The First Strike
883 Words
The First Strike
---
The air outside the city felt different.
Colder. Cleaner. More dangerous.
Julie and Lorenzo rode in silence through the darkened hills that framed Bellenci’s outskirts. Their SUV was bulletproof, flanked by two armored vehicles. Inside the back seat, Julie sat with her eyes narrowed at the tree-lined road ahead.
She hadn’t seen her mother in years.
Not since the day Julie chose to become Lorenzo’s weapon—and Bellenci’s queen.
But now? Now the past demanded answers.
Lorenzo’s hand found hers in the dark.
“You sure she’ll help us?” he asked.
Julie didn’t reply right away. She wasn’t sure. But she knew one thing: her mother had secrets. Dangerous ones. And if Julie’s blood was the key to an old enemy’s rise, her mother would know why.
---
They reached the safe house after midnight. Hidden in the mountains behind an abandoned vineyard, it had been untouched for years. The guards posted outside didn’t recognize them at first—until Lorenzo showed his ring.
The black-gold sigil of the De Luca family gleamed under moonlight.
They were let in without another word.
Inside, the old place smelled like cedar and dust. A fire burned low in the hearth, and seated beside it in a thick robe was a woman Julie hadn’t seen in three years.
Luciana Moretti. Once Luciana De Luca.
Once the wife of a mafia man. Then a ghost.
She looked older now. Her hair was streaked with gray, and her cheekbones were more pronounced. But her eyes—emerald, sharp, almost prophetic—were exactly the same.
Luciana stood slowly as Julie entered.
“You came,” she said softly.
Julie didn’t hesitate. She went straight to the point.
“They’re coming for my daughter. And they’re using Father’s symbol.”
Luciana froze.
Then, very quietly, she sat back down.
“Then it has begun,” she whispered. “Just as they said it would.”
---
Lorenzo stood behind Julie, silent and watchful.
Julie crossed her arms. “Who are they?”
Luciana didn’t look at her daughter. She stared at the fire.
“Your father wasn’t just a man with debts, Julie. He wasn’t just running from the Lucetti. He was part of something older. Something even the mafia feared.”
She finally looked up.
“They were called the Sorella di Sangue. The Sisters of Blood. A forgotten order with ties to an ancient council—those who governed the bloodlines of the oldest families in Italy. Not for crime. For lineage.”
Julie’s breath hitched. “A cult?”
Luciana nodded. “A secret society. One obsessed with prophecy, power, and purity. Your father turned his back on them. He married me. Had you. He thought he could walk away.”
“And?”
“They let him,” Luciana said. “For a while.”
Julie’s voice shook. “What changed?”
Luciana swallowed hard.
“You were born.”
---
Julie sat down across from her mother, her fingers trembling now.
Luciana continued.
“There’s an old belief—one hidden in family records no one talks about. That every few generations, a daughter is born to the bloodline who can unite both sides of the order. The direct heir. A child born of betrayal... and legacy.”
Julie stared.
“Me?”
Luciana nodded. “And now, your daughter.”
Lorenzo finally spoke. His voice was low. Razor-sharp.
“You knew this.”
Luciana didn’t deny it. “I knew they'd come. That’s why I disappeared. To keep them from using me. To stop them from following my blood back to Julie.”
Julie stood, her hands on the edge of the fireplace mantle.
“So what now? They come for me? Or Celia?”
Luciana’s face was pale.
“They’ll come for both. But first… they’ll burn your house to the ground.”
---
Back in Bellenci, that prophecy began to take shape.
Hours before dawn, while the estate still slept, a shadow slipped through the outer perimeter.
Silent. Trained. Precise.
They weren’t there to kill.
Not yet.
They were there to send a message.
Inside the nursery, Celia’s bodyguard stirred just in time to hear glass shatter.
Then—gas.
White smoke hissed from the vents.
He leapt to his feet, gun raised, and covered Celia’s crib with his body.
But the attacker was gone before backup arrived. And in the baby’s crib, tucked beside her favorite stuffed rabbit, was a piece of paper.
Five words, scrawled in red ink.
> “She is not yours, De Luca.”
---
Julie didn’t sleep again.
They returned to the estate an hour after the break-in.
Celia was unharmed. Her bodyguard, dazed but alive.
Julie read the note in silence.
Then she went to the armory.
She opened a locked case she hadn’t touched in two years.
Inside: her black tactical gear, an engraved pistol Lorenzo had given her the night they took down Lucetti, and a blade etched with her father’s initials.
When Lorenzo found her there, she didn’t look up.
“I’m going to kill them all,” she said.
Lorenzo didn’t try to stop her.
He simply picked up his own weapons and said,
“Start with the one who left the symbol.”
- Writer
