Mafia Prosecutor De Luca Blood Oath

Chapter 5: Unseen Shadows

The smoke from the Cohiba cigar curled in the air like a dancing ghost beneath the crystal chandelier of the Volkov family mansion. Elias Volkov leaned his head back against the plush leather chair, letting the warmth of a thirty-year-old whisky coat his throat. Before him, the sweeping view of the city at night looked like scattered jewels—and all of it lay beneath the heel of his polished shoe.

"The world is far quieter without the noisy clamour for justice shouted by that boy," Elias murmured, his lips curving into a thin, dismissive smile.

"Matteo De Luca is finished, Sir," replied a lean man in a charcoal grey suit sitting opposite him. This was Viktor, the Consigliere known as the architect behind the Volkov Clan's money laundering operations. "The hospital reports he's suffering from severe depression. He refuses to speak, refuses to eat. His idealistic character shattered along with his apartment. He's no longer a threat, just historical refuse waiting to be discarded."

Elias gave a quiet, dry, sharp laugh. "That's the problem with honest men, Viktor. They think principles can withstand an explosion. Now, focus our energy on consolidation. I want every port in the south under our control before winter. If any small rivals try to protest, give them the same 'gift' Matteo received."

Just as Viktor was about to reply, the heavy study door opened without a knock. The snake-tattooed Assassin entered with heavy steps, his usually expressionless face now showing a hint of tension.

"Sir," his voice rasped.

Elias raised an eyebrow. "You look like you've seen a ghost, Ivan. What is it?"

Ivan placed a tablet on Elias's desk. On the screen, a red warning flashed: REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED - DE LUCA ARCHIVE.

"Someone just hacked the hospital server and tried to access the old De Luca clan archives," Ivan reported. "The access used a prosecutorial authority code that should have been frozen."

The atmosphere in the room instantly chilled. The whisky glass in Elias's hand stopped moving. "When?"

"Thirty minutes ago. The perpetrator was quite skilled; they erased their IP trail in seconds, but our early warning protocol caught the tremor."

Viktor frowned. "Could it be his colleague? Isabella Rossi?"

"Not her," Elias interjected, his eyes now gleaming with wicked intelligence. "Isabella is too obedient to procedure to hack a hospital system. There is only one person desperate enough and knowledgeable enough about those old codes." Elias paused, then his grin returned, this time more sinister. "So, the little mouse still has the nerve to crawl through the darkness? Interesting."

"Should I send a team to the hospital now?" Ivan asked, his hand instinctively touching the knife hidden at his waist.

"Don't," Elias waved his hand. "Let him feel safe for a moment. If he's searching for something, let him find it. I want to know who else dares to ally themselves with the walking dead."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the run-down city, the night wind cut through the cracked window of a cheap motel room. Matteo De Luca sat on the edge of the musty bed, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He had just returned from the hospital after an agonizing escape.

He hadn't left through the front door. He used the medical waste disposal chute, crawling through in a pain that blurred his vision, before disappearing into the crowd at the bus stop.

In his hand, he held an old mobile phone he had acquired from an illegal SIM card dealer in the black market. He had sent an encrypted message to an old radio frequency once used by his father for emergency communication—a channel that should have been dead for ten years.

Matteo waited. Every second felt like a clock ticking in his chest. His body trembled, not just from the cold, but from adrenaline and lingering trauma.

Bzzzt...

The phone vibrated. A message arrived containing geographical coordinates and one short sentence.

"Vincenzo Moretti is in Venice. Running a small catering business called 'La Serenissima'. Too cowardly to be a mafioso, too honest for this world. – The Keeper."

Matteo's eyes fixed on the name. Vincenzo Moretti. The shadow accountant of the De Luca clan. The man who held the keys to all the hidden vaults and the list of city officials indebted to them. If anyone could provide Matteo with capital to build his force, it was Vincenzo.

Matteo stood, walking towards the small, tilted mirror on the bathroom wall. He slowly peeled back the bandages covering the left side of his face.

Under the dim light bulb, he stared at his own reflection. The left side of his face was a grotesque sight—blistered and bruised skin, scar tissue forming strange patterns from temple to lower jaw. Even his earlobe was slightly disfigured by the heat of the explosion.

He no longer recognised the man in the mirror. The handsome, clean-cut young prosecutor had burned away, leaving something darker, harder, and more lethal.

"You see this, Elias?" Matteo whispered, his voice now deeper and hoarser, like metal scraping against metal. "This face is a gift from you. And I will return it to you... with immense interest."

He picked up a small pocket knife, then without hesitation, he etched a thin line across his healthy palm. Fresh blood dripped onto the dirty wooden floor.

"Vincenzo Moretti," he muttered again. "He thinks he can hide behind flour and tomato sauce in Venice."

Matteo grabbed his black backpack containing a small amount of cash and fake identity documents he had prepared in the hospital, under the name Luca Moretti. He pulled the hood of his jacket low, hiding the destroyed side of his face in the shadows.

He stepped out of the motel room without looking back. He was no longer a law enforcement officer seeking justice beneath the bright lights of a courtroom. He was a ghost crawling through the sewers, ready to poison the wellspring of the Volkov clan's power.

Matteo's heavy footsteps echoed through the silent motel corridor. Each step was a promise of death. Every heartbeat was a drumbeat of war.

"Come on, Vincenzo," he whispered as he stared into the night darkness that awaited him outside. "Time for us to sail towards hell."

As Matteo stepped into the train station en route to Venice, he didn't realise that in the distance, a black car with tinted windows was following him from a very safe distance. Inside the car, Ivan the Assassin watched Matteo's back through digital binoculars, his lips forming a thin smile. He wasn't catching Matteo now—he was leading Elias to the last hiding place of the De Luca clan.