Savage Honor: Blood Oath

004: Shadows Don't Lie

Trust, in my world, is a currency more fragile than glass. And someone just shattered it.

The meeting ended hours ago, but my gut hadn't settled. The kind of tension I was feeling didn’t come from threats thrown across a table—it came from something deeper. Hidden. Slithering. A whisper in the dark.

There was a rat in my house.

And I was going to find them.

I was in the basement surveillance room by midnight. Concrete walls. Flickering screens. The smell of dust and old blood. My right-hand man, Nico, stood beside me, eyes locked on the feed.

“You were right,” he said, voice tight. “Someone’s been leaking intel.”

I didn’t respond. The footage spoke for itself—grainy black-and-white video showing one of my soldiers slipping a flash drive to a courier in the alley behind the club. Timestamped. Dated. Clear as goddamn daylight.

Marco. Loyal since the old days. I’d carried his brother’s coffin after a botched hit. He’d sworn blood loyalty. Now he was selling secrets like a two-bit traitor.

Betrayal doesn’t cut. It carves.

“Bring him to me,” I said, voice like steel wrapped in fire.

Nico nodded and disappeared into the darkness.

But before I left the room, I rewound the footage, eyes narrowing.

There was another figure—just out of frame. Female. Watching.

Isabella.

I found her in the library, curled into a leather chair like a queen with secrets stitched into her spine. She was reading something old—leather-bound, with yellowing pages. A deliberate choice. Like always.

“You were watching the alley tonight,” I said, skipping pleasantries.

She didn’t even blink. “You have a lot of alleys, Luca. Be more specific.”

I moved closer, slow. Dangerous. “Don’t play with me.”

Her eyes flicked up to meet mine. Calm. Sharp. “And if I was watching? What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“I’m accusing you of curiosity. And in my house, that can get you killed.”

She shut the book gently. “Better to see the devil’s hands than be surprised when they’re around your throat.”

I should’ve been furious. But all I saw was a woman playing a deadly game of her own. Not against me. Beside me. Whether she knew it or not.

“You saw Marco,” I said.

She nodded once. “And I didn’t look away.”

There was something in her tone. Not pride. Not fear. Something colder.

“I was raised to know what betrayal looks like,” she added. “And to never blink when it happens.”

I stepped in front of her, jaw clenched. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I wanted to see what you’d do. Whether you’d protect him. Or punish him.”

That stopped me.

She wasn’t just watching. She was testing me.

“You think I’m weak?” I asked, voice low.

She rose slowly, standing chest to chest with me. “I think you’re conflicted. And that’s more dangerous.”

The air between us cracked like a live wire.

Before I could respond, Nico burst through the door, breathless.

“He’s gone. Marco. Slipped the perimeter.”

I didn’t curse. I didn’t move. I just let the weight of the betrayal settle.

Isabella’s voice was soft, deadly. “You hesitated.”

“No,” I said, my voice colder than a corpse. “I trusted. That’s the last time I make that mistake.”

We tracked Marco to the docks—always the docks.

By the time we arrived, the sky was cracked with lightning. Rain slicked the ground, the scent of ocean and oil in the air. I moved like death through the shadows, and Nico flanked me with two more men.

I found Marco behind a rusted shipping container, gun in hand, eyes wide like a hunted animal.

“Luca,” he pleaded. “I didn’t want to—he has my sister. They said they’d kill her—”

I didn’t flinch. “You should’ve come to me.”

“They said if I did, she’d die!”

“And now you will.”

I raised my gun and fired once. Clean. Between the eyes.

Mercy is for priests. And I’m no saint.

Back at the mansion, I walked through the front doors soaked in rain and blood. Isabella was waiting by the stairs, eyes flicking to the splatter on my collar.

“You killed him,” she said.

I met her gaze, unflinching. “I warned you. Loyalty is everything.”

She stepped closer. “And what happens when your enemies use your loyalty against you?”

“They won’t get the chance.”

“Won’t they?” she said softly. “You’re already bleeding and you haven’t even noticed.”

I didn’t respond. Because she was right.

This house was bleeding. My empire was cracking. And I’d brought a storm into my home in a red dress and dagger eyes.

But the strangest part?

I didn’t want her gone.

I wanted her closer.

Later that night, as thunder cracked overhead and shadows spilled across the room, Isabella stood outside my bedroom door.

She didn’t knock.

She just opened it slowly, stepped inside, and closed it behind her.

“Why are you here?” I asked.

She said nothing.

Just walked up to me, her eyes burning with something between rage and desire. Her hand came up, pressing against the bloodstain on my shirt.

“You don’t scare me,” she whispered.

I caught her wrist, pulled her in.

“You should.”

She didn’t pull away.

And neither did I.

Because maybe she was right.

Maybe I was already bleeding.

But so was she.

And now, we were drowning in it together.