Vanessa claimed Sophie injured herself on a garage door, until Luca noticed the blood, the wheelchair, and one terrified look that told him his mother was missing. / Chapter 24 / 50

Chapter 24 - A Sister's Ghost

The driver lasted less than two minutes under Luca’s cold, methodical precision.

"The Ironworks," the man sobbed, hyperventilating as Luca withdrew the blade and wiped it clean on the man's own denim pant leg. "Old rail yard at Black Water Crossing... past the chemical marsh. They have an offshore barge waiting at the river lock. They're doing the cryptographic extraction there before putting her on a container ship to Lisbon!"

Luca signaled to the guards. "Put him in a zip-tie and leave him in the drainage sump. If he bleeds out, he bleeds out."

The men dragged the wailing driver away into the darkness of the warehouse annex.

Luca turned to me. The rage that had burned in his eyes during the interrogation softened by a fraction, replaced by an intense, suffocating focus. He walked toward me, stopping only inches away. He reached out, his leather-gloved thumb gently brushing a stray smudge of ash from my cheekbone.

"We get her back, Sophie," he said, his voice low, intimate, and unbreakable. "No matter how many bodies we have to stack between here and the river. I swear to you on my father’s grave, you will hold your sister tonight."

My throat tightened. "Mateo knows you'll come, Luca. This is a funnel. He blew up the estate to disorient us, took Clara to draw us out, and now he’s waiting in a fortified bottleneck."

"Let him wait," Luca murmured, his dark eyes flashing with lethal intent. "He thinks he understands how I operate because he studied my playbooks for eight years. What he forgets is that I wrote those playbooks before I had something I was genuinely terrified to lose."

His hand moved down to the nape of my neck, his fingers tangling into my hair, pulling me toward him until our foreheads rested against each other. His breath was warm against my lips, smelling of copper and dark coffee.

"I spent my whole life protecting a name," he whispered. "A throne made of rotting wood. Tonight, I don't give a damn about the Moretti crown. I care about my mother living to see seventy. And I care about the girl who took a bullet for my life standing whole beside me."

"I don't need protecting, Luca," I whispered back, my hand resting firmly over his heart, feeling the steady, rhythmic war drum beating inside his chest. "I need an open lane and a clear line of sight."

A faint, dangerous smirk touched the corner of his lips. "That, my fierce little maid, is something I can provide."

Elena’s voice broke the silence from across the room. She was holding a heavy chrome revolver Dr. Bennett had laid on her side table. She cocked the hammer with a firm, practiced click of her thumb.

"Take six men and the heavy calibers," Elena ordered, her aristocratic poise asserting itself even through her battered frame. "Mateo was always paranoid about perimeter flank attacks. He relies on automated trip sensors along access roads. If you go through the gate, you die. You have to take the water."

Luca stepped back from me, nodding once. "The old coal barges. Black Water Crossing has three decommissioned dredge locks. We drop in from the river side."