CHAPTER 110: THE SHADOWS OF TRUST

The air in the grand, yet overly quiet apartment crackled with a tension thicker than the humid Milan summer.

Sunlight, usually a welcome guest, now seemed to mock the darkness brewing between them.

Alessia, her silhouette sharp against the window, finally turned to face Luca in the bedroom.

Her eyes, the color of stormy Adriatic waters, were not simply angry they were wounded, etched with a pain that went deeper than a recent spat.

"Stop it, Luca," she said, her voice a low, vibrating chord of suppressed fury and sorrow.

She took a step toward him, her hand sweeping through the space that separated them. "Stop looking at me like I’m a child you have to shelter. I’m your partner, Your equal. But you treat me like a delicate secret you might shatter."

Luca stood by the marble fireplace, his posture rigid, his usual effortless charm replaced by a defensive wall.

He was devastatingly handsome, his dark hair falling just so, his custom-tailored suit a testament to the life they shared, a life built on a foundation he was clearly protecting, perhaps even concealing.

"Alessia, please. It’s not about sheltering you. It’s about protecting you," he insisted, the words worn smooth from overuse. "There are things, details, dangers, you don’t need to know. The less you know, the safer you are. It’s the nature of..... "

"The nature of what, Luca? The nature of your world?" she interrupted, her voice finally breaking. "The nature of the lies you tell me? I used to look at you and see the whole world. My past, present, and future. Now? I just see a shadow. A beautiful, deceptive shadow, I feel it every time you glance at your phone and lock it quickly. I see it in the late nights, the vague meetings, your sneaky movements, the way you look through me when you think I’m not watching... "

Tears, hot and stinging, finally spilled down her cheeks, a tangible manifestation of her betrayal. "I don’t need silk dresses and diamond bracelets, Luca. I need trust, And you have systematically bled every drop of it from this relationship we shared, Tell me, Tell me what you’re hiding, you promised me no more secrets after marriage. You promised me."

The sheer force of her anguish seemed to strike Luca, pulling the air from his lungs.

His own defenses crumbled, replaced by a look of desperate resignation..

He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture one of pure, unadulterated stress.

"I know," he breathed, his voice rough. "I know I promised. And I am keeping secrets, but not from us, Alessia. For us. You’re right. I’m hiding something, but only because the alternative is chaos and danger pointed directly at your head."

He walked over to a small, ornate desk, his movements swift and decisive, pulling a sleek, silver dictaphone from a locked drawer.

"You need proof," he stated, his eyes locking onto hers, devoid of emotion as he pressed the play button. "Fine. Listen to one of this flash, I asked you to come listen to this earlier."

A burst of static followed, then voices, muffled but recognizable. Alessia’s breath hitched. One was the syrupy-sweet, calculating voice of Bianca, a rival operative from their past. The other was the cold, venomous tone of Seraphina, a woman Alessia thought they had neutralized months ago.

The conversation was clipped, coded, and horrifying.

"...the new plan is in motion. The target isn’t the documents anymore. It’s the Alessia, let’s work as a team. I want luca, you want Alessia. Then I will destroy the whole morano empire ".

The recording clicked off.

The sudden silence was a brutal shock, leaving a ringing echo in Alessia’s ears. She stared at the small device in Luca’s hand, her mind scrambling to process the names :Bianca, Seraphina, Lorenzo and the terrifying implication of the word ’I want Alessia’.

It was never meant to be compromised.

Bianca leaked the route. She didn’t just did it, for an empty purpose. Luca frown and then smiles "Lorenzo..... he’s their man on the inside now. The one setting the trap."

A sudden realization struck Alessia. "But... but you had the recording. Your Secretary gave it to Xavier to give to you and... he gave it to you?"

Luca nodded curtly. "He did. He didn’t change anything and you heard right, that’s Lorenzo’s voice , they are planning a very dangerous game. Xavier sent it to me an hour ago".

Alessia could only manage a choked whisper. "And you didn’t tell me... because of this."

"Yes," he confirmed. "If you knew the details of the Flash, your mood will change, he lowered his voice and remember you are carrying my babies. He spoke normal again.. "every single conversation, every little detail about your day would be a liability. They have ears everywhere. The moment you showed any change in behavior, they’d know I was onto them. I hide things from you to protect you from the very knowledge that could make you a target."

He didn’t wait for her reply, He couldn’t.

The clock was ticking, counting down to lorenzo’s exposure.

He was already moving toward the door, his large coat already in his hand.

"I need to go," he said, his eyes pleading for understanding that she couldn’t yet offer. "I need to have a conversation with my brother Donato. The communication has to be secure, untraceable. I’m going to the hill outside the city."

Alessia frowned, wiping the tears from her face with a shaking hand. "Why a hill, Luca? Why not here? Your office is shielded, soundproofed, triple-encrypted. Why drive forty minutes out of the city?"

He stopped at the threshold, turning back one last time. "Because here, Alessia, the signal runs through the city’s grid, which means it can be tapped, tracked, or intercepted. The hill is a dead zone, a place where the signal can be bounced off a dedicated satellite, bypassing the local network entirely. It’s a risk I have to take. It’s the only way to ensure the call is only between me and Donato."

He paused, his eyes burning into hers. "And because the moment I call him, they’ll know someone is onto them. If I call here, they’ll know the leak is on my end. If I call from a random spot, the trail goes cold faster. I have to go."

And with that, he was gone.

The heavy, polished door clicked shut with a sound of chilling finality.

Alessia stood alone in the overwhelming silence, the raw emotion settling into a cold, hard resolve.

His explanation of why he hid things was logical, terrifying, and profoundly unsatisfactory.

The Flash, Bianca, Seraphina, Lorenzo,.... the web was always spinning, and she was always on the periphery, just outside the nucleus of the danger.

Her breathing was ragged, Protect you. Protect you. The words echoed like a taunt.

"Lead me there," she whispered fiercely to herself, her fists clenched. "If he thinks he can keep me out of the game, he’s wrong. Lead me there."

She wasn’t talking about the hill. She was talking about the truth.

She began to search the bedroom, moving not with a panicked scramble, but with a focused, surgical precision.

The desk he had used was locked, naturally.

The fireplace was solid. She checked the shelves, running her fingers along the spines of old books, feeling for a false panel or a loosened brick. Nothing.

Finally, she walked into the master bedroom, the place of their most intimate moments, now feeling like another scene of his deception.

She stopped at the bed, her gaze falling on the collection of deep-blue velvet and silk pillows.. the ones Luca insisted on, saying they helped with his neck. His pillow.

She moved to it, a strange, electric sense of certainty guiding her hand.

She pressed on it, feeling the plump down give way, and then she felt it, a slight, unnatural rigidity beneath the softness.

With a swift, almost violent movement, she snatched the pillow away and flipped it over.

Tucked into a small, expertly sewn slit on the underside, concealed by the pillow’s own voluminous structure, was a small, leather-bound book.

It was an old journal, the leather worn smooth, the edges soft with age. She ran her thumb over the cover, the scent of aged paper and Luca’s subtle cologne filling her senses.

She had dressed this pillow a hundred times.

She had plumped it, thrown it aside during restless nights, and straightened it every morning.

She had never seen this slit. Had it been there all along, or had it been put there recently? Luca must have discovered the journal elsewhere and hidden it here, perhaps only an hour before the confrontation. It was too pristine, too perfectly tucked to have been there for long.

Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic rhythm of fear and illicit excitement.

This wasn’t about the Flash or Bianca. This was Luca’s own history, his private thoughts, the very secrets he kept locked deep inside.

She reached for the cover, her fingers trembling on the brittle edge.

" Creeeaaak"....

That was the sound of the door opening behind her..... ...