Chapter Three
1280 Words
The storm followed them across the sea.
Waves hammered the speedboat, and lightning flashed on the horizon like the sky was hunting them. Luca steered through the chaos with the calmness of a man made for danger. Isabella clung to the railing, soaked and trembling, alive by a miracle she didn’t yet understand.
By dawn, the sea had calmed. Gray light spilled over the Sicilian coast. The cliffs rose like jagged teeth, and olive trees swayed in the wind.
“Where are we?” Isabella asked hoarsely.
Luca’s voice was low, almost lost in the wind. “A village called Castellamare. Nobody here asks questions.”
He docked the boat behind an old fisherman’s shack and led her through a maze of narrow streets. The air smelled of citrus and gun oil. A market bustled in the distance, filled with laughter, shouts, and the clatter of crates. Life continued, regardless of blood and secrets.
They stopped outside a faded church, its doors bolted shut and walls covered in ivy. Luca glanced around before knocking three times in a strange pace.
A panel slid open. Eyes appeared briefly, then vanished. The door creaked inward.
Inside, the church was not a sanctuary; it was an armory. Rifles lined the pews, and crates of ammunition were stacked where hymnals once sat. At the altar, a man covered in tattoos looked up from a laptop.
“Moretti,” he said, smirking. “Thought you were dead.”
“Not yet,” Luca replied. “I need a trace. Offshore accounts, name: Marcelli.”
The man, Rico, grinned wider. “Ah, the heiress. So she’s real.”
Isabella stiffened. “You know me?”
“Everyone knows you,” Rico said. “The ghost of Monaco. The girl the syndicate couldn’t kill.”
Luca intervened sharply. “Just find the files.”
Rico’s fingers danced over the keys. The screen reflected in his sunglasses, scrolling through encrypted data. Then he frowned. “You weren’t joking, man. This thing’s locked behind a code even I can’t crack.”
“Can you unlock it?” Luca asked.
Rico hesitated. “Maybe. But if I do, every syndicate in Europe will know exactly where you are.”
Luca’s jaw tightened. “We’ll take that risk.”
Isabella looked between them. “What’s in those files?”
Rico let out a low whistle. “If I had to guess? The kind of information people kill presidents to keep secret.”
Hours later, the church was dim, lit only by candles and the blue glow of Rico’s monitor. Rain pounded against the stained glass, turning saints into shadows. Luca cleaned his gun methodically while Isabella paced.
Finally, the computer beeped.
“I’m in,” Rico said. “But… damn. You’re not going to like this.”
He turned the screen toward them. Rows of numbers, names, dates, and offshore transactions. At the top: Project Angelus.
Isabella felt ice in her veins. “Angelus… that was on the cufflink.”
Luca leaned closer. “What is it?”
Rico scrolled. “Looks like an internal operation, code-named ‘Angelus.’ Signed by Lorenzo Marcelli — your father.”
Her heart raced. “What kind of operation?”
Rico’s tone darkened. “Assassination contracts, funded through Marcelli Shipping. Your father was hiring hitmen through his own company.”
She shook her head, backing away. “No, that can’t be true. He was trying to stop them!”
“Maybe at first,” Luca said quietly. “But somewhere along the line, he became what he hated.”
Her mind spun. Her father, the killer. Everything she’d believed about loyalty, legacy, and justice turned to ash.
Then she noticed another detail on the screen: a final payment, dated one week before her father’s death. The recipient: Luca Moretti.
Her voice broke. “You—”
He looked up, eyes narrowing. “What?”
“You were paid by him. My father. Not to kill me — to protect me.”
Luca’s expression flickered — surprise, disbelief, something like guilt. “That’s not possible. He—he died before—”
“No,” Rico interrupted. “According to these logs, the order was preset. If Lorenzo Marcelli was killed, funds would automatically transfer to a specific account — yours.”
Silence.
The storm outside grew stronger, the wind howling through the broken stained glass. Isabella’s hands shook. “He knew he was going to die,” she whispered. “He set it up — a contract to keep me alive.”
Luca stared at the floor. “Then someone inside the syndicate rerouted it. They used his protection clause to cover the hit order.”
“Meaning?” she asked.
“Someone wanted to make it look like he saved you,” Luca said grimly, “while ensuring you’d die anyway.”
Rico swore softly. “That’s dark even for these people.”
“Can you trace who authorized the reroute?” Luca asked.
Rico nodded, typing quickly. Then he stopped and widened his eyes. “Oh, hell.”
“What is it?” Isabella demanded.
Rico swallowed. “It wasn’t the syndicate. It was Marcelli Industries. Your family company.”
Her breath caught. “But my father’s gone. Who—who’s running it?”
Luca’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Who inherits an empire when the heiress is dead?”
The realization hit her like a knife.
Her uncle, Vittorio. The charming board member who comforted her at the funeral. The man who promised to “keep the company safe” until she was ready.
Luca’s expression hardened. “He ordered the hit.”
Rico leaned back. “You can’t prove that with this file alone. But it’s enough to make you both very valuable — and very hunted.”
Isabella turned to Luca, eyes blazing through her tears. “Then we make him regret it.”
He studied her for a long moment — the grief, the fury, the strength beneath the fear — and finally said, “Then we go to Sicily’s heart.”
She frowned. “Where’s that?”
“The syndicate’s council meets in Palermo,” he said. “If we can get to Vittorio before they do, maybe we can turn them against him.”
Rico snorted. “Or you’ll both die before sunset.”
Luca loaded his gun. “Then we die with purpose.”
They left the church under the cover of night, headlights off, tires hissing on the wet stone. The mountain road wound upward through mist and shadow. In the distance, Palermo glimmered — a city of ghosts and gold.
In the back seat, Isabella traced the cufflink’s engraving — M. Angelus. Her father’s secret project. Her mother’s last gift. Her salvation or her curse.
“Luca,” she said softly.
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “Yeah?”
“When this is over… will you disappear again?”
His answer came after a long silence.
“If you live, I will disappear. If you die, I will go with you.”
Lightning flashed, illuminating his face — the killer who’d become her protector, her only ally in a world built on lies.
And somewhere behind them, Rico watched their taillights vanish before making a quiet call on a burner phone.
“They’re heading to Palermo,” he murmured. “Yes. Both alive.”
He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Understood.”
He hung up, his face unreadable.
The storm swallowed th
e sound of his footsteps as he left the church. The screen behind him blinked one final line of text:
ACCESS GRANTED: PROJECT ANGELUS / ACTIVE.
- Writer
