THE MAFIA’S FORGOTTEN SON

The Fire That Sleeps

CHAPTER 7

Isabella DeLuca had once been the most admired woman in Milan. She did not need her husband’s name to command respect; she had her own empire long before Salvatore had begun to claw his way up the ranks of the underworld.

Born into wealth, educated in Paris and London, she had turned her inheritance into power, investing in companies that spread across Europe—shipping, textiles, even banking. She had been a billionaire in her own right, a woman whose signature could alter markets, whose beauty drew whispers at every gala, whose intelligence left men scrambling to keep pace.

And yet, when people spoke of her, they always added his name. Isabella, wife of Don Salvatore DeLuca. She allowed it, even encouraged it, because she loved him with the kind of devotion that defied reason. In public, she was his equal, dazzling in silk gowns and diamond earrings.

In private, she was his shield, his cover, the one who soothed his temper and explained away his crimes as the actions of a man misunderstood. When bodies appeared in alleys, she said they were enemies who had threatened their family.

When politicians muttered about corruption, she smiled at dinners and made sure those politicians left the estate clutching contracts too lucrative to refuse. She built walls around him with her influence, cleaned his bloodstains with her wealth, and prayed that love would tame the beast she had married.

More than anything, she had loved her son. Adrian had been her light, her reason, the one proof she could point to that her marriage had been worth the sacrifices. She poured herself into raising him, ensuring he read books instead of bullets, teaching him music instead of murder. But even in that joy, there was a wound. Adrian was her only child, and that had never been her choice. She had begged Salvatore for another—sister, brother, anyone who would grow with Adrian so he would not be alone. But every time she raised it, Salvatore turned cold.

“One is enough,” he would say. “I don’t need more heirs. Adrian carries my name, my blood. That is all that matters.”

At first, Isabella thought it was pride, a father’s insistence that his firstborn was sufficient. Later, she began to sense there was something darker behind the refusal, some plan that she could not decipher. But she let it go, choosing instead to cherish the son she had. If Salvatore would not give Adrian a sibling, then she would give him the whole of her heart.

Still, she could not stop herself from pressing the subject now and then. She wanted a house filled with laughter, with children racing through its marble halls. She wanted Adrian to know companionship. But Salvatore silenced her each time with the same stare that silenced his soldiers. He was not violent with her—never once raised his hand—but his words were weapons enough.

“Do not ask again,” he once told her, his voice like stone. “What I give is mine to give. What I withhold is mine to keep.”

So she accepted it, even as she covered for him more and more. Whenever whispers of his brutality threatened to stain their name, Isabella stepped in with grace. She entertained the wives of murdered rivals, sending them flowers, writing condolence letters, ensuring they received pensions that came not from compassion but from strategy. She organized charity balls, her gowns shimmering under chandeliers, her smile dazzling as she raised millions for hospitals that served as fronts for laundering cash. To the world, she was the angel of Milan, the beloved patroness of art and philanthropy. Few dared to suggest that beneath her diamonds lay the blood of the Don’s victims.

She told herself she could balance it. That her love could redeem him. That by protecting him she was protecting Adrian’s future. She believed in her marriage the way a drowning woman believes in driftwood—fragile, splintering, but the only thing keeping her afloat.

And then, in a single day, everything crumbled.

It had been late autumn. The ivy on the walls of the DeLuca estate was turning red, the air sharp with cold. Adrian was eight, old enough to remember every detail, though he wished he could forget. Isabella had woken that morning as she always did, her silk robe wrapped around her, her hair pinned with care. She had pressed a kiss to Adrian’s head, whispering that they would ride later, that she would teach him again how to hold the reins with confidence. It had been an ordinary morning in a house that had no ordinary days.

But by noon, the world had shifted.

Salvatore came home early, his dark suit immaculate, his face carved into an expression that betrayed nothing. He summoned Isabella to his study, and Adrian had followed, hiding behind the carved oak door to listen.

“You will leave,” Salvatore said. His tone was calm, almost casual, as though he were dismissing a servant. “You and the boy. The car is waiting.”

For a moment, silence stretched, so sharp Adrian could hear his mother’s breath catch. Then her voice, trembling but steady. “What are you saying?”

“You are no longer needed here,” Salvatore said. “The boy is no longer needed.”

Adrian had felt his heart pound, confusion turning his blood cold. No longer needed? He was the Don’s son. The firstborn. The heir.

“You can’t mean this,” Isabella whispered. “I have stood by you through everything. Every scandal, every whisper. I built your reputation with my name, my money, my life. Adrian is your son, your blood. You cannot just—”

“I can,” Salvatore interrupted, his voice flat. “And I will. This house is no longer yours. You will leave today.”

Adrian remembered the sound of his mother’s sob then, muffled, broken, a sound he had never heard before. She begged—truly begged—for the first time in her life. Not for herself, but for her son.

“He is your heir,” she pleaded. “He carries your blood, your name. How can you throw him away?”

Salvatore’s reply had been colder than steel. “An heir I no longer require.”

Hours later, Isabella and Adrian were gone. Their belongings packed into a single car, their life stripped from them as if it had never existed. The estate gates closed behind them, and the boy who had once been groomed to inherit an empire was cast into the streets as though he were nothing.

The world whispered in confusion. How could Isabella DeLuca, the beloved patroness, the billionaire, be discarded like a rag? How could the Don throw out the woman who had built his reputation, the son who bore his blood? No answers were given. The official story was silence. And in that silence, rumors grew.

Some said Isabella had betrayed him, though no evidence ever surfaced. Some said Salvatore had found her too powerful, her wealth too threatening to his control. Others whispered that he had simply tired of her, as men like him tired of all things that once served their purpose.

But Adrian, even as a child, sensed there was more. He had seen the cold satisfaction in his father’s eyes, as though this exile was not an impulsive cruelty but a carefully executed plan. And the proof came swiftly.

Within weeks, a new woman appeared at the estate. Foreign, exotic, her accent thick, her laughter bright where Isabella’s had been measured. From her womb had produced Luca, then Matteo, then Enzo. The heirs Salvatore had once denied Isabella, he suddenly embraced with another. It was as if Adrian’s existence had been erased, rewritten, replaced.

Why? What had really happened behind the walls of the estate? What game was Salvatore playing, and why had Isabella been sacrificed?

The truth remained buried, locked behind the Don’s silence and Isabella’s own refusal to speak of it. She never explained to Adrian why his father had cast them aside. She never let her son see the depth of her pain. She rebuilt their life with quiet dignity, drawing on the remnants of her fortune, raising Adrian with fierce devotion. But the wound never healed. A woman who had once commanded rooms, who had once been the envy of Milan, had been reduced in a day to a ghost, tossed aside by the man she had loved beyond reason.

Adrian carried that memory like a scar. He carried the unanswered questions, the gnawing mystery of why his father had done it, of what secret had been worth more to Salvatore than his own firstborn son. He carried the knowledge that his mother, powerful as she had been, had lost everything in the span of an afternoon.

And somewhere deep in his chest, beneath the love he held for her and the hatred he nursed for his father, there burned a single, unrelenting question: what was the truth Salvatore had buried that day?

It was a question that would haunt Adrian for the rest of his life.