Vows of Vengeance

Chapter 4: Continuation

Continuation....

****Dante's Point of View****

Rain slid down the warehouse windows like ghost trails, tracing the glass with quiet insistence. I stood at the edge of the table littered with blueprints, photos, and red-string lines that connected betrayal to motive, motive to death. My fists clenched beside Matteo’s file—tattered from years of obsession, from the same fingers that once held a brother's blood.

The name I hadn't spoken aloud in three years now pulsed in the center of the chaos.

Luca Moretti.

"Are you sure it's him?" I asked without turning around.

Silas, my closest and last remaining ally from the Vale days, stood in the shadows. He didn't answer right away. That was answer enough.

He stepped closer, dropped a flash drive onto the table. "Straight from our contact in Atlantic City. Surveillance from the Sea Glass Casino loading dock."

I slid the drive into the laptop and clicked play. There he was, stepping out of a sleek black Rolls Royce, flanked by two muscle-heads in tailored coats. Same perfectly slicked hair. Same snake-oil smile.

But he looked angrier. Leaner. More dangerous.

Luca was back.

I stood up straight, eyes locked on the screen. My voice was steel. "He knows she's with me."

"He will," Silas corrected. "If he doesn't already."

I stared at the screen a moment longer. The camera caught him glancing upward, straight at the lens. He smirked.

My stomach twisted.

Luca Moretti had always known where the eyes were. He played to them. That's what made him lethal. He didn't care about rules or order—just control. Power for him wasn't a means to rule.

It was a means to possess.

And Isabelle Raze had once been promised to him.

I turned from the table, fists still clenched. Every instinct in me screamed to keep her away from this. From him. But that wasn't the mission. Not anymore. This wasn't just about Matteo. It wasn't even about me.

This was about burning the whole house of Raze to the ground—and Luca's return? That was fuel.

---

When I entered the upstairs loft, Isabelle was sitting on the window ledge. Legs crossed. Sleeveless shirt. Her hair tied back in a way that made her look younger, but no less dangerous. She had one of Matteo's tapes in her hand.

She didn't flinch when I entered.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, without turning.

"Close," I replied. "A devil."

She looked back then. Her eyes narrowed. "Victor?"

"Luca."

Something passed through her expression. Surprise. Recognition. Then—the strangest thing of all—a flicker of something almost like fear. She stood and walked toward me slowly.

"He's back?"

I nodded. "Sea Glass Casino. Atlantic City."

"Victor must have called him. He always trusted Luca with clean-up."

I scoffed. "Somehow that makes him filthier."

She crossed her arms. "He won't stop. Not until he's claimed what he thinks is his."

I didn't ask what she meant. I knew. Isabelle Raze wasn't just a symbol of control. She was leverage. She was currency. She was once a contract signed with blood.

And now she was mine.

The air tightened.

"He’ll come for you," I said.

"Let him."

---

Hours later, I watched her from across the training room. She moved like fire, unpredictable and fast, hitting the punching bag with precise fury. Every strike said something. Every hit echoed grief, guilt, and defiance.

"Again," I said.

She struck. Harder.

"You're favoring your left."

"That's where I carry the memory of him."

I paused.

"Luca?"

She kept hitting. "The bruise never fully healed."

I stepped closer. She didn’t stop.

"You don’t have to face him alone."

She finally froze, sweat glistening on her skin, breathing heavy. "No, I don't. But I want to."

She turned and looked up at me. "He doesn’t get to haunt me anymore."

I didn't say what I was thinking. That there were nights I still dreamed of Matteo choking on blood. That I still heard the echo of the bullet. That even after three years, I still couldn’t forgive myself for not being there.

Instead, I reached for the gloves hanging on the wall and pulled them on.

"Then let's make sure you're ready."

She nodded.

We trained until nightfall.

---

Later, I stood at the balcony of the safehouse, whiskey in hand. Below, the city pulsed with life, unaware that its underbelly was stirring.

Silas approached.

"Luca's hosting a private gathering. Tomorrow night. Casino rooftop. Only VIPs."

"Security?"

"Elite. Armed. Probably half of them former mercs."

"Entry point?"

"None." Silas exhaled. "Unless someone walks in like they belong."

I nodded slowly. "She could."

Silas looked uncertain. "That’s a hell of a risk."

"It's the only way to see what Luca's planning."

He gave a long pause. "You trust her?"

My silence was the answer.

Too much.

---

That night, I passed Isabelle in the hallway. She held Matteo's file against her chest. When our eyes met, something passed between us.

Not desire. Not yet.

But recognition.

Two weapons sharpened by loss.

We didn’t speak.

We didn’t need to.

War was coming.

And Luca Moretti had just re-entered the battlefield.

****Isabelle's Point of View****

The name alone made my lungs freeze.

Luca.

It had been years since I heard it aloud, since the last time I dared to speak it even in my own thoughts. Like something that would summon the devil himself.

Now, he was back. Just like Victor planned. Just like I feared.

I sat at the edge of the window in the loft, gripping Matteo's tape. I remembered the way his voice sounded on the last recording—calm, measured, gentle in a way only brothers and saints were. It had comforted me through my years in Victor’s golden prison. And now… now that voice was all that kept me from shattering.

Luca’s return was more than a threat. It was a mirror. One that reminded me of the girl I used to be—the naive pawn with a perfect smile who once believed she could outmaneuver monsters with manners.

I turned when Dante entered.

He looked like a storm had crawled through his veins.

His jaw was locked, hands clenched. Eyes blazing. For the first time since we met, he looked rattled.

Not by Victor.

By Luca.

When he said his name, I felt it like a strike to the ribs.

Luca Moretti wasn’t just cruel—he was calculated. He smiled while he cut you. He apologized while he burned bridges. When I broke off our engagement, he didn’t threaten me. He simply said, “You’ll come back when you realize no one else will have you.”

Victor never punished me for it.

He let Luca do that instead.

---

In the training room, I let my fists answer for me.

Every strike on the bag was a memory. Every thud of my gloves against leather was another breath I took back from the men who had tried to own me.

Dante watched. Silent, stern. I could feel his restraint like static between us.

When he corrected my stance, I almost snapped. But instead, I said it plainly:

"That's where I carry the memory of him."

The bruise Luca gave me the night I tried to run.

Dante didn’t speak. He didn’t ask. He just pulled gloves on and began training with me.

It meant more than words ever could.

---

By nightfall, my muscles burned, but my focus sharpened. I passed Dante in the hallway, holding Matteo's file like a shield. We didn’t speak, but I knew he understood what it meant. That I wasn’t afraid of Luca. Not anymore.

He had me once.

But never again.

****Third Person Point of View****

Across the city, the Sea Glass Casino glittered like a crown jewel of corruption—opulent, impenetrable, and humming with vice. But beneath the chandeliers and champagne, a storm brewed in silk gloves and polished shoes.

Luca Moretti stood at the top floor penthouse, glass of aged bourbon in hand, overlooking the city like a king surveying a chessboard.

He hadn’t spoken since the car ride up. Beside him, Marcus Vellini, his top enforcer, waited with quiet discipline.

“Isabelle,” Luca said finally, the name a whisper laced with venom and desire. “She’s alive.”

Marcus nodded. “We have visual confirmation. She’s with Vale.”

Luca turned. “I trusted Victor to keep her buried in gold and silence. But he always underestimated her spirit. She was fire in a cage.”

He walked to the marble desk and flicked on a digital screen. Surveillance stills appeared—grainy images of Isabelle, bruised but defiant, slipping into a car. Another showed Dante outside a crumbling chapel, weapon drawn.

Luca’s smile was all teeth.

“Dante Vale. Just like his brother. So predictable.”

Marcus said nothing.

“I want her back,” Luca continued, voice cold. “Not just for revenge. For closure. For memory.”

He poured himself another drink. “And for the pleasure of watching her realize that freedom was never real. It was borrowed.”

---

Back at the Raze estate—Victor’s hidden manor in the northern woods—a different plan unfolded.

Victor leaned over a massive oak desk, speaking softly into a secure phone line.

“Yes,” he said. “Luca’s return will draw Dante out. Let him burn for her. Let her believe it’s for love. That’s when people make mistakes.”

He turned to a large painting on the wall—behind it, a safe. Inside, folders marked Project Ember, Vale, and Legacy.

“Dante wants justice,” Victor muttered. “But justice is a coin I already spent.”

In the corner of the room, Victor’s son, a tall figure with dark eyes and silence stitched into his being, listened. Unknown to most, unacknowledged in public.

He would be the final piece.

The one no one saw coming.