2025-09-11 21:19:26CHAPTER 3
The storm had passed, but Adrian couldn’t shake the sense that thunder still rolled behind his ribs. Milan’s skyline glittered against the night, a thousand light pretending to be stars, but he knew better. In this city, light only meant someone wanted to be seen—and shadows were where power really lived.
He sat at his desk, the black envelope still resting where he had left it hours ago. The Valenti emissary’s words replayed in his head. Names don’t stay buried forever.
Adrian sipped his whiskey, steady, calculating. Fear had no place in him anymore. He had walked too long in the dark to tremble now. But there was something worse than fear: exposure.
He had built “Adrian Morgan” from nothing—a man without history, without bloodlines, untouchable in court and beyond suspicion. The undefeated lawyer, the face of discipline. If the mask slipped, everything would unravel.
And so he made his decision. He would no longer stand alone. If the Valentis wanted to test him, if old enemies were sniffing at the edges of his disguise, then Adrian would build something of his own—something sharper, stronger.
A team.
Not the kind a law firm hired. The kind a man like Adrian could trust when trust itself had become extinct.
Elena Rossi
The first name came to him easily.
Elena Rossi had once been Milan’s most relentless investigative journalist. Sharp, unyielding, unafraid of pushing into places most men avoided. Her articles had exposed politicians, toppled CEOs, and peeled back layers of corruption that others had learned to tiptoe around.
And then, one night, she disappeared from the papers. Blacklisted. Word on the street was that she had gotten too close to the mafia’s financial strings—the Valentis had buried her career with a single phone call.
Adrian found her in a rundown café near Navigli, where the air smelled of old espresso and cigarettes. She sat in the corner, a laptop open in front of her, typing with a cigarette dangling from her lips. Her dark hair framed a face both sharp and weary, a woman who had learned to bleed without flinching.
“Ms. Rossi,” Adrian greeted, sliding into the seat opposite her.
She glanced up, narrowing her eyes. “You’re Adrian Morgan. The golden boy lawyer. What could you possibly want from me?”
“Your eyes,” he said simply. “And your mind.”
Her laugh was dry. “Both are for rent, but not cheap. And I don’t work for suits anymore. They’re all cowards.”
Adrian leaned forward, voice low and cutting. “Not all suits. Some of us are building something new. Something the Valentis won’t see until it’s too late. You’ve been silenced once, Ms. Rossi. I’m offering you a voice again—and protection to use it.”
Her gaze hardened. “And if I refuse?”
“Then you’ll stay here, rotting in smoke and ink stains, while they keep winning. I think you’re smarter than that.”
Silence stretched. Then, with a final drag of her cigarette, she closed her laptop. “I’ll listen. But if you’re just another pretender, I’ll bury you myself.”
Adrian almost smiled. “Good. I need someone who knows how to dig.”
Marco Bellanti
Next came muscle. Not the reckless kind—Adrian had no use for hotheaded thugs—but a man who understood both sides of the badge.
Marco Bellanti had once been a cop. A good one, by some accounts. A brutal one, by others. He knew the alleys, the back doors, the way cases were buried in exchange for envelopes of cash. But Marco had been framed in a corruption scandal years ago and dragged into court. Everyone had expected him to fall. Adrian had defended him, torn the prosecution apart, and walked him out a free man.
Now Marco spent his nights in underground boxing gyms, fists wrapped in tape, body scarred but unbroken.
Adrian found him between matches, wiping sweat from his face, his knuckles bleeding through white gauze.
“You,” Marco grunted when he saw him. “Haven’t seen you since the trial.”
“You owe me,” Adrian replied coolly.
Marco smirked. “Thought you’d come calling one day. What’s the job? Rough up some spoiled banker?”
Adrian shook his head. “Bigger. I’m building something. A law firm that isn’t what it seems. By day, untouchable. By night, we’ll be the storm the mafia never saw coming. I need someone who knows the streets, someone who doesn’t flinch.”
Marco studied him, jaw working. Then he spat blood into a bucket and grinned. “If this means putting fear back in the bastards who ruined me, I’m in. But don’t expect me to wear a tie.”
“You’ll wear what I tell you,” Adrian said.
Marco laughed, loud and reckless. “Cold as ever. Fine, boss. I’ll be your hammer. Just point me where to strike.”
Dante Greco
The last piece was trickier. Information was power, and power flowed through wires now. Adrian needed someone who could bend the digital world to his will.
Dante Greco was whispered about in both government circles and the underworld—a hacker who had once erased an entire family’s financial records from police servers. Some said he could break into any system. Others said he was a myth.
Adrian tracked him to a basement club near Porta Romana. The music above pounded, but down here it was silent except for the hum of machines. Screens glowed, lines of code running like rivers of light.
Dante was thin, pale, his hair a tangle of dark curls. He didn’t look up when Adrian entered.
“You’re standing in front of my firewall,” Dante said flatly.
“Then test me,” Adrian replied.
The hacker finally looked up, eyes sharp and fever-bright. “Adrian Morgan. I’ve been waiting.”
“You know me.”
“I know everything worth knowing. You’ve never lost a case, yet no one can trace where you came from. No school records, no childhood friends. You’re a ghost in Armani.” Dante leaned back, smirking. “That intrigues me.”
Adrian didn’t flinch. “I’m assembling a team. We’ll need firewalls torn down, accounts exposed, enemies erased. You’ll have access to more power than you’ve ever touched before. If you’re afraid, say so now.”
Dante laughed softly. “Afraid? I’ve been waiting for a project worthy of me. Count me in, counselor.”
◇◇◇◇◇
Two nights later, Adrian brought them together.
The office was bare, walls stripped to concrete, a long table in the center. Elena sat with arms crossed, skeptical but curious. Marco leaned back in his chair, boots propped on the table, his grin infuriating. Dante tapped rapidly on a laptop, already probing the building’s security systems.
Adrian entered last, his presence shifting the air. He set a bottle of whiskey on the table, poured four glasses, and spoke.
“By day, we are a law firm. Untouchable. Respected. The kind of name that frightens prosecutors and comforts billionaires. But beneath that, we are something else. We are a blade. A shadow. We’ll handle cases the law can’t touch—and we’ll write our own rules.”
Elena’s eyes narrowed. “And if the mafia comes knocking?”
Adrian met her gaze without hesitation. “We won’t knock back. We’ll break the door down.”
Marco raised his glass. “To breaking doors.”
Dante smirked. “To rewriting the rules.”
Elena hesitated, then lifted her glass. “To exposing every lie.”
Adrian lifted his last. “To the firm. And to the war that’s coming.”
They drank.
For the first time in years, Adrian felt the faintest flicker of something dangerous—trust.
Later that night, after they had gone, Adrian returned to his penthouse. The city was quiet, a deceptive calm.
He found it waiting for him on the floor just inside the door. Another envelope. This one heavier.
He tore it open.
Inside was a single photograph: Adrian, standing in court, victorious, face lit by the press cameras. Across it, scrawled in red ink, one word:
“DELUCA.”
His blood turned to ice.
Someone knew.
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