All Chapters of The Lost Ricci: Heir Back from the Dead: Chapter 81
- Chapter 90
114 chapters
Ch-81: Golden Heir
The Grand Opera House glowed like a faceted diamond against the velvet night, its marble steps draped in a crimson carpet that had felt the weight of a thousand dynasties. This was the "Elite Charity Gala," the annual ritual where the city’s high society performed the theater of benevolence to mask the stench of their greed.At the gilded entrance, Julian Halpert, the golden-haired scion of the Halpert Family, adjusted his sapphire-encrusted cufflinks. Behind him stood the remaining fragments of the old Syndicate—men and women who had watched the Greco and Bronson empires fall and now clung to their "status" like drowning sailors to a rotting mast. When a black sedan pulled to the curb and Dante Ricci stepped out, accompanied by Selena in a gown of shimmering obsidian silk, the air near the entrance curdled."Halt," Julian said, his voice ringing with a practiced, condescending arrogance. He stepped forward, blocking the path with a silver-tipped cane. "This is a gathering of lin
Ch-82: The Dying Grid
The atmosphere in the city grew heavy, as if the air itself were being withdrawn by a phantom hand. In the high-walled gardens of the Ricci Estate, the hum of life-sustaining machinery—the delicate, silver-threaded apparatus keeping Selena’s recovery on track—faltered. A red warning light flickered like a dying heartbeat. In the dark heart of the Syndicate’s secret bunker, the last of the Elders gathered around a cold blue monitor. They were the "Shadow Committee," men whose names had been scrubbed from public records but whose fingers still rested on the city’s jugular: the central power grid and the water filtration arteries."The game ends tonight," Elder Thorne rasped, his eyes gleaming with the desperate light of a trapped predator. "If we cannot own the city, we will turn it into a tomb." With a jagged motion, he slammed a lever forward. Sovereign Liquidation.Immediately, the city’s skyline began to blink out. One by one, the districts fell into a terrifying, obsidian void.
Ch-83: The Silent Embargo
The golden glow that had bathed the city following the fall of the Syndicate did not last. Like a sudden frost killing a spring bloom, a cold, suffocating silence descended upon the Ricci Basin. It began not with a bang or a stock market crash, but with the eerie, unnatural stillness of the horizon. Ten miles out, where the grey Atlantic met the city’s jurisdiction, a line of steel leviathans sat motionless. Container ships deep with grain, tankers heavy with fuel, and white-hulled vessels carrying the city’s life-saving medicines remained anchored in deep water. They were not blocked by storms or naval blockades, but by a phantom wall of paper and code. The Maritime Consortium had arrived, and unlike the enemies of the past, they did not attack Dante’s money; they attacked the city’s physical survival. At their head was a woman whose name whispered of ancient shipwrecks and cold currents: Madam Vesper. She did not play the games of the city’s elite, nor did she care for social sta
Ch-84: The Abyss
The air in the City Council’s High Chamber was thick with the scent of ozone and desperation. Outside, the muffled roar of the starving populace hit the reinforced glass windows like a physical weight. Inside, the Council members—men who had once trembled at Dante’s shadow—now looked at him with the hollow eyes of those who had found a new, more terrifying master.The "Rescue Package" sat on the central mahogany table, a thick stack of ivory paper bound in deep blue silk. It was a contract of surrender. In exchange for the Maritime Consortium docking its grain ships, the Ricci Trust would be dissolved, its assets absorbed into a public-private partnership managed by Madam Vesper. It was a legal execution, signed in the name of "public safety."Madam Vesper stood at the head of the table, her presence radiating a chilling, oceanic calm. She wore a suit the color of a deep-sea trench, her silver hair pulled back with surgical precision. Beside her, the City Governor held a fountain p
Ch-85: The Descent
The air in the Lower Docks was a mixture of brine and rot, a place where the city’s glittering skyscrapers felt like a distant, cruel dream. Here, the water didn't lap at the shore; it gnawed at the rusted skeletons of cranes and the barnacle-encrusted pilings of piers that had seen no commerce in half a century. This was the womb of the Ricci legacy—the place where Dante’s ancestors had hauled salt and iron long before they owned the skyline. Dante and Selena moved through the fog, their silhouettes cutting through the jaundiced light of a few flickering streetlamps. The Maritime Consortium was a beast of the surface, but Dante knew its heart was buried here, in the silt and the shadows. "Vesper’s power isn't in her fleet," Dante said, his voice barely a whisper against the rhythmic creak of shifting timber. "It’s in the void where her fleet should be."As they reached a derelict shipyard office, its windows shattered like jagged teeth, Selena opened a portable terminal. She had b
Ch-86: The Golden Tide
The morning mist clung to the surface of the Ricci Basin like a shroud, but the air was electric with the hum of a thousand drones. High above the water, the world’s cameras were perched like vultures, waiting to broadcast the final capitulation of the Ricci Trust. On the shoreline, the crowds were a churning sea of desperate faces, their anger cooled into a hollow, expectant silence. They had been promised bread, and they had been told it would come at the cost of Dante Ricci’s pride. On the horizon, the flagship of the Maritime Consortium, the Vesperal Star, emerged from the fog. It was a sleek, white-and-silver titan of modern engineering, cutting through the water with an arrogance that mirrored its master. Behind it, the "Ghost Fleet", now revealed as a line of massive, automated tugboats towing hollowed-out cargo shells, followed in a formation that looked like a funeral procession for the city’s independence.Madam Vesper stood on the bridge of the Vesperal Star, her silver
Ch-87: Shattered Pride
The gala at the Obsidian Wing was the pinnacle of the city’s social calendar, a place where the air itself felt expensive. Giulia, draped in a gown of crimson silk that she had charged to a high-interest credit line, clung to the arm of Sebastian Vane. Sebastian was a tech mogul known for his aggressive acquisitions and even more aggressive ego. He was the kind of man who believed that a large enough bank account could buy a clean soul."Look at him," Giulia hissed, pointing a manicured finger toward Dante, who stood near the back of the hall with Selena. Dante wore a simple, dark suit with no visible branding. "He’s still trying to play the part, Sebastian. He probably rented that watch from a pawn shop. He’s nothing but a janitor who got lucky with a few dead-end deeds."Sebastian let out a bark of laughter, loud enough to draw the attention of the surrounding socialites. "A pretender. I’ve seen his type before. They think a quiet demeanor means they have depth, but usually, it ju
Ch-88: The Golden District
The Diamond Heights Club sat atop the city’s highest peak, a fortress of ivory stone and generational arrogance. Inside the Great Hall, the air was thick with the scent of aged cognac and the desperate, dying breath of a crumbling aristocracy. The remaining members of the Vane and Thorne families sat around a table of polished mahogany, their faces twisted in a collective mask of indignation."We cannot allow this to continue," Julian Vane hissed, slamming his fist onto the table. "Dante Ricci has the money, yes, but he lacks the soul. He is a stain on the Golden District. If we allow a man of his... origins... to own the soil we walk upon, then the word 'elite' loses all meaning."The council murmured in fervent agreement. They had gathered to sign the "Social Sanity Act," a desperate legal maneuver designed to ban "individuals of low-standing origins" from owning property within the district. It was a weapon of pure status, a final wall built to keep the "Janitor" out of their sa
Ch-89: Medical Debt
The City’s High Court was packed to the rafters, a sweltering amphitheater of flashing cameras and hungry whispers. Leonardo Greco, sitting at the plaintiff’s table, looked like a ghost of his former self. His clothes were clean but lacked the expensive sheen of his past, and his eyes were hollow with a desperate, final madness. This was his last gamble, a "legal" strike designed to burn the Ricci name to the ground.At the front of the room, Leonardo’s lawyer, a man with a voice like a rusted siren, paced the floor. He pointed a trembling finger at Dante, who sat at the defense table with the "glacial" calm of a statue."Dante Ricci is a thief!" the lawyer screamed, his voice carrying to the very back of the gallery. "He claims to be a savior, a 'Medical Miracle' worker! But where did this technology come from? It was stolen! Stolen from the Greco family’s old research labs! Dante Ricci stole his sister's life from the Greco’s brilliance! He betrayed the man who gave him everythi
Ch-90: Queen of the Gutter
The iron gates of the Ricci Ancestral Estate were a masterpiece of intricate black metal, but today they were the backdrop for a circus of spite. Inside the construction zone, the skeleton of the new manor rose like a silent giant, but at its feet, the air was thick with the rehearsed desperation of a falling star. Giulia, her expensive crimson gown now stained with the grey dust of the construction site, stood before a swarm of hovering news drones and reporters. She was a woman who had lost her credit, but she still clung to her arrogance as if it were a life jacket."This is an outrage!" Giulia screamed, her voice cracking as it projected across the live feeds. "Dante Ricci didn't 'earn' this land! He manipulated my family! He used the Greco name to build his empire and then threw me away like a used rag! I am the rightful mistress of this estate! I am the blood of the people who founded this district!"The crowd of onlookers—many of whom had been displaced by the recent financia