Aria. And the only war I’d never survive losing."

Her lips brushed his, soft and lingering, like a vow renewed. "Then don’t lose me," she whispered. "Not to ghosts, not to bloodlines, not to the past."

"I won’t," he promised.

"Swear it."

"I swear on everything that ever made me the man standing in front of you now," he said, voice low and raw. "You’re my future, Aria. The rest is just noise."

The night swallowed their words, but the promise hung between them like a flame, bright, defiant, unbreakable.

Down in the shadows of the garden, unseen eyes watched from the trees, a faint smile curling beneath a hood.

"The future," the stranger whispered, voice cold as rain. "Let’s see how long it lasts."

The serpent insignia glinted once under the moonlight before disappearing into the dark.

And upstairs, wrapped in Luca’s arms, Aria felt the faintest tremor of unease ripple through her heart, an omen she couldn’t name, but one she would soon come to understand.

The war wasn’t over. It was only changing shape.

The next morning tasted metallic, like blood on the tongue before it’s spilled.

Aria found the envelope first.

It lay on the marble console in the entrance hall, thick cream paper sealed with black wax. No courier, no guard had seen it arrive. Just the serpent eating its tail pressed deep into the wax, still warm.

She didn’t wait for Luca. She broke the seal herself.

Inside, a single photograph and a lock of dark hair tied with red ribbon.

The photograph was old, edges curled. A woman in her twenties, unmistakably her mother, stood beside a man whose face had been burned away with a cigarette, only the lower half of a familiar jaw remaining. On the back, written in the same elegant hand as the card:

Valencia remembers.

The ribbon around the hair was damp with perfume (jasmine and gunpowder).

Aria’s knees buckled. She caught the edge of the table just as Luca strode in, coat half-on, already barking orders into his phone. He stopped mid-sentence when he saw her face.

"What is it?"

She couldn’t speak. She simply held the photograph out.

Luca took it. The color drained from him so completely she thought he might drop. He turned the picture over, read the words, then looked at the lock of hair as if it were a live wire.

"This isn’t possible," he said, voice hollow.

"Explain it to me, Luca." Her words came out sharper than she intended. "Because I’m tired of discovering my life in pieces handed to me by strangers."

He set the photograph down like it burned, then cupped her face with both hands, forcing her to meet his eyes.

"Twenty-six years ago," he said, "there was a war no one talks about anymore. The Circolo Nero tried to wipe out three families in one night. My father stopped them. In exchange, they demanded a tithe. A child. From each bloodline."

Aria’s breath caught. "They took my mother?"

"They took a baby," he corrected, voice breaking on the word. "A girl born that spring to a woman who was never supposed to survive the night. Your mother... she was supposed to die in childbirth. She didn’t. The Circle took the child anyway. They called her Valencia."

Aria stepped back, out of his reach. "You’re saying I was"

"I’m saying the woman who raised you might not have been the woman who birthed you," he finished, raw. "And the child they took... she was raised by them. Trained. Owned."

The hallway tilted. She saw her mother’s smile in a thousand photographs, heard her lullabies, felt the weight of every hug. Lies or truth? She couldn’t tell anymore.

"And you knew?" she whispered.

"I suspected," he admitted. "When the ledgers went missing, when the symbol appeared, I started digging. But I didn’t know it was" He couldn’t finish.

"That the ghost coming for us might be my sister?"

Luca closed his eyes. "Yes."

The silence was suffocating.

Then the front doors burst open. Nico stormed in, face grim, a tablet in his hand.

"Boss," he said, voice tight. "We have a problem. The east safe house just went dark. Everyone inside... gone. No bodies. Just this."

He turned the tablet.

On the screen: security footage of the living room. A woman stood in the center, back to the camera. Long chestnut hair, the exact shade as Aria’s. She turned slowly, and even through the grainy feed, the resemblance was a knife to the heart.

Same cheekbones. Same mouth.

Only the eyes were wrong (cold, ancient, amused).

She lifted a hand in a lazy wave, then pressed a finger to her lips. Shh.

The feed cut to black.

Nico swallowed. "She left a message. Audio only."

He pressed play.

A woman’s voice, soft and melodic, filled the hall.

"Hello, little sister," it said, the words dripping honey and venom. "Did you like my gift? Mother’s hair still smells like home, doesn’t it? I kept it all these years. Consider it a welcome."

A pause. Then, almost tenderly:

"I’m coming to take back what was stolen. Starting with you."

The recording ended.

Aria stared at the blank screen, the photograph trembling in her hand.

Luca reached for her, but she stepped away again.

"Don’t," she said quietly. "Not yet."

She looked toward the windows, toward the bright, deceptive morning.

"She’s not a ghost," Aria said, voice steady now, edged with something new. Something lethal. "She’s family."

She turned to Luca, eyes burning.

"And family," she said, "is the one thing I will burn the world down to protect."

Outside, the gardens still sparkled.

Inside, the war had finally found its true name.