CHAPTER 17- TRUST EARNED IN BLOOD
1347 Words
Trust, in Alessandro Moretti’s world, was not a gentle thing.
It was not built slowly through vulnerability or affection. It was not offered freely, nor earned through kindness. Trust was a commodity rarer than gold, heavier than debt.
It was forged the way everything else in the empire was forged—
in blood.
Serafina understood that Alessandro trusted no one the way ordinary men trusted. He did not lean on friends. He did not confide in family. He did not believe in loyalty unless it was proven through fear, sacrifice, or violence.
Everyone around him served.
No one stood beside him.
Except Luca Romano.
That truth became impossible to ignore.
It surfaced not in speeches, not in declarations, but in the quiet reflexes of power—moments when instinct revealed more than words ever could.
Serafina saw it one evening when Alessandro returned to the mansion with a cut along his temple, blood dark against his skin.
It was rare to see Alessandro injured. He moved through the world as though harm was something that happened to others. The sight of his blood was unsettling, like witnessing a crack in stone.
The mansion responded immediately.
Guards snapped into heightened formation. Servants withdrew. The air sharpened with tension.
Serafina stood in the foyer, frozen.
“What happened?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Alessandro’s gaze flicked to her, dismissive.
“Nothing.”
It was never nothing.
Before Serafina could speak again, Luca stepped forward.
His face was as controlled as always, but something in his posture had shifted—alertness tightened into something sharper.
“Inside,” Luca said quietly.
It was not addressed to Serafina.
It was to Alessandro.
Alessandro did not argue.
He turned and walked, and Luca followed at his shoulder like a shadow refusing distance.
Serafina’s breath caught.
Alessandro Moretti did not take commands.
And yet he had listened.
In the study, Luca closed the door behind them. Guards remained outside. Servants were dismissed.
Serafina lingered in the corridor, not close enough to eavesdrop overtly, but near enough to feel the gravity of the moment.
Inside, Alessandro spoke first, voice irritated.
“It was an ambush.”
Luca’s voice was calm.
“I know.”
“How?”
“The route was leaked.”
A pause.
Serafina imagined Luca’s gaze fixed on him, clinical.
Alessandro exhaled sharply.
“Two men dead.”
Silence.
Then Luca asked, “Who knew the route?”
Alessandro’s voice lowered.
“Only three.”
Another pause.
Luca spoke quietly, decisively.
“Then one of them is a traitor.”
Serafina felt her stomach twist.
Alessandro’s temper flared.
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you’re angry,” Luca replied evenly, “and anger is useless.”
Silence.
Then Alessandro laughed once, humorless.
“You sound like a priest.”
“I sound like someone keeping you alive.”
The words hung.
Serafina’s heart pounded.
Luca was not careful with Alessandro.
He did not flatter. He did not soften his truths.
And Alessandro… accepted it.
That acceptance was trust.
Not warm.
Not tender.
But absolute.
A trust earned through years of blood.
Minutes passed.
Then Alessandro’s voice came again, quieter now.
“What do you suggest?”
Serafina almost stopped breathing.
Alessandro asking for guidance.
Luca answered without hesitation.
“Lock down the northern crews. Interrogate the three who knew the route. Quietly. No spectacle. We find the leak before the Korellis smell weakness.”
Alessandro hummed thoughtfully.
“And if it’s one of my cousins?”
Luca’s voice did not change.
“Then you cut him out.”
A pause.
Alessandro’s tone was almost curious.
“No hesitation?”
“Hesitation is sentiment,” Luca said. “Sentiment kills kings.”
Serafina shivered.
That was Luca’s religion again.
Survival above all.
Blood above comfort.
Alessandro was silent for a long moment.
Then he said, softly, “You’ve saved my life too many times to count.”
The words startled Serafina more than the violence.
It was the closest Alessandro had ever come to gratitude.
Luca did not respond.
He did not accept praise.
He did not need it.
The silence between them was thick with history Serafina could not touch.
A history of men dying so Alessandro could live.
A history of Luca standing in the fire without flinching.
Later that night, Serafina saw another proof.
Alessandro summoned the captains to the courtyard. Torches burned against the dark. The air was sharp with cold and suspicion.
Three men stood bound before the assembled soldiers.
Serafina watched from an upper balcony, unseen.
Alessandro paced slowly, voice calm.
“One of you betrayed me.”
The men protested. Swore loyalty. Pleaded innocence.
Alessandro listened as though bored.
Then he looked up.
Not at them.
At Luca.
A silent question.
Luca’s gaze moved over the captives like a blade assessing weak points.
He pointed to the middle man.
“Him.”
No explanation.
Just certainty.
The man went pale instantly.
“I didn’t—”
Luca stepped closer, crouching slightly so they were eye level.
His voice was quiet enough Serafina could barely hear.
“You did.”
The man’s lips trembled.
“How do you know?”
Luca’s expression did not change.
“Because you’re sweating in the cold.”
Silence.
The man’s breath hitched.
“It was just money,” he whispered, cracking.
And then the courtyard erupted.
Guards surged forward. The man screamed.
Alessandro lifted a hand, stopping them.
He walked to Luca, standing beside him as though they were one entity.
“You see?” Alessandro said to the others, voice almost pleased. “This is why he is mine.”
Possession disguised as praise.
Luca did not react.
The traitor was executed minutes later.
One shot.
Clean.
Efficient.
Serafina’s stomach churned as she watched blood stain the earth.
The empire’s law was simple:
Trust was proven by violence.
Loyalty was proven by willingness to destroy.
And Luca Romano had destroyed more than anyone.
That was why Alessandro relied on him.
Not because Luca was kind.
Not because Luca was loyal in the ordinary sense.
Because Luca was necessary.
Later, after the courtyard emptied, Alessandro returned inside. Serafina sat in the sitting room, hands folded, expression neutral.
Alessandro poured himself a drink, calm again.
“You’re quiet,” he observed.
Serafina kept her voice soft.
“It was a long night.”
Alessandro shrugged.
“That’s the cost of power.”
He drank.
Then, almost absentmindedly, he said, “If Luca ever left me, everything would fall apart.”
Serafina’s breath caught.
It was not meant as confession.
It was simple truth.
Alessandro Moretti, the most feared man in the city, admitting dependence.
Serafina’s gaze flicked toward the doorway where Luca usually stood, though he was not there now.
Alessandro continued, voice thoughtful.
“My father trusted no one. It made him paranoid. Weak.”
He smiled faintly.
“I’m smarter.”
Trust, to Alessandro, was strategy.
Luca was strategy.
Serafina swallowed.
“And Luca trusts you?” she asked carefully.
Alessandro’s smile sharpened.
“He doesn’t need to. Loyalty isn’t trust. It’s obedience.”
The words were cold.
Serafina’s fingers curled in her lap.
She wondered, with a quiet dread she could not name, what it meant to be trusted by Alessandro.
It was not safety.
It was not affection.
It was ownership.
And Luca Romano was owned more deeply than anyone.
A man forged into loyalty by blood.
A shadow whose power held the empire together.
As Serafina lay awake later, she thought of Alessandro’s words.
If Luca ever left me, everything would fall apart.
The idea was terrifying.
And yet…
In the dark, where forbidden thoughts lived, Serafina felt something else flicker beneath fear.
Not hope.
Not yet.
But possibility.
Because if Luca’s loyalty was the spine of the empire…
Then Luca’s betrayal, if it ever came, would be the crack that split it open.
And Serafina could not stop wondering—
what kind of man earned trust in blood…
and what kind of man eventually drowned in it.
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