Rejected by the Billionaire Mob Boss

The Blood Heir

The Blood Heir

---

Julie had always believed that strength came from the scars she bore, the enemies she buried, and the empire she built beside the man who once rejected her.

But now—now she was being forced to see that strength didn’t begin with her.

It began long before she was born.

---

Luciana remained at the estate after the attack. There was no more running. Not when her granddaughter had been marked.

They gathered in the war room—Lorenzo, Gabriella, Luciana, two of Lorenzo’s trusted capos, and Julie herself. On the screen in front of them was an enhanced version of the note left in Celia’s crib.

Gabriella had isolated a faint watermark behind the text.

It was the split sword again—but this time, it was flanked by wings.

Julie stared at it.

“It’s evolved.”

Luciana nodded grimly. “They’ve crowned a new leader.”

Lorenzo turned to her. “Do you know who?”

“I have a suspicion,” Luciana said slowly. “He was your father’s cousin. His name was Matteo Bellardi. Brilliant, but obsessed with the Order’s bloodline theory. He was exiled after your father defected. Some said he died. Others said he went underground to create a ‘true heir’ by… other means.”

Julie’s stomach twisted. “What does that mean?”

Luciana hesitated. “He tried to manipulate genetics. Blood purity. Ritualistic breeding. Some even claimed he dabbled in chemical enhancements.”

Lorenzo swore under his breath.

Julie stood.

“If he thinks Celia is some ‘blood heir,’ then he’s going to keep coming.”

“No,” Luciana said quietly. “He’s going to try and take her.”

---

Julie stood beside Celia’s crib that night, watching her sleep. The little girl’s hand twitched in a dream, her thumb curled around a satin ribbon. Her chest rose and fell gently. Peacefully.

Julie remembered the cold nights she’d spent alone in her own childhood. The fear. The hunger. The emptiness.

Celia would never know that pain.

Not while Julie was alive.

Not while she had blood in her veins.

---

The next morning, Gabriella cracked the message’s encryption protocol and located a burner phone used to transmit a similar warning to another family—one allied with the De Lucas, but with older roots in Tuscany.

The Ferri family.

Julie remembered them. Particularly the eldest son: Adrian Ferri.

Once a skilled fighter. Once a boy with a scar on his jaw who tried to kiss her under a vineyard arch before Lorenzo had ever looked at her.

They hadn’t spoken in years