Shadow bound: The beast within

Chapter 7: Serpent in the Bloodline

The 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.