2025-03-31 01:54:11After Alejandro left, there was tension lingering in the balcony.
There was no going back to pretending as Elena stood frozen and her pulse hammering in her ears. Dino stared at his hands, fingers curled into a fist, as if he could still feel the weight of that moment. The same hands that gripped Alejandro a while ago. He exhaled finally. “We aren't doing anything reckless tonight.” Elena flinched. “You think I don’t know that?” “I think you’re angry. And anger makes people careless.” As his dark eyes met hers. Elena let out a bitter laugh. “Maybe I want to be careless.” Dino, lowering his voice, stepped closer. “No. I Want to be free. And those aren’t the same thing.” Elena caught her breath. She should have argued. But he was right. Her fury at Alejandro, at Sanchez, at her father—the thoughts burned in her chest like a wildfire. But wildfires aren't planned. They just destroy, with no strategies. Dino wasn’t going to let her self-destruct as he saw it in her. He glanced back toward the door. “Go back inside.” Elena blinked. “What?” “Go back inside,” he repeated, with a firmer tone. “. If Alejandro suspects anything, act like nothing happened, and he’ll keep you even closer.” She hated this. Hated smiling at monsters who already decided her fate, hated walking into that gilded prison. But she nodded. Dino was right. She had to play the role they expected. Just a little longer. Elena turns, straightens her shoulders, and goes back in through the doors. --- Dino, still outside a moment longer, braced his hands against the railing. He needed to think. Elena was smart but also desperate. And desperate people are prone to making mistakes. Dino had survived Sanchez’s world by hiding in plain sight over the years. He had mastered how to play their game, reading their movements before they even made them. He was an actor, and he had played his role well. He wasn't just a soldier in this empire. Everything has shifted tonight. Alejandro saw the cracks in his mask for the first time. And that was dangerous. Dino, thinking ahead, forced a hand down on his head. They had to be patient. Calculated. If they had to get Elena out—and if they must do this. Alejandro would be watching her now. Sanchez would be watching him. Dino would have to pretend also that nothing had changed. --- There was still music and conversation in the grand hall, as if nothing had happened. Elena's heart was pounding beneath her ribs as she walked back into the gathering. She found Capello first. Her father's shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his choices, looking exhausted. Bearing the choices that had destroyed her life. But when he looked at her, he felt something else. Guilt. “Elena,” he murmured. “Did you know?” She stopped in front of him. Capello swallows hard. “Know what?” She gave him a sharp look. “That Dino wasn't Sanchez’s son.” Capello stiffened. He pulled her toward the edge of the room, hurriedly glancing around. “You mustn’t speak of that,” he whispered. Elena clenched her jaw. “So you did.” Capello with a slow, heavy breath. “I suspected.” The confession stung. “You watched them treat him like a dog, and you said nothing?” She hissed. “You watched him spend his whole life serving them.” Capello spoke with trembling hands. “There is nothing I could have done?” Elena stared at him. Her father had spent his life bowing to men like Sanchez. Tonight. She assured herself she would never be like him. “You ought to have fought for him,” she said quietly. “But you didn’t.” Capello’s face crumpled. A hand wrapped around Elena’s wrist before he could say a word. Alejandro. His breath laced with whiskey as he leaned closer. “Dance with me.” Elena bluntly responds, “No.” Alejandro tightened his grip. “It wasn’t a request.” Remembering Dino’s warning. She forced a smile as her stomach churned. Play the role. She allowed herself to be pulled to the dance floor as she exhaled. It was elegant and suffocating as the music swelled around them. Holding her in place, Alejandro's hand pressed tightly against her waist. “You’re upset.” Elena stared over his shoulder. “I wonder why.” “Because of Dino, I assume.” Alejandro chuckled. Her blood ran cold. “What?” “You think I didn’t notice? You two have always had... something.” He snuggled with a smirk on his face. Elena’s pulse pounded in her throat. Alejandro leaned closer. “Princesa. At the end of the day, you’re mine, so it doesn't matter.” Elena dug her nails into his shoulder. Even if I have anything to say about it. Her gaze met Dino’s across the room. Always watching. He was standing near the bar, watching. And in a blink of a moment, Elena knew— They had to act soon. Because Alejandro wouldn't just cage her if they don't. He would destroy her. But Dino wasn’t going to let that happen. Her anger was still burning when she spoke. “Why didn't you fight for him?” she said quietly. “Because you could have.” Deep lines of regret etched into Capello’s tired features as his face crumbled. He couldn't say anything for a long moment. He murmured with a bare whisper, “I couldn’t even fight for my own family.” Elena stiffened. Capello's gaze drifted past her, lost in the past. His voice faltered. “Your mother would have never let this happen.” Her mother. Elena's throat tightened. Their home was haunted by a ghost long before she was gone. Capello continued, his voice thick. ”She fought for you, for us.” He ran his trembling hands as he ran them down his face. “But in the end, she couldn’t fight fate.” Elena’s pulse pounded in her ears. “It wasn't just an accident, was it?” Capello looked at her then. There was heaviness and suffocation in the air between them. Alejandro’s hand was already clamped around her wrist as his lips parted before he could speak. Elena couldn't register her father’s flinch before she was pulled onto the dance floor. Though Alejandro has her in that forced waltz, with his grip possessive and suffocating, her mind was still back there. With the man who had lost everything. And her mother, whose absence appeared as not just an accident.
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Chapter 140
The rain had slowed by dawn, but the chill lingered. The warehouse in Milan was quieter now, but inside its steel walls, the tension had never been louder.Riva lay on a medical cot, her breathing shallow but stable. A white bandage wrapped tightly around her thigh, stained with faint pink. Tomiwa stood guard at the door, rifle slung casually over his shoulder, eyes alert for any sign of The Crows.Dino stood by the window, staring out at the grey morning light. His fists clenched as he replayed Riva’s warning over and over again in his mind. The Crows.Paula approached silently. "She’ll recover. She said they tracked her from Zurich. They're ghosts. She barely got out."Dino nodded. "Sanchez planned this in layers. Mirador, Navaro... and now a third unit completely off-grid. This wasn’t just legacy preservation. He wanted scorched earth if he ever went down."Paula looked over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. "Alejandro’s been... distant. Since yesterday. He hasn’t said a word t
Chapter 139
The warehouse in Milan reeked of oil, gunmetal, and burnt rubber. Rain drummed against the corrugated roof in a steady rhythm, each drop a drumbeat to the gathering storm.Dino paced in the shadows, his jaw tight, the weight of their victories doing little to ease the tension clawing at his nerves. Zurich had been a win—but it was only a scratch on the surface. Mirador was in custody, but his silence thus far was a louder scream than any confession.Sergio stood by the makeshift monitor wall, watching a live feed from the G-8 security compound where Mirador was being held. “Still nothing. Not a damn word.”“He knows his fate,” Paula muttered, crossing her arms. “If he speaks, he dies by the hands of Sanchez’s loyalists. If he stays quiet, he’ll rot.”Tomiwa walked in then, soaked to the bone but with fire in his eyes. “Intercepted chatter. A coded message was left outside the Zurich site. It’s from Sanchez. He’s trying to reach someone.”Dino’s gaze snapped to him. “Who?”Tomiwa tosse
Chapter 138
The storm hit Genoa that night. Rain lashed at the windows of Dino’s high-rise office, now serving as the nerve center of their alliance. Lightning split the sky in violent forks, illuminating the tension that never truly left the room.Dino stood before the massive glass pane, the city below flickering with half-dimmed lights and panic. News of the vault explosions had sent shockwaves across Europe, and while the world tried to make sense of the attacks, Dino was several steps ahead. He had to be. Especially now that Sanchez was no longer a shadowy cartel figure pulling strings—he was caged. But dangerous still."He won’t stay quiet," Tomiwa muttered, tossing a newly intercepted message on the table. It was written in code, but the threat was loud and clear. Capello and Elena. They were targets.Sergio, seated at the corner of the room with a pistol on the table before him, let out a low whistle. "Man’s in prison, and he's still swinging blades. This guy is relentless.""And smart,"
Chapter 137
The soft hum of fluorescent lights buzzed in the concrete bowels of the high-security prison outside Palermo. Inside a heavily guarded wing, Sanchez sat behind reinforced glass, his face older but no less venomous. His once-expensive suit was replaced with an orange jumpsuit, but his eyes burned with undiminished rage.Two guards flanked the security post while a prison psychologist observed him from the other side of the partition. He barely blinked."I want to send a message," Sanchez said coolly.The psychologist raised an eyebrow. "This isn’t a press room."Sanchez leaned forward, revealing a stitched scar on his temple, a reminder of his violent capture. "Then write this down. Tell Capello... and Elena. The walls of this cage won't last forever. And when I get out, I’ll bury them both."The guards stepped in, but Sanchez didn’t resist. As they dragged him back into his cell, he laughed—low and venomous."Time doesn’t heal debts. It just fattens them."---Milan – Rooftop Safehous
Chapter 136
The dawn was bleak over Milan, casting long shadows across the shattered skyline. The fallout from the strikes against Mirador had left a void — and in that silence, new threats were already clawing to the surface.Dino stood in the armory, his fingers brushing over the cold steel of a modified pistol. The vault explosions, the fall of Vexler, and the disruption of Mirador’s European backbone — it was everything they had fought for. But there was no triumph in his eyes. Not yet.Sergio approached, his face smeared with soot and cuts. “The final reports are in. Vexler’s entire chain collapsed. Offshore accounts frozen, the Lisbon office burnt out, and the rest — scattered. We should be celebrating.”Dino looked up slowly. “We took out the snake’s head. But the body is still thrashing.”Alejandro strode into the room, black gloves in one hand, the other holding a blood-stained dossier. He hadn’t said much since the strike in Madrid. Something had changed. The Alejandro who had stood bes
Chapter 135
The Swiss Alps stood like eternal sentinels under a gray sky, their peaks sheathed in white silence. Somewhere beneath them, the Genesis facility awaited.Sergio tightened his gloves and adjusted the scope on his rifle. He crouched behind a snow-covered ridge, eyes fixed on the distant structure nestled into the mountain face. The facility wasn’t marked on any map. No lights. No footprints. Just shadows.Beside him, Tomiwa checked the schematics again. “Thermal says two heat signatures inside. Small security. This is more a tomb than a lab.”Sergio nodded. “Still. Whatever Vexler left behind, it was worth hiding this deep.”Tomiwa shifted his gaze toward the other ridge, where Alejandro stood alone, silent, staring down at the complex below. The wind howled around him, but he didn’t flinch. He looked like a ghost—or worse, a man reborn.“He’s different,” Tomiwa muttered.Sergio glanced up. “Back to his old self.”“More like... what he was trying not to be.”---Back at the temporary b
