Mafia Prosecutor De Luca Blood Oath

Chapter 7: The Serpent's Whisper

Matteo De Luca stared at the scrap of paper in his hand as though it were a hot coal, ready to scald his palm again. The message was short, but its sharp edges cut through the thick jacket he was wearing.

"Welcome back, Matteo. I've prepared a deeper grave for you this time. – E.V."

The roar of the motorboat engine he’d just ignited sounded like a wild beast growling in the silent Venetian canal. Matteo let go of the steering wheel, allowing the boat to drift slowly and bump against the wooden dock. His head spun wildly. How did Elias know? Since when?

He turned towards Vincenzo’s catering shop, which he had just left. The neon light inside was still flickering, casting long shadows that looked like ghostly fingers creeping over the water. If Elias knew he was here, then Vincenzo—the only remaining witness to history—was in mortal danger.

"Bastard," Matteo hissed. His hoarse voice was swallowed by the sounds of the canal water.

He didn't race the boat away. Instead, he jumped back onto the dock, ignoring the stinging pain in his left leg, which hadn't fully recovered. He ran back to the rear entrance of "La Serenissima."

Vincenzo sat in front of the counter, his head bowed in his hands, his shoulders shaking from suppressed sobs. When the door burst open, the old man jumped in surprise, his red-rimmed eyes staring at Matteo in fear.

"Matteo? Why are you—"

"Pack your things. Now!" Matteo snatched up a cloth shopping bag and frantically began stuffing bottles of mineral water and crackers into it.

"What's happening? I just gave you the key! Leave!"

Matteo threw the note onto the table. Vincenzo read it, and in an instant, all the colour drained from the old man’s face. He looked like a corpse standing upright. "He… he knows. How could he know?"

"Don’t ask stupid questions, Vincenzo! We’re being watched. He didn’t kill me at the station because he wanted me to lead him to you. And now, knowing you still have 'something', he won’t let you see another sunrise," Matteo gripped Vincenzo’s shoulder, a little too hard, making the old man groan. "Where's the safest place in this building? We can't go out through the canal, they’ll definitely be waiting on the bridge."

Vincenzo trembled violently, but his mind, accustomed to secret schemes, began to work. "The basement… behind the oil tank. There’s an old water passage that leads to the salt warehouse across the district. Only I know the way."

Thirty minutes later, in a stuffy, musty-smelling basement room beneath the abandoned salt warehouse, Matteo placed the metal box on a flimsy wooden table. A small oil lamp was the only source of light, casting giant shadows that danced across the damp stone walls.

Matteo opened the box. He lifted the layer of black oilcloth, revealing a pile of documents that had been buried in the darkness for ten years.

"This is The Ghost Ledger," Vincenzo whispered, his voice echoing in the cramped space. "Your father never fully trusted digital banks. He knew numbers on a screen could be deleted with a single click, but ink on paper… that’s eternal proof."

Matteo began to examine the contents. As a former prosecutor, his eyes were trained to see patterns behind piles of numbers. He found a list of names arranged alphabetically. Next to each name was a date, an amount of money, and a secret code representing the "service" that had been provided.

"Judge Moretti... Attorney General Valli... Police Commissioner Ricci..." Matteo read the names one by one, his tone chilling. "They’re all here. The people who used to shake my hand at annual galas, people who gave speeches about legal integrity... they all ate from my father’s plate."

"It's not just that, Matteo," Vincenzo pointed to a red folder tucked at the very bottom. "That's the shadow ownership structure. Elias Volkov didn't build his empire from scratch. He's a parasite. Look at this 2014 asset transfer document."

Matteo read it thoroughly. His heart pounded. He found a very neat scheme where the De Luca assets—logistics companies, ports in the south, and a textile factory in Prato—were transferred to a holding company named Vipera Holdings.

"Vipera… Serpent," Matteo muttered. "That's Elias's shell company."

"He used a forged signature of Lorenzo's, a week after your father was buried. I know it's fake because I held the original seal," Vincenzo sighed deeply. "But what’s more interesting are the assets he overlooked. Lorenzo was very slippery. He hid some 'gems' in places Elias would never have thought to look because Elias was too arrogant to look down."

Vincenzo pulled an old map of Italy from inside the box. Several small circles were marked in faded red ink.

"A warehouse in the port of Genoa, a vineyard in Tuscany, and an antique bookstore in Florence," Vincenzo explained. "These assets are registered in the name of a defunct orphanage foundation. Legally, they're clean. But inside, your father stored reserves of ‘ammunition’. Cash, weapons, and most importantly... communications."

Matteo leaned his back against the cold stone wall. The information was too much to process in a single night. However, one thing was certain: Elias Volkov had made a fatal mistake. By letting Matteo live and leading him to this box, Elias had handed him the key to destroying the foundations of his own power.

"We can't just hand this over to the police," Matteo said quietly, more to himself. "They're all on this list. If I take this ledger to the prosecutor’s office, I’ll be dead in the car park before I even open the first page."

"So what's your plan, Maestro?" Vincenzo asked. He began using the title, sensing the aura of leadership growing beneath Matteo's scars.

Matteo looked at the palm he'd cut with the knife last night. The blood had dried, leaving a black mark. "Law is a tool for maintaining order, but war is a tool for creating change. If I want to destroy Elias, I can't use the methods he controls. I have to speak the language he fears."

Matteo pointed at the red circle in Florence on the map.

"Nico Santoro. You said he was my father's 'executor'?"

Vincenzo nodded slowly. "The man is a ghost, Matteo. He retired after Lorenzo fell. He runs that bookstore as his hiding place. If anyone knows how to use the contents of this box to create systematic bloodshed, it's him. But remember, Nico is a difficult man. He hates noisy people."

"I won't be noisy, Vincenzo," Matteo closed the metal box with a soft but firm thud. "I'll be the whisper that makes Elias wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night."

Matteo stood, picked up the box, and clasped it to his chest. His sharp eyes looked towards the water passage exit.

"We're going to Florence tomorrow morning. Get fake identities ready for both of us. You're my sick prosecutor uncle, and I'm your loyal nurse."

Vincenzo stared at Matteo, witnessing the terrifying transformation from a law enforcer into a master conspirator. "You’re really going to do it, aren't you? You’re going to burn this world down for revenge."

Matteo stopped in the basement doorway.

He turned his head slightly, allowing the scarred left side of his face to be clearly visible in the dim light of the oil lamp.

"I didn't set this world on fire, Vincenzo," Matteo whispered. "Elias started it. I'm just making sure the flames reach back to him."

On the Ponte di Rialto bridge, Ivan stood in the thickening fog. He held his phone, listening to the long dial tone before a heavy voice finally answered on the other end.

"Sir, they've vanished in Cannaregio. The subject appears to have detected me."

A brief silence followed on the other end of the line, succeeded by a dry, small chuckle.

"Leave them be, Ivan. Venice is a city full of rat holes. But all rats eventually seek a way out when they get hungry. Find out where the first trains north and south are heading tomorrow morning. Matteo won't stay long. He's looking for an army, and I know exactly where he'll go."

Elias Volkov ended the call. He stood on his mansion balcony, staring into the darkness. In his hand, he clutched an ancient gold coin belonging to the De Luca family, which he had taken from Lorenzo's safe ten years prior.

"Florence," Elias muttered with a malicious grin. "You always loved books, didn't you, Lorenzo? It's a shame your son will die among dusty shelves."

As the early morning train pulled out of Santa Lucia station, heading for Florence, Matteo sat huddled in the corner of the rearmost carriage. He opened the small laptop he had stolen from Vincenzo's catering warehouse. He didn't realise that in the row in front of him, a woman with large spectacles and neatly tied-back brown hair was watching him via the window's reflection. The woman was Isabella Rossi, and she carried a document folder bearing the same logo as Volkov's shell company.