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 47 / 50

Chapter 47 - Whispers from the Deep Water

The council ended, but the tension inside the fortress only deepened.

While the capos were escorted to secure quarters under armed surveillance, Dante hurried into Luca's private war room, clutching an encrypted tablet displaying a frantic waterfall of red telemetry data.

"Boss, we have an anomaly on the perimeter sensors," Dante reported, his jaw tight. "A fleet of unmanned submersible drones tripped the sonar net along the reef three minutes ago."

Luca immediately pulled up the tactical satellite feed on the wall monitors. The ocean surrounding the cliffside fortress showed multiple thermal signatures approaching beneath the surface.

"Antonio’s men?" I asked, stepping up beside Luca, looking at the blinking red dots converging on the cove. "You said he was dead."

"He is dead. I saw the blade pierce his carotid," Luca said, his eyes narrowing into cold slits as he analyzed the telemetry. "These aren't syndicate street soldiers. Look at the signatures—Class-4 military hardware. Antonio didn't have the clearance or the capital for deep-water tactical submersibles."

"Then who is funding this?" Carmela asked, entering the room with a loaded Beretta in hand.

"The Leviathan Group," Dante spat, pulling up a secondary dossier. "The offshore shadow cartel that Antonio borrowed fifty million from to build the Citadel's thermite network. When Antonio failed to eliminate Luca and Sophie, the debt defaulted to the collateral."

"And what was the collateral?" I asked, a cold dread pooling in my stomach.

Luca turned his head toward me, his expression grim. "The Rossi bloodline seal. The deed to the deep-water port of Trieste—an offshore trade corridor worth billions that your grandfather hid inside an offshore trust. They aren't here to negotiate a syndicate truce, Sophie. They are here to take you alive, bleed the biometric codes out of your veins, and sink this fortress into the sea."

Suddenly, the fortress shuddered violently.

*BOOM!*

The deep, concussive rumble of a torpedo strike rattled the ancient stone foundations. The overhead lights flickered, dying out completely before the red emergency generators kicked on with a low, sinister hum.

From the surveillance monitors, the outer sea gate erupted into a fireball of churning brine and shattered iron.

"Breach at the lower water docks!" a radio crackled with static, followed by the terrifying staccato of silenced automatic fire and dying screams. "They're inside! They have cloaking gear and—*gah!*"