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.

Luca’s blood went cold.

Before we could turn toward the courtyard stairs, the fortress's central public address system crackled to life with a loud, screeching burst of feedback.

A voice echoed through the stone corridors—a smooth, cultured, aristocratic voice that sent a wave of icy dread down my spine. It was a voice that did not belong to Antonio. It did not belong to any capo in the city.

"Good evening, Luca," the voice purred through the speakers. "And good evening to the lovely Sophie. Or should I say... Donna Rossi?"

Luca grabbed his radio, switching to the fortress-wide frequency. "Who the hell are you?"

A soft, mocking chuckle reverberated off the granite walls. "You spent so much time looking at your father, Luca, that you never stopped to consider who was pulling his strings. Antonio was a blunt instrument. A greedy, insecure dog who barked whenever I threw him a bone. His failure at the Citadel was... disappointing, but entirely expected."

I looked at Luca. His face was paler than I had ever seen it. "Julian," Luca whispered under his breath, his knuckles turning white around his rifle.

"Who is Julian?" I asked, my heart pounding violently against my ribs.

"Julian Sterling," Luca muttered, horror bleeding into his tone. "Vanessa's father. The head of the Sterling Cartel... and the man who financed my father's rise thirty years ago."

"Very good, Luca," Julian’s voice continued over the intercom, dripping with sadistic pleasure. "You took my daughter from me. You broke her mind and left her to burn in that tower. An eye for an eye, don't you think?"

Suddenly, the video feed on the grand hall's main security screen blinked on.

My breath caught in my throat, a scream choking in my windpipe.

On the screen was the chapel bunker. The heavy blast doors were blown open, black smoke pouring from the frame. Kneeling on the stone floor, surrounded by four black-clad operators with silenced submachine guns aimed at her head, was Carmela. Her hands were bound behind her back with zip-ties, a cut bleeding above her brow.

Standing behind her was an older man with silver-streaked hair, wearing a pristine cashmere coat, holding a gold-plated revolver pressed directly against the base of Carmela’s skull.

"Mama!" Luca roared, his voice cracking with unbearable anguish.

"Here is my counter-proposal, Luca," Julian Sterling said, smiling directly into the surveillance camera. "You have exactly two minutes to walk out onto the clifftop courtyard alone, unarmed, with Sophie in chains. Surrender her to me, and I might allow your mother to live out the rest of her days in an offshore cell."

Julian pulled back the hammer of the revolver. The loud *click* echoed through the speakers like a death knell.

"If you refuse... or if you attempt to breach the courtyard with your men... I will put a bullet through Carmela's brain, trigger the seismic charges planted along the cliff, and bury you, your lover, and this entire fortress at the bottom of the Atlantic."

The screen went black.

The silence that followed was absolute, suffocating, and terrifying.

Luca stood in the center of the blood-drenched hall, his chest heaving, his dark eyes wide with an agonizing conflict that was tearing him apart from the inside out. He looked at the heavy door leading to the courtyard, then turned slowly toward me, his gaze dropping to the Rossi bloodline ring gleaming on my finger.

"Luca..." I whispered, my voice trembling.