The Wolf Behind The Throne
1350 Words
Loyalty in the DeLuca family wasn’t earned once—it had to be proven again and again.
Alessia realized that the moment she walked into the old warehouse at Porto Vecchio, the early morning chill biting into her skin, the air thick with dust and silence. Lorenzo had summoned her here under the guise of a "logistics assessment,” but she knew better. This was no ordinary check-in.
Two black SUVs were parked outside the entrance, engines still warm. A third car—a vintage red Alfa Romeo—was unmistakably Adriano’s. Inside the warehouse, half a dozen men stood along the concrete walls, all armed. It wasn’t a welcoming committee. It was a silent message.
Her heels echoed as she stepped onto the warehouse floor. No crates. No shipment. Just tension.
And Adriano DeLuca, standing near a steel table, arms crossed, wearing a grin that never reached his eyes.
“Well, well,” he said, voice smooth as rusted metal. “Lorenzo’s new pet shows up after all.”
Alessia didn’t flinch. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, you’re late to that party.”
“Am I?” Adriano gestured to the surrounding space. “Because this… this is how we vet ghosts. You don’t get to slide into our world without leaving footprints.”
She held her ground. “I was told this was about logistics.”
“It is,” he said casually, picking up a folder from the table. “Someone’s been bleeding our weapons manifests. Missing crates. Shipments that left Palermo never landed in Athens. And guess what? The leaks started right after you arrived.”
Her spine stiffened. So this was it. A trap.
“You’re accusing me?” she said coolly.
“I’m considering you,” Adriano replied. “It’s not personal. Yet.”
He tossed the folder across the table. It skidded to a stop in front of her. She opened it.
Surveillance images. Satellite logs. Smuggling routes. Three of the flagged containers bore false signatures—signatures that matched her forged documentation from earlier assignments.
She kept her pulse steady. “Where did you get this?”
“That’s the thing,” he said. “Someone inside gave it to me.”
Alessia’s fingers tensed around the folder.
A mole. Not just a mole—someone trying to burn her before she got too close to the core.
She scanned the images again. Sloppy mistakes. Ones she wouldn’t make. Whoever had planted this evidence wanted it to look amateur. Rushed. Suspicious.
“I didn’t sign these,” she said. “Check the encryption keys. They won’t match my logins.”
“We did. They don’t.”
Adriano stepped closer. “But that only tells me you’re not stupid. It doesn’t prove you’re clean.”
Alessia looked him square in the eye. “If I were here to rob you, I’d be gone already. But I’m still here. Which means either I’m innocent… or I’m very stupid.”
He smirked. “Or very dangerous.”
They stared at each other in silence.
Then a door opened at the far end of the warehouse.
Lorenzo entered.
The atmosphere shifted instantly.
He walked slowly, dressed in charcoal gray and leather gloves, his presence cutting through the tension like a knife. The men stepped back as he passed. Even Adriano’s smirk faded slightly.
“I said this would be handled discreetly,” Lorenzo said, voice low.
Adriano turned to him. “And I’m handling it.”
“By interrogating someone I brought into the fold?”
“By protecting the family from a snake.”
Lorenzo moved between them, glancing at the open folder. “The encryption doesn’t match. The route pattern is inconsistent. If this is a frame-up, it’s lazy.”
“Or it’s clever,” Adriano said. “Because we’ve gotten complacent.”
Lorenzo faced Alessia now. “Do you have anything else to say?”
She held his gaze. “Only that whoever planted this is inside your house. Closer than you think.”
A long silence followed.
Then Lorenzo looked at one of the guards. “Bring in Marco.”
Marco? Alessia’s heart jumped. He was the youngest of Lorenzo’s lieutenants—a recent promotion, barely out of his twenties. He’d flirted with her once, drunkenly, during a late-night inventory run.
He stumbled in now, wrists cuffed, face bloodied.
Alessia stared, stunned.
Lorenzo tossed another folder onto the table. This one held intercepted messages, wire transfers, and a decrypted chat log. Marco had been feeding intel to a rival group in Barcelona—for months. Adriano’s evidence had been bait, set to see who would run with it.
And Marco had.
“Found your leak,” Lorenzo said.
Adriano exhaled sharply. “You knew?”
“I suspected,” Lorenzo replied. “But I needed confirmation. Eva gave it to me.”
Alessia blinked. She hadn’t said anything concrete. Had he used her as bait too?
Marco screamed as two guards dragged him away.
Adriano watched, his jaw tight.
Lorenzo turned to Alessia. “You’re clear. For now.”
She gave a nod, heart pounding. “Good to know.”
As she turned to leave, Adriano’s voice followed her. “You’re still hiding something. I’ll find it.”
She didn’t respond.
Because he wasn’t wrong.
Back in her suite, Alessia sank into the velvet chair by the window and stared out at the city. Her hands trembled.
That had been close. Too close.
If Lorenzo hadn’t intervened, she would’ve been buried in that warehouse, her body dumped in a shipping crate like so many others. Part of her hated that she hadn’t seen it coming. Another part hated how much relief she felt when Lorenzo chose her.
She powered up her laptop and inserted Diego’s USB again.
The decrypted files revealed more than she'd expected.
Project Albatross wasn’t just back—it had evolved. The DeLucas were using humanitarian shipments to smuggle experimental weaponry. Lasers, AI-guided drones, and even neurological disruptors—tools not yet publicly available.
Alessia’s blood ran cold.
She clicked through the pages until she found a familiar name: Vincent Moretti.
Her father.
He had once been part of this program. Before he betrayed it. Before the DeLucas decided he was a liability.
The final file was a letter. Dated two weeks before his murder. It read:
"They’re preparing something global. Bigger than Europe. If anything happens to me, protect Alessia. She’s the only one who knows the truth now. – V.M."
Her throat tightened.
He’d known.
All of it.
He had been trying to shield her. Not from death—but from the weight of knowing.
And now she carried it.
Alessia closed the file and stared at her reflection. The woman staring back wasn’t just out for vengeance anymore.
She was carrying a legacy.
The next evening, she met Lorenzo again—this time at a private auction hosted inside a reimagined cathedral. Marble columns. Gilded ceilings. Security that rivaled a presidential summit.
He stood at the edge of the balcony, watching a Rembrandt go for $8.6 million.
“You never stop moving,” he said as she approached.
“You never stop watching.”
He glanced at her. “You were impressive yesterday. Most people fold under pressure.”
“I’m not most people.”
“I’m starting to believe that.”
He handed her a glass of champagne. “We’re expanding operations to Istanbul. I want you to manage the setup.”
She blinked. “Me?”
“You’ve proven you’re good under fire. And you’re not afraid of shadows.”
She hesitated. This was advancement. Power. But also danger.
“I’ll need resources. My own team.”
“You’ll have them.”
“Then I’m in.”
He raised his glass. “To loyalty.”
She clinked it, forcing a smile. “To survival.”
They drank.
Below them, millionaires applauded the next sale—a dagger from the Ottoman Empire, once used in royal executions.
Alessia stared at it for a long time.
She wondered how many ghosts were clapping too.
- Writer
