Prologue
Blood was the only language the underworld truly understood.
Roman DeLuca learned that lesson long before he ever wore the crown of his family’s empire.
The warehouse smelled like rust and gasoline, the air thick with the metallic bite of blood. Rain hammered against the corrugated roof, each drop echoing like a ticking clock counting down to something inevitable.
Roman stood at the center of it all.
His hands were clean. His suit immaculate.
The man kneeling in front of him was not.
“Please,” the man whispered through cracked lips.
Roman tilted his head slightly, studying him the way a predator studies a wounded animal.
Begging always came too late.
Twenty years ago Roman had stood in a different warehouse. A younger man then. Still sharp. Still dangerous. But not yet the monster the world would come to know.
His brother had been there too.
Matteo DeLuca.
The kind of man who laughed loudly, trusted too easily, and believed honor still existed in a world built on betrayal.
Roman had warned him.
Moretti men were snakes.
Matteo didn’t listen.
And snakes bite.
Roman remembered the gunshots. The smell of burning metal. The sound his brother made when he hit the floor.
A sound that never left him.
Antonio Moretti had walked away from that deal alive.
Roman made sure Matteo didn’t die forgotten.
The war that followed drowned cities in blood.
Bodies disappeared into rivers.
Warehouses burned.
Entire crews were wiped off the map.
Twenty years.
Twenty years of violence, revenge, and unfinished business.
And still it wasn’t enough.
Roman’s gaze dropped back to the trembling man kneeling in front of him.
“You were carrying messages for the Morettis,” Roman said calmly.
The man shook his head violently.
“No—no, I swear—”
Roman lifted a hand.
The room fell silent instantly.
Fear had that effect on people.
“You should understand something,” Roman continued, his voice quiet enough that everyone in the room leaned closer to hear it.
“I don’t ask questions unless I already know the answer.”
The man began crying.
Roman sighed softly.
Then he nodded once.
Behind him, Luca Caruso stepped forward.
The gunshot echoed through the warehouse.
Roman didn’t flinch.
Outside, thunder rolled across the city like distant artillery.
Luca wiped his hands and approached Roman.
“There’s news,” he said.
Roman glanced at him.
“Moretti?”
Luca’s mouth twitched.
“Something like that.”
He handed Roman a folded envelope.
Roman opened it slowly.
Inside was a single sheet of paper.
Three sentences.
Roman read them once.
Then again.
For the first time in years, something resembling surprise crossed his face.
Antonio Moretti wanted peace.
And he was offering something in exchange.
Roman’s dark eyes moved to the final line.
A name.
Isabella Moretti.
Roman folded the paper carefully.
Across the city, the war between two empires had just taken a new turn.
And neither of them yet understood what they had set in motion.
