CHAPTER 21The city, still reeling from the judge’s death, seemed to linger in a suspended state of unease. News channels replayed the preliminary hearing in endless loops, highlighting Adrian Morgan’s dominance, his quiet, lethal authority. The death of the judge had shifted everything. The main trial, which was supposed to ignite immediately, was postponed for a month.Two powerful families were involved. The court needed time, or so the newspapers said, to appoint a new judge. But Adrian knew better. In the mafia world, judges weren’t just neutral arbiters—they were pieces, movable, bendable, sometimes corruptible. A new judge could mean a new threat or a fresh angle. Adrian spent his nights in shadowed offices and dimly lit archives, laying plans beneath plans, preparing contingencies in case the scales were tipped against him.He was a chess player, always thinking five moves ahead.◇◇◇◇◇Not all battles were fought in courtrooms or back alleys. Some were fought in silence, in gla

CHAPTER 23The world was still spinning around the trial of Enzo DeLuca and Riccardo Marchesi. Every café radio in Milan had it on repeat. Every headline screamed it. The city’s veins pulsed with arguments—half of them swearing that Enzo would walk free because money ruled everything, the other half betting that the state would finally bury the DeLucas for good. Talk shows roared. Lawyers sparred on live TV. Even the cab drivers cursed the case between cigarette drags.“Will Morgan win?”“Can Enzo and Marchesi buy another judge?”“Is this the end of the DeLuca empire?”The trial loomed like a storm on the horizon. The press called it Il Processo del Secolo — the Trial of the Century. And at its center stood Adrian Morgan—the undefeated, the untouchable, the ghost with a briefcase.◇◇◇◇◇It was dawn when he left Milan.There was no entourage and no escort. Just him, a black car, and the winding roads that cut through the Lombard hills toward the quiet countryside near Bergamo. Olive tre

CHAPTER 25The city wasn’t silent.Not after the fire.Not while one of their own was missing.In there safehouse—now cold concrete, flickering fluorescents, the scent of gun oil and stale coffee—Adrian stood at the center of what remained of his team. The war room was stripped down now: no polished desks, no encrypted terminals on display. Just a steel table, maps pinned to the wall, and the weight of loss pressing down like gravity.Elena paced.It wasn’t frantic neither was it emotional.But tight—like a spring coiled too far. Her arms were crossed, jaw clenched, eyes scanning the floor as if Marco’s blood trail might lead them somewhere. She hadn’t slept. Hadn’t eaten. Just moved—restless, sharp, dangerous.Dante leaned against the wall, sipping espresso from a chipped cup. He watched her, smirk tugging at the corner of his lips.“Ah, finally, let me guess,” he said, voice low, teasing. “his love’s getting to you, eh?”Elena stopped.Turned.Her eyes cut through him like glass. “Sh

CHAPTER 27An hour passed in silence since Marco Bellanti opened his eyes and whispered that one word—“Bella.”Not loud or dramatic.Just there.Like a key turning in a lock long rusted shut.He’d said it for weeks—always with that cocky smirk, always when she was trying to ignore him, always just to get under her skin. Bella. As if he had the right. As if she’d ever let him close enough to mean it.But this time?This time, it wasn’t a line.It was a breath pulled from the edge of death.Then Marco opened his eyes again.He blinked once. Then again. His gaze found Elena first—kneeling beside the bed, hand resting on the rail, dark circles beneath her eyes like war paint. Then Dante—slouched in a chair, feet up, pretending to sleep, but his fingers twitching over his burner phone like a man ready to fight.Marco exhaled—slow, rough, like he was pulling himself back from the edge of the grave.“Bella,” he said, voice cracked and dry, but laced with that old smirk. “You’re still here.”H

CHAPTER 29Marco Bellanti's health is getting better than it was before. But instead of healing quietly, he spent his time testing Elena Rossi’s patience like a man playing Russian roulette with a loaded slap, again and again and again.Marco just never got tired of doing this every blessed day. It is like Elena’s slaps are like music to his ears. He just never got tired from receiving those.“You’re staring,” he said one evening again, lying on the cot, shirt off, ribs wrapped in white bandages. “Do I look better today, bella?”Elena didn’t look up from her tablet. “You look like something the cat dragged in. Then chewed on.”He grinned. “But still handsome enough to make you blush.”She snapped the tablet shut.And slapped him.Again ( It became a daily routine for Elena).The sound cracked through the medical wing like a gunshot. Dante, three rooms over, winced mid-type. Calvin smirked into his coffee.Marco touched his cheek, still smiling. “I’ll take that as a yes.”Elena leaned