Chapter 11: The Hunt
1912 Words
The interrogation of Luca Russo began at dawn.
Giuliana wasn't supposed to be there—the Don had made that clear. But Marco wanted her present, and what the heir wanted, he got.
The interrogation room was deep in the estate's basement, all concrete and silver. Luca sat chained to a chair, silver burning his wrists, but his smile was unrepentant.
"Come to watch the show?" he asked when they entered.
"Come to get answers," the Don said coldly. "You said there are others. More plants in my organization. Give me names."
"Or what? You'll torture me?" Luca laughed. "Go ahead. I've been trained for this since I was a child. Pain doesn't scare me."
"Then what does?" Giuliana asked.
Luca's eyes found hers. "Clever human. Still asking questions. Still searching for truth." His smile widened. "You want to know what scares me? Nothing. Because I've already won."
"You're in chains," Marco said flatly.
"Am I? Or is this exactly where I want to be?" Luca leaned forward as far as the chains allowed. "Think about it, Marco. Why would I reveal myself? Why confess everything in front of the entire pack? I could have stayed hidden. Kept playing the role of your loyal friend. But I didn't. I exposed myself. Why?"
Silence. Giuliana's mind raced.
"Because you wanted to be caught," she said slowly. "Being in the cells... it serves some purpose."
"Very good!" Luca's eyes gleamed. "The human figures it out first. Yes, I wanted to be here. Needed to be here. Because the real attack? It's not on your shipments or your casinos or your territory." His smile turned vicious. "It's on your Alpha."
The Don went very still. "Explain."
"Why would I? You'll find out soon enough." Luca settled back. "Or maybe you won't. Maybe you'll die never knowing who really betrayed you."
Marco lunged forward, but Giuliana grabbed his arm. "Don't. That's what he wants. He's trying to provoke you. Make you angry. Distracted."
"Listen to your mate," Luca said. "She's smarter than you deserve. Of course, that won't save her either. When the real plan unfolds, when everything you love burns—"
"Enough." The Don's voice cracked like a whip. "Guards. Take him to the deep cells. Triple the silver. No light. No contact. Let him rot."
As they dragged Luca away, his laughter echoed through the halls.
Outside the interrogation room, Marco punched the wall hard enough to crack concrete.
"He's playing games," he snarled. "Trying to make us paranoid. Make us suspect everyone."
"Maybe," Giuliana said. "Or maybe he's telling the truth. About the real attack being on the Don."
The Don, who'd been silent, finally spoke. "If I'm the target, that changes everything. Killing an Alpha destabilizes the entire pack. Creates chaos. Makes us vulnerable for takeover."
"So we increase your security," Marco said. "Guards, protection, limit your exposure—"
"No." The Don's eyes were hard. "I won't hide in my own home. That shows weakness. The pack is already rattled by Luca's betrayal. If I start acting afraid, they'll lose faith entirely."
"Then what do we do?" Giuliana asked.
"We hunt." The Don's smile was sharp. "Luca said there are others. More traitors. So we find them before they can execute whatever plan they're hatching. We turn the hunt on them."
"How?" Marco demanded. "We can't trust anyone. If Luca could fool us for twenty years—"
"We trust each other," Giuliana interrupted. Both men looked at her. "The three of us. We know we're loyal. And we use that. We investigate together. Trust no one else."
"The human has a point," the Don said. "Very well. We investigate quietly. Carefully. And when we find the traitors..." His eyes flashed gold. "We end them."
---
They started with Luca's belongings.
His room had already been searched, but Giuliana insisted on going through everything again. More carefully. Looking for things others might have missed.
"What are we looking for?" Marco asked, watching her rifle through drawers.
"I don't know. Anything unusual. Anything that doesn't fit." She pulled out a book—Romeo and Juliet. "This is weird."
"Why? People read."
"Luca was planted here at what, five years old? He grew up in this house. Why would he keep a copy of a play everyone reads in school?" She flipped through pages. "Unless..."
There. Tiny marks in the margins. Numbers.
"It's a code," she breathed. "Page numbers, maybe? Or coordinates?"
Marco took the book, studying it. "These numbers correspond to... bank accounts? No, wait. Dates and times."
"Meeting schedules," the Don said, appearing in the doorway. He'd been investigating elsewhere but clearly heard them. "He was coordinating with someone. Using the book as a cipher."
They spent the next hour decoding the marks. What they found chilled Giuliana's blood.
Meeting times. All at night. All in the past six months. And all with someone identified only as "V."
"V," Marco said. "Who the hell is V?"
"Someone in the family," the Don said grimly. "Someone whose name starts with V. Or..." His expression darkened. "Someone in the Valentino family. Us."
"There are at least twenty wolves whose names start with V," Marco said.
"Then we investigate all twenty," Giuliana replied.
But before they could start, Rosa burst into the room, face pale.
"Don Valentino. You need to come. Now. It's..." She swallowed hard. "It's Victoria."
Victoria Moretti—or what they'd thought was Victoria Moretti—was Marco's cousin. Quiet, bookish, responsible for managing pack finances. She'd been with the family for fifteen years.
They found her in her office, slumped over her desk. Dead.
"Poison," Rosa said after a brief examination. "Fast-acting. She's been dead maybe twenty minutes."
"Suicide?" Marco asked.
"Or murder disguised as suicide," Giuliana said, moving closer. On Victoria's desk was a note. Handwritten.
*"I'm sorry. I couldn't live with what I'd done. V."*
"V," the Don breathed. "Victoria was V."
"Or someone wants us to think she was," Giuliana said. "This is too convenient. We discover Luca was meeting with someone called V, and suddenly Victoria conveniently dies with a confession note? This is staged."
"Why would someone stage this?" Marco demanded.
"To throw us off the real traitor's scent. To close the investigation before we find the truth." Giuliana studied the note. "The handwriting. Does anyone have samples of Victoria's writing?"
Rosa left and returned with financial documents Victoria had signed. They compared.
"Not a match," the Don said flatly. "Similar, but not exact. Someone forged this."
"So Victoria was murdered," Marco said. "Killed to be framed as V. Which means the real V is still out there."
"And knows we're hunting them," Giuliana added. "They're covering their tracks. Eliminating anyone who might expose them."
A howl split the air. Then another. And another.
"The alarm," the Don said. "We're under attack."
---
The Russos hit the estate with everything they had.
Fifty wolves. Maybe more. Armed with silver bullets and weapons designed to kill supernatural creatures. They came from three directions, coordinated and precise.
"This is it," Marco said as they ran toward the sounds of combat. "The real attack Luca mentioned. They're trying to kill my father."
They found the Don in the great hall, surrounded by his personal guard. Wolves fighting in both human and animal form. Blood on the marble floors. Bodies—both Russo and Valentino—already fallen.
Giuliana grabbed a gun from a fallen guard. She'd gotten better at this. Faster. The mark had changed her in subtle ways—sharper reflexes, better aim, strength she'd never had before.
"Stay behind me," Marco commanded, shifting to his massive black wolf.
But Giuliana had learned something in the past two weeks. Sometimes staying behind wasn't the same as staying safe.
She moved through the chaos with purpose. Shooting when she had clear targets. Dodging when wolves—friend or foe—got too close. Looking for patterns.
There. A group of five Russo wolves moving with singular purpose. Not engaging in the main fight. Heading for a specific location.
Heading for the Don's private study.
"Marco!" she screamed, pointing.
But Marco was engaged with three Russo wolves, unable to disengage.
Giuliana made a choice.
She ran after the five wolves, knowing it was stupid, knowing she was outmatched, but unable to let them reach whatever target they were aiming for.
The study door was open. Inside, the five wolves cornered someone.
Not the Don.
Isabella.
"What are you doing here?" Giuliana demanded.
"I could ask you the same thing," Isabella panted. She was bleeding from a s***h across her arm, holding them off but barely. "They're after something. Something in the Don's safe."
One of the Russo wolves shifted to human—a woman with cold eyes. "Give us the documents and we'll let you live."
"What documents?" Isabella demanded.
"The evidence. The proof your Don has been stockpiling. Crimes. Deals. Blackmail material on every family in the city." The woman smiled. "We know he keeps it all here. Insurance against betrayal. Well, insurance is a two-way street."
"I don't have access to the Don's safe," Isabella said.
"Then you're useless." The woman raised her gun.
Giuliana fired first.
The woman went down. The other four wolves turned on Giuliana with snarls.
She was going to die. She knew it. Four against one, and she was still mostly human. The mark gave her strength but not enough for this.
Then Isabella was beside her, shifted to her wolf form, all teeth and fury.
They fought back-to-back. Giuliana shooting, Isabella tearing with claws and fangs. Somehow, impossibly, they held the line.
Until one of the Russo wolves got past their defense.
Giuliana felt claws rake across her side. Pain exploded. She went down hard.
The wolf loomed over her, jaws opening for the killing bite.
Then it exploded.
Literally exploded, as Marco—shifted to his massive wolf form—tore through it with such force the body came apart.
The remaining two Russo wolves fled.
Marco shifted back, gathering Giuliana into his arms. "You're hurt. Rosa! ROSA!"
"I'm okay," Giuliana gasped. The wound hurt but was already healing. Faster than it should. The mark's doing. "Isabella. Check on Isabella."
Isabella had shifted back, sitting against the wall. "I'm fine. Superficial wounds. But Giuliana—why were they after documents in here?"
"Blackmail material," Giuliana said. "They said the Don keeps evidence of crimes. Proof against other families."
Marco's expression was grim. "If the Russos get that information, they can destroy alliances. Turn our allies against us. Destabilize everything."
"We need to move it," Isabella said. "Somewhere safer. Before they try again."
But when they opened the safe—using the Don's emergency override code—it was empty.
"Someone already took it," Giuliana whispered.
"Not someone," a voice said from the doorway. "Me."
They turned to find the Don standing there, holding a thick folder.
"I moved it three days ago," he said. "After Luca's betrayal. I knew someone might try for it. So I relocated it somewhere even I barely remember."
"Where?" Marco asked.
"That's not important. What's important is that the Russos knew it existed. Knew where it was kept. Which means..." The Don's eyes hardened. "Someone very close to me told them. Someone with access to my private information."
"V," Giuliana said. "The real one. Still out there."
The Don's expression was ice. "Then we find them. Tonight. Before they can do any more damage."
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