Lucien's POV:
The silence of the safe house, usually a comfort, now grated on my nerves. It was the silence of a tomb, a sterile quiet that echoed with Celeste's unspoken accusation: a cage.
I had seen the fear in her eyes, the dawning resentment, and it was a bitter taste in my mouth. She had wanted to be consumed, and I had claimed her, only to now lock her away. The irony was brutal, a fresh wound.
But it was a necessary cruelty.
My mother. Alive.
Her face, etched with fifteen years of bitter resentment, flashed in my mind. She had always sought to control me, to mold me into her ideal. Now, she sought to destroy me, and Celeste was the chosen weapon.
Rossi was a predictable brute, but my mother… she knew my vulnerabilities, the tender spots I had guarded my entire life. And now, she knew Celeste.
I left Celeste in the secure suite, her silence more damning than any protest. The thick walls felt like a personal prison as I walked through the stark, functional corridors of the safe house.
This wasn't home. It was a strategic asset. A bunker.
I entered the command center, a room bristling with screens and communication equipment. Adrien was already there, his face grim, his movements efficient. He was tracking every lead, every shadow.
"Report," I commanded, my voice flat, devoid of emotion.
"The Moretti and Rossi networks are on high alert," Adrien stated, tapping a screen displaying a complex web of connections. "Angelo Moretti's furious about the breach, but he's also wary. He knows it was a warning shot, not an act of war. Rossi, on the other hand, is moving. Hard."
"Where is he?"
"He's been seen hitting a few of our low-tier distribution hubs. Small-scale disruptions. Testing our response. And… he's put out feelers for information on Celeste. Offering a significant bounty."
My jaw clenched. "Anyone bite?"
"Not yet. But the chatter is rising. He's making it clear she's the target."
"And my mother?" The words tasted like ash.
Adrien hesitated. "She's… vanished again. No direct trace since she left the penthouse. It's like she never existed. Which, I suppose, isn't new."
My mother was a ghost, a master of disappearing acts. This was her signature. It meant she was planning her next move, a more calculated, devastating strike.
"And Damien?"
"Back in Naples. Our intel confirms he met with your mother before Rossi. He's been her proxy, the useful idiot. He's been feeding her information on you for months, hoping to destabilize you and get Celeste back. She just decided to accelerate the timetable."
The depth of Damien's pathetic betrayal was nauseating, but it was my mother's calculating malice that truly chilled me. She had cultivated him, used his desperate resentment against me.
"Has she made contact with anyone else from my past?" I asked, my voice low. "Any old connections she could exploit?"
Adrien checked a console. "No direct hits. But we're monitoring all dormant accounts, old contacts. It's a vast network, Lucien. Your father's legacy runs deep."
My father. The man she blamed for everything.
The man whose shadow I had lived in, both fearing and emulating. Her return was not just an attack on me; it was an indictment of my entire life, an attempt to tear down the world I had built from the ashes of her perceived abandonment.
"Reinforce all perimeters," I ordered. "Triple the usual patrols. I want drones on constant surveillance of the entire property. Any unauthorized approach, any suspicious activity – you alert me immediately. No exceptions."
"Understood."
I walked to the large tactical map dominating one wall. My finger traced the lines of the city, the hidden arteries of my influence, the enemy's potential inroads.
This was a chess game, and my mother had just made an unexpected, devastating move. She had taken my queen. Not physically, not yet.
But by making Celeste the focal point of this war, she had attacked my most vulnerable point.
"What about Nadia?" I asked, turning to Adrien.
"Still trying to establish the full extent of her involvement. It looks like she genuinely believes Rossi offered her a path to closure regarding her brother. She's been a useful, unwitting conduit. Not a mastermind."
"Keep her contained," I commanded. "Monitor her communications. I want to know everything she passed on. And when this is over, we deal with her."
A cold rage, sharper than any blade, began to burn within me. This wasn't just about business, about territory. This was personal. My mother had ripped open old wounds, dragged me back to the ghosts I thought I had buried, and threatened the one person who had dared to awaken me.
I looked at the locked down safe house, at the screens displaying my formidable security. It was a fortress. But no fortress was impenetrable, especially when the enemy knew its architect.
My mother's plan was clear: cripple my network through Rossi, isolate me, and then use Celeste as the final leverage, the psychological blow that would bring me to my knees.
But she had miscalculated. She had mistaken my protectiveness for weakness. She had unleashed a tiger, not a pet. And now, the tiger was loose.
I would find her. I would find Rossi. And I would unleash every ounce of power I commanded to crush them. This was my legacy, my burden, and my war. And Celeste, whether she understood it yet or not, was the reason I would win. The reckoning had come, but it was going to be their reckoning, not mine.