Bloodlines

Elena sat in the backseat of a sleek black car, her hands clenched tightly in her lap as the city of Naples slid by like a living painting of ancient shadows and neon light. Beside her, Alessandro said nothing, staring out the tinted window as if the streets whispered things only he could hear.

She didn’t ask where they were going. She didn’t need to.

Wherever it was, it wouldn’t be safe.

The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was loaded—thick with unspoken questions and untrustable answers. Every second stretched like a string pulled too tight, waiting to snap.

“You’re awfully calm for someone who was nearly caught in a mafia hit,” he said at last.

“I’ve seen worse,” she muttered.

“Journalism is more exciting than I thought.”

Elena looked out her window. “You’d be surprised what people confess when they think no one’s listening.”

He glanced at her. “And what do you hope I’ll confess?”

“That you’re not the monster everyone says you are.”

He raised a brow. “And if I am?”

She turned to meet his gaze. “Then I’ll be the one who exposes you.”

The smirk he gave her wasn’t amusement—it was warning.

Minutes later, the car stopped outside a grand estate on a hill overlooking the bay. Guards in dark suits flanked the iron gates. One nodded at Alessandro and opened the door.

“Welcome to Villa De Luca,” he said as she stepped out.

The mansion was carved from old money—stone archways, Roman statues, olive trees winding through a courtyard soaked in moonlight. It looked like a palace. It smelled like power.

And danger.

Inside, everything was polished to perfection: marble floors, golden chandeliers, dark oil paintings of patriarchs past. A legacy built on blood and silence.

“This way,” Alessandro said, leading her down a hall of portraits. Faces of men with cold eyes. Men who once ruled the criminal underworld. Men he carried in his veins.

She stopped in front of one: Don Marco De Luca.

“You look like him,” she said softly.

Alessandro’s jaw clenched. “He taught me how to hold a gun before I could ride a bike.”

“Must’ve been a warm childhood.”

He didn’t answer.

Instead, he opened a set of doors that led to his study—a modern lair with black walls, a mahogany desk, and a wall of security monitors. One showed the ballroom aftermath from earlier: police tape, blood still glistening on marble.

Elena moved toward the monitors. “You watch everything?”

“Always.”

“Paranoia suits you.”

“It’s not paranoia if everyone really is out to get you.”

She turned. “Why bring me here?”

“Because if someone’s marked you, you won’t survive on your own. And because,” he added, “I don’t believe in coincidences. You show up at a mafia wedding hours before a murder, and the FBI girl dies instead of you?”

She froze. “You think the bullet was for me?”

“I think you were the intended message.”

A beat passed. Her mind raced, trying to piece together why anyone—FBI, Russo, or otherwise—would want her silenced before her story was even finished.

Then he dropped the match that lit everything on fire:

“Your father worked with Don Marco, didn’t he?”

Elena’s heart slammed in her chest.

“What did you say?”

“Giovanni Moretti. Interpol. Disappeared twenty years ago. Except he didn’t disappear, did he?” Alessandro’s voice was quiet, sharp. “He was killed. And you think we did it.”

The blood drained from her face.

“How do you know that name?” she whispered.

“I make it my business to know my enemies,” he said. “And those hunting ghosts in my family tree.”

Her knees nearly buckled.

Because everything she believed—the righteous crusade, the articles, the lies—suddenly felt like a noose tightening around her throat.

“What if I told you,” he said, stepping closer, “that my father didn’t kill yours?”

“Then I’d call you a liar.”

“And what if I told you I don’t know who did?”

She looked up at him, and for the first time, saw something raw behind his eyes—not guilt, but truth. And confusion. Maybe even pain.

She didn’t know what to believe.

But she did know one thing:

The De Luca bloodline held the answers to everything she’d spent her life searching for.