The name Catalina De Luca clung to the room like smoke.....ancient, bitter, and burning. I’d only heard it once before, years ago in a hushed meeting with Donata. Back then, it was spoken like a ghost story, a warning of what betrayal looked like inside the De Luca legacy.
Now it was a breadcrumb. A spark. Maybe a fuse.
Valentina sat across from me at the long dining table, her fingers resting on the message like it might explode. She hadn’t spoken since showing it to me. Her face...usually impossible to read....was a battlefield of conflict.
“I need to find her,” she finally said, her voice low, brittle.
“You think it’s a trap?”
“I don’t care.” She looked up. “If she’s alive, then my family’s story didn’t end with Donata. I need to know what really happened.”
There was something dif
