Chapter Four – When Ghosts Come Knocking
1175 Words
(Matteo’s POV)
Power is only useful if you know how to wield it.
And right now, mine was splintering.
The silence in my study was louder than any war drum. I stood with my back to the window, arms folded tightly across my chest, eyes trained on the red thread laid neatly on my desk.
A thread. So simple. So damning.
Aria Vescari had been here. In my home. In my space.
She didn’t just infiltrate the gala. She’d danced with me. Touched me. Kissed me. Stolen from me.
It would be impressive if it didn’t make my blood boil.
I’d run through every possibility, every potential angle in my head all night, but the facts were simple. She was smarter than I’d given her credit for. Braver too. Or more reckless. Maybe both.
But there was one thing I knew for certain:
She wasn’t done.
I called an emergency council meeting the following morning.
My inner circle gathered around the obsidian table—Marco, Sienna, Luca, and my uncle Giovanni.
Their eyes were sharp, but none of them spoke first. That was my privilege.
I clicked a remote. A large screen on the far wall lit up with grainy surveillance stills from the gala—the east corridor, the study, the hallway beyond the private wing.
Blurry shapes. A female silhouette. Masked. Swift. Purposeful.
“She got into the study,” I said flatly. “Unnoticed. Under our noses.”
“She?” Giovanni asked. He wore a linen suit and a mask of mild concern, but I knew him better than anyone. Behind that controlled face was a mind already calculating which of his enemies to call first.
“Aria Vescari,” I said. “Don Alessandro’s daughter.”
A silence settled over the room.
“She’s supposed to be untouchable,” Sienna said finally. “Hidden.”
“Not anymore,” I replied.
I turned back to the screen. My fists clenched.
“She didn’t take money. She didn’t take weapons. She accessed one file.”
I pulled up the access logs.
“Opal Asset A–01.”
Sienna hissed through her teeth.
“You’re sure she saw it?” Marco asked.
“I’m not sure of anything anymore,” I muttered.
I looked up. “But we can’t risk it. If she leaks what she found, this family is finished. Not just us. Every syndicate tied to that asset burns with us.”
“And your plan?” Giovanni asked slowly.
I stared at him.
“I find her,” I said. “And I stop her.”
Later that night, I stood on the edge of the terrace overlooking the courtyard.
The city buzzed below like a restless beast.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. A message from one of our street scouts.
Sighted Vescari girl at Dock 9 two nights ago. Accessed Bay 9 crate. Involved in altercation with security. No arrests. Vanished.
She was already chasing leads.
Chasing Cruz.
I’d hoped she wouldn’t connect those dots. Hoped she’d see the file, panic, and run. But not Aria.
She was doing what I never had the guts to do.
Digging up the rot.
I leaned forward, letting the wind scrape over my face. Everything about this felt like a warning.
Two more nights passed.
I dreamed of her. Of the kiss. The way her hands clung to me like she hated how good I felt.
Then I dreamed of her putting a bullet between my eyes.
By daybreak, I couldn’t sit still.
I stalked through the halls of the estate like a man possessed. I grilled my analysts. I personally combed through security footage from outside the estate, scouring timestamps. I reread her file three times—every scrap of history, every rumor, every surveillance note.
She had been invisible.
Until she didn’t want to be.
I respected that. I hated that I respected it.
She wasn’t like the girls I knew. Not like the heiresses who threw themselves at me, dripping in ambition and perfume. She was real. Anger laced with purpose. Fire laced with grief.
And I wanted to know what she would burn next.
I found her again on a rainy Thursday.
I hadn’t meant to. Not yet. I wasn’t ready. But fate—or maybe vengeance—had other plans.
She was in an alley off Via Danzi, wrapped in a black coat, arguing with a girl half her size. My men had tracked her to the neighborhood hours before.
The girl she argued with looked frightened. Aria kept her voice low but firm. She handed over a thick envelope.
The girl cried.
Then she hugged Aria and disappeared into the shadows.
I stepped out from mine.
“You’re making a habit of haunting dark corners,” I said.
Aria spun, hand instinctively flying to her hip. A knife? Gun? Maybe nothing but instinct.
Her eyes met mine.
Even in the rain, they burned.
“Matteo,” she said.
My name on her tongue did something to me I wasn’t prepared for.
I stepped closer.
“So it’s true,” I said. “You are hunting ghosts.”
Her jaw clenched. “What do you want?”
“I want the file back.”
She laughed—a bitter, jagged sound.
“You think this is about a file?” she said. “Girls are being sold, Matteo. Packaged. Tagged. Transferred. You and your family—”
“I didn’t know,” I said quietly.
She stopped.
“What?”
“I didn’t know,” I repeated. “Not until you showed me. Not until the night you disappeared.”
“Liar.”
“Aria—”
“You signed it,” she hissed. “The contract with Cruz. You approved the cargo.”
“I didn’t read the fine print.”
Her face twisted. “There were children in that fine print.”
I felt sick.
I closed the distance between us, stopping only when her back hit the wall.
“You want to kill me?” I asked. “Do it. Right here.”
Her breath caught.
I pressed a hand to the wall beside her head.
“But if you’re not going to pull the trigger, then listen. Because I think I can help you. I think I can find Cruz before he runs.”
She didn’t move.
“Why?” she asked finally.
“Because you’re not the only one haunted by ghosts.”
A long pause.
Then she whispered, “And if I say no?”
“Then I’ll follow you anyway.”
Her eyes flared.
“You really are a De Luca.”
“And you’re a Vescari,” I said. “But neither of us have to be our fathers.”
She looked at me for a long, long time.
Then she nodded once.
“One chance, De Luca. You betray me, I bury you.”
“Fair.”
We walked off into the storm together.
Enemies. Allies. Something worse.
But the war had only just begun.
- Writer
