2025-08-25 21:24:48The Romano estate should have been silent after the bloodbath, but silence never lasted long in a house built on old debts and older betrayals. Shadows clung to the halls as if they knew something terrible was brewing, and Luca felt it with every step he took. The curse beneath his skin pulsed like a living thing, restless, hungry, whispering in the back of his skull.
He had survived Emilio’s attack, but survival was never victory. Word was spreading faster than bullets. In smoky clubs and candlelit restaurants, whispers of the Romano heir carried. Some said he had turned into a beast on the battlefield, others swore they saw his eyes burning red like a demon’s. Emilio had paid for those whispers, feeding them like fire into dry wood, and the city was eager to believe. Luca stood in the war room, surrounded by men who once swore loyalty. Their faces betrayed unease. He saw the way they looked at him, not just as their Don but as something… other. Marco, his cousin, leaned forward across the long oak table. His voice was sharp, every word meant to cut. “The streets are buzzing, Luca. They say you are cursed. That you lost control during the ambush. Tell me, is it true? Did you turn into something not human?” The room tightened. Even the candles seemed to flicker against the weight of his words. Luca’s jaw clenched. He wanted to deny it, but the images flashed, blood on his hands, the sound of bone shattering under strength no man should possess. He could still taste the copper on his tongue. “I did what had to be done,” Luca said, his voice steady though the curse burned hotter inside him. “If I hadn’t, none of us would be standing here.” Another cousin, Vittorio, shifted uneasily. “Survival at what cost? A man who cannot control himself cannot control a family. Maybe Emilio does not need to kill us. Maybe he just needs to let you lose yourself.” Murmurs filled the room. Doubt was a poison, and it was spreading. Luca slammed his hand on the table, wood cracking under the unnatural force of his grip. Every eye froze on him. He cursed himself in silence, showing them exactly what they feared. But before he could speak again, the doors opened. A guard rushed in, sweat dripping down his temples. “Don Luca,” he said breathlessly, “we caught one of Emilio’s men near the gates. He carried letters meant for some of your own blood.” The room broke into chaos. Marco shot to his feet. Vittorio cursed under his breath. Half the table looked stunned, the other half looked guilty. Luca moved like a storm. He seized the guard by the arm. “Where is he now?” “In the dungeons.” Luca didn’t wait. He strode from the room, his cousins trailing behind like vultures smelling fresh meat. In the cold stone of the underground cells, the spy knelt beaten, his lip split, his eyes defiant. But it wasn’t the man that chilled Luca’s blood, it was the letter in his pocket, pulled out and read under torchlight. Emilio’s words were sharp, calculated. The Romano bloodline is fractured. Some of them fear him already. Feed that fear. Join me, and you will live when he consumes them all. The signature bled across the parchment like venom. Luca turned slowly, his gaze sweeping across the faces of his kin who followed him down. Who among them had been waiting for these words? Who had already considered betraying him? The curse flared hot in his chest, and for a moment he felt his vision blur into shadow. He fought it back, fought the beast inside that urged him to tear the truth out with claws and teeth. Instead, he spoke low, deadly calm. “Emilio thinks he can buy my blood. He thinks fear will turn this family against itself. But let me make this clear, any man who betrays me will not live long enough to regret it.” His cousins exchanged glances, some defiant, some uncertain. Doubt remained, festering. The spy laughed suddenly, blood spraying from his lips. “You cannot hold them together, Romano. Emilio does not need to kill you. You will kill yourself.” Luca’s control snapped. In one brutal motion, he seized the man by the throat. The curse surged through him, power breaking bone like brittle glass. The body hit the stone floor with a sickening thud. The silence afterward was suffocating. His cousins stared, not with loyalty, but with terror. And Luca realized the spy had been right. Emilio’s war was not only outside these walls. It was inside, in their blood, in the fractures opening wider by the hour. When he looked down, his hands were shaking, claws threatening to break through his skin. He had shown them the monster again. And this time, he wasn’t sure if they would ever forgive him. The torches flickered, shadows crawling higher across the walls as if war itself was already inside the house. And somewhere above, beyond the estate walls, Emilio was waiting. The Romano bloodline is splintering, and Emilio’s serpent, like strategy is working. Luca has given them more reason to fear him than to follow him.
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Chapter 182: The Last Dawn
The house was burning.Flames crawled across the old wood like veins of gold, eating through memories faster than I could hold them. Smoke rolled into the night, thick and heavy, carrying the scent of old paper and secrets that should never have survived this long. I stood in the yard with Grace beside me, watching everything collapse.It should have hurt more. But all I felt was a strange calm.The fire was loud and alive, the only sound left after the storm that had raged inside me for so long. I could still feel the echo of the curse beneath my skin, faint and fading, like a wound trying to remember why it ever bled. My father’s voice was gone. The shadows that once whispered his name were gone too.Only the fire remained.Grace’s hand found mine, grounding me. Her fingers were cold, but her grip was steady. She didn’t look at me. She kept her eyes on the flames, her expression unreadable in the light that flickered across her face.“You did it,” she said softly.I didn’t answer right awa
Chapter 181: Echoes in the Blood
Night had swallowed the estate whole. The storm had broken hours ago, but the air still carried the scent of rain and iron. The corridors were silent except for the sound of my boots brushing against the marble floor. Every step felt heavier than the last, as if the house itself resisted where I was going.Grace followed close behind me, her flashlight trembling in her grip. “Are you sure about this?” she whispered.“No,” I said honestly. “But we’ve come too far to stop.”The key I found in my father’s study had led us down into the east wing, behind a wall I’d never noticed before. The plaster had cracked away in places, revealing faint lines—an outline of something that didn’t belong there. When I pressed my hand against it, a hollow sound answered back.I took a breath and pushed. The wall shifted with a soft groan. Cold air spilled out like the breath of something long buried.Grace’s light fell across stone steps descending into darkness.“God,” she murmured. “He built this beneath his
Chapter 180: The Debt That Follows
The walk back to the mansion felt longer than it should have. The forest was quiet behind him, but the silence wasn’t peaceful anymore. It was heavy—like the earth itself was holding its breath. Every step he took seemed to echo deeper than sound, as if the woods were still watching him go.By the time he reached the outskirts of the estate, dawn was just starting to break. The sky was pale gray, with streaks of gold trying to push through the clouds. The old iron gates stood half-open, rusted from years of neglect. The wind moved through them with a soft, hollow sound, like a sigh.Luca paused before stepping inside. The mansion loomed over the gardens, a dark silhouette against the faint light. It had once been a symbol of his family’s pride; now it looked like a memory that refused to die. The windows were dark, the ivy climbing higher than before, wrapping around the stone like veins.He pushed the door open and stepped in. The echo of his boots followed him through the entrance hall
Chapter 179: The Last Hunt
The woods was still.Even the wind refused to move. The faint smell of iron and smoke hung low, clinging to the damp air. Somewhere above, the moon cut through the clouds like a blade, throwing silver over the forest floor.Luca moved in silence, boots sinking into the earth. His breath was steady and controlled. The hunt had begun hours ago, yet not a single sound of prey reached his ears.It wasn’t an ordinary hunt. Not anymore.He wasn’t chasing an animal. He was chasing what was left of himself.Every step carried an echo—footsteps he couldn’t name, whispers that followed him like the wind’s reflection. His father used to bring him to these woods as a boy, teaching him how to read silence, how to listen to what the earth didn’t say. But that memory had long rotted into something darker.Now, the same forest that once meant peace felt alive in another way. Watching. Breathing. Waiting.He stopped beside a fallen log and crouched low, pressing his palm to the soil. It pulsed faintly beneat
Chapter 178: The Curse That Breathed His Name
When I woke, the world felt wrong.The first thing I saw was the ceiling of my father’s study. The same cracked plaster, the same chandelier that never worked, swaying slightly as if it had been touched by wind. My throat was dry, my body heavy. The air smelled of dust and old whiskey.For a moment, I thought I’d dreamed everything—the catacombs, the mirror, the shadow. But when I sat up, my hand brushed against something sharp. Shards of glass.The desk before me was covered in them. Some pieces were clear, others blackened, as if burned from within. My reflection stared back at me from one of the larger fragments, pale and hollow-eyed.I was still here. Still breathing. But the silence in the room was too deep, too deliberate, like the world itself was holding its breath.My hand trembled as I reached for the shard. It was warm to the touch.Then I noticed the mark.Or rather, the absence of it. The place on my wrist where the sigil had burned for years was now bare—smooth, colorless. I sh
Chapter 177: Where the Sun Does Not Rise
The city was still asleep when Luca left the mansion. The morning light had barely begun to break through the horizon, and even then, it seemed hesitant—as if Rome itself feared to wake. The air was thick with fog, curling between the narrow streets like smoke.He walked with his hands in his coat pockets, his mind racing, every sound amplified by the silence. His father’s voice still echoed in his head. Find me where the sun does not rise.The phrase replayed over and over. It didn’t sound like a metaphor anymore. It felt like a direction. A call.He had searched every record he could find in his father’s study before leaving. A ledger hidden inside one of the old drawers had contained a single note written in Vittorio’s handwriting. It was a location. An address, more like coordinates, scribbled beside three Latin words. Ubi sol non oritur.Now those words were leading him toward the southern edge of the city—toward the old catacombs.The deeper he went, the emptier the streets became. T
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