Luca stormed into the room, his face grim, his usual calm replaced with something sharp, urgent—deadly.
Without a word, he threw a thick file onto the table, the pages spilling out like a dam bursting.
Marco and Carmen stared at it.
“She’s not working alone.”
Marco’s eyes narrowed as he reached for the first page. His fingers skimmed the documents—photographs, bank statements, coded messages—evidence of something far bigger than just Ella.
Carmen sat up straighter, her heart pounding.
“What do you mean?” she asked, her voice unsteady.
Luca ran a tense hand through his hair.
“Ella has ties to a secret organization,” he said, his tone tight with frustration. “A group that has been operating in the shadows for years. And Marco—”
He hesitated. Marco’s brows furrowed.
“What?” he demanded.
Luca sighed and looked him straight in the eye.
“You worked with them.”
The words hit like a punch to the gut.
Marco froze, his mind immediately racing back through his past.
He had done a lot of dark, messy work over the years—some jobs he could barely remember, others he chose to forget.
But this?
“No,” he said firmly. “That’s not possible.”
Luca’s jaw tightened.
“It is,” he shot back. “You just didn’t know it at the time.”
He flipped open the file, pointing to an old transaction statement under Marco’s name.
“Five years ago,” Luca said, “you took a job transporting weapons. Nothing unusual for you, right?”
Marco stiffened.
Yeah. He remembered that job. Quick. Easy. Clean. Or so he had thought.
“What you didn’t know,” Luca continued, “was that those weapons? They belonged to them. To the people backing Ella.”
Carmen’s blood ran cold.
“You’re saying this organization has been around for years?” she asked.
Luca nodded.
“Long before Ella even came into the picture.”
Marco’s fingers dug into the table.
“What do they want?”
Luca’s eyes darkened.
“Control. Power. Influence.”
Marco let out a bitter laugh.
“Sounds like every other criminal empire,” he muttered.
But Luca shook his head.
“No, this is different,” he said. “They don’t just want to control the underworld. They want to rewrite it. Erase old bloodlines, create new ones. Mold the future.”
Carmen’s stomach twisted violently.
“What does that have to do with Matteo?” she asked.
Luca hesitated.
Then, he pulled out another document.
A sealed order.
With Ella’s name on it.
Marco and Carmen leaned in.
And that’s when they saw it.
The order was simple.
“Take the child.”
Carmen’s throat tightened.
Marco’s hands curled into fists.
“This wasn’t just Ella,” Luca said, his voice low. “She was following orders.”
Carmen’s breathing became shaky.
“But from who?”