CROWN OF ASHES

Chapter One — The Ghost in the Fire

Naples burned like a confession.

The port was a graveyard of light and smoke. Steel beams groaned as fire chewed through the old Rossi import warehouse, and the smell of gasoline hung thick enough to taste. Flames moved like living things hungry, restless, alive.

Matteo Rossi stood in the middle of it, the heat crawling across his skin. He didn’t flinch. The fire didn’t scare him; the silence did. It was the kind of silence that followed betrayal,the kind that made you hear your own heartbeat and wonder why you survived.

He should have been dead with the others.

Matteo stared at the burning building that had once carried his name. The Rossi Imports logo still clung to a corner of the wall, half-melted, the letters dripping into nothing. It had been his father’s empire once, a front for the Romano family’s black-market business. Matteo had taken it over after the old man died, promising to make it legitimate, to wash blood off their name. Now it was gone—burned out from the inside.

He reached down and wiped soot from a half-buried pistol. The metal burned his hand, but he held it anyway. His jaw tightened as he turned the weapon over and saw the mark scratched on the barrel—a snake coiled around a dagger.

The Romano crest.

The family he’d served for twelve years. The men he’d killed for. The man he’d called his brother.

“Matteo!”

He spun, gun raised. From the shadows behind a flaming car, a figure stumbled out. Luca Ferrante—young, loyal, half-dead. His shirt was soaked with blood, one side of his face blistered from the explosion.

Matteo caught him before he fell.

“Who did this?”

Luca coughed, smoke tearing through his lungs. “They knew every shipment. Every guard post. It was no raid—it was a purge.”

“Who gave the order?”

Luca’s voice cracked. “Alessio. Your brother.”

The words hit like a bullet. For a moment Matteo forgot to breathe. Alessio Rossi. The golden boy. The one who’d charmed the Romano bosses while Matteo did the dirty work in the streets. The one their father had always said would wear a suit while Matteo carried a gun.

Matteo’s grip trembled, not from fear but fury. “You’re sure?”

Luca nodded weakly. “He was there. I saw him with Don Romano. They left together before the fire started.”

Matteo’s eyes burned hotter than the flames. His brother hadn’t just betrayed him—he’d erased him.

“Get out of here,” Matteo said.

“I can still”

“Go, Luca.” His tone left no room for argument.

The boy limped away into the smoke. Matteo stayed, watching the warehouse collapse in on itself. Sparks rained down like fireflies, lighting his silhouette in a halo of ruin. He knew what the city would say by morning: Matteo Rossi died in the fire. Another soldier swallowed by the streets.

Good. Let them.

Dead men couldn’t be hunted.

He turned toward the dark stretch of harbor, pulling his coat tight as the wind carried embers toward the water. Somewhere across the city, Alessio was toasting to his death. The Romanos would be celebrating, counting their money, thinking they’d buried the last Rossi worth fearing.

They were wrong.

He wasn’t buried. He was reborn.

Hours later, Matteo walked through the narrow alleys of the old quarter, the city breathing around him. The night smelled of rain and smoke. His boots left streaks of ash on the wet stones. He moved like a ghost—silent, invisible, already halfway gone from this life.

He slipped into a bar beneath a flickering red sign. Inside, the world changed. Jazz crackled from an old speaker, blending with the low murmur of conversations that stopped when he entered. Faces turned, recognized him, then looked away. Nobody wanted trouble tonight.

Behind the counter, Gianna poured whiskey like it was medicine. Her tattoos glimmered faintly under the low light. She’d known Matteo since they were kids,back when he still smiled, before his hands learned the language of violence.

“Matteo,” she said softly, sliding a glass toward him. “I heard the port went up.”

He didn’t sit. He drank standing. The burn of the whiskey was cleaner than the fire had been.

“They hit us from the inside,” he said.

“Who?”

He looked at her. “Family.”

Gianna’s eyes softened. “You’re not safe here. The Romano dogs will finish what they started.”

“They think I’m dead.”

“That’s not safety. That’s a countdown.”

He smiled without warmth. “Then I’ll stop the clock.”

She sighed and reached under the counter. When her hand came up, she held an old key on a chain. “Take

it. It’s for the flat upstairs. No one will look there.”

He took the key, their fingers brushing. “You always take risks for me.”

“Only for lost causes,” she said.

He almost smiled.

Before he could speak, the door creaked open. A man entered wearing a wet trench coat and the face of someone who’d seen too much. He scanned the room once, then walked straight toward Matteo.

“Matteo Rossi?”

Matteo didn’t answer.

The man placed an envelope on the bar. “He said you’d come back.”

“Who?”

“Your brother.”

Gianna tensed. Matteo’s hand hovered near his gun. “What did he say?”

The man swallowed. “Meet him at dawn. Cathedral di Santa Maria.” He hesitated, lowering his voice. “He said he wants to explain.”

Matteo stared at the envelope. “And you believe him?”

“I don’t believe anyone. I deliver messages.” The man turned and left.

The door closed. The bar fell silent again.

Gianna broke it first. “Don’t go, Matteo. It’s a setup.”

He picked up the envelope. Inside was a single photograph, an old one, of him and Alessio standing beside their father in front of the first Rossi truck. Someone had written across it in ink: Forgive me.

Matteo’s jaw flexed. “He wants a meeting, he’ll get one.”

“Matteo”

He looked at her, eyes cold as stone. “You know what fire does, Gianna? It doesn’t destroy. It purifies.”

He left before she could answer.

By the time he reached the cathedral square, the sky had begun to gray. The city was quiet, suspended between night and dawn. Smoke from the port still stained the horizon. Matteo stood in the shadow of the bell tower, watching the streets.

A black Maserati turned the corner and rolled to a stop near the steps. Two men in suits got out first—Romanos, muscle, no doubt armed. Then Alessio stepped out.

Matteo’s breath froze.

His brother looked immaculate. Tailored suit, polished shoes, hair slicked back like the city hadn’t just burned. Only his eyes betrayed him—uneasy, searching.

“Matteo,” Alessio called softly. “You’re alive.”

Matteo stepped forward. “You sound disappointed.”

Alessio forced a smile. “You weren’t supposed to be there. I warned them.”

“You warned them? You led them.”

“It wasn’t like that. Don Romano—he gave the order. I couldn’t—”

“You couldn’t what? Say no?” Matteo’s voice sharpened. “You had one family, Alessio. One name. You traded it for a seat at his table.”

Alessio’s hands trembled. “I did it for us. They were going to shut us out. I made a deal to protect you.”

“Protect me by killing me?”

“You were supposed to disappear, not die! I needed them to think—”

Matteo fired a shot into the ground. The sound cracked through the square, echoing off the marble walls. The guards drew their weapons instantly, but Alessio raised a hand, stopping them.

Matteo’s voice was low. “Don’t lie to me again.”

Alessio’s throat worked. “You don’t understand. You can’t fight them.”

Matteo stepped closer until their faces were inches apart. “Watch me.”

For a heartbeat, the two brothers stood there—the loyal soldier and the traitor prince—mirrors of what power did to blood.

Alessio whispered, “If you come after Romano, he’ll burn the whole city to kill you.”

Matteo turned away, sliding the gun into his coat. “Then Naples will burn.”

He walked off into the mist before the sun broke the horizon. Behind him, Alessio shouted his name, but the sound drowned beneath the ringing church bells.

Matteo didn’t look back. The city that raised him had betrayed him, and he was done asking for mercy. The fire had taken everything soft in him, left only the blade.

He wasn’t Matteo Rossi, the enforcer, anymore.

He was the ghost they tried to bury.

And Naples was about to learn 

ghosts don’t die. They haunt.