Chapter Five
999 Words
The headline hit the internet by dawn.
The Untouchable Empire, What DeLuca Holdings Doesn’t Want You to Know.
Ava Morel hadn’t slept. Her eyes were rimmed red, her fingers stiff from typing, but she didn’t care. She’d spent the night stitching together pieces of her investigation records, whispers, and a trail of shell companies that all led back to one name: Luca DeLuca.
She hadn’t accused him directly not yet. She’d only hinted.
But in the world of media, a hint was a spark, and sparks had a way of turning into wildfires.
The article was clean, factual, and just ambiguous enough to avoid a lawsuit. She called it “a preliminary inquiry.” But everyone in the industry knew what it really was a warning shot.
By 8 a.m., her editor was on the phone.
“Ava, what the hell did you just publish?”
She rubbed her forehead. “Facts. Verified and backed up.”
“You mentioned DeLuca Holdings six times!” he hissed. “Do you have any idea who those people are?”
“I do,” she said quietly.
There was silence on the other end the kind that meant fear.
“Ava,” he sighed finally, “you’re a brilliant journalist, but this story this man isn’t safe. The board already got a call this morning. Someone wants the article taken down.”
Her stomach twisted. “Who?”
“They didn’t say. But I think you already know.”
She hung up without answering.
By noon, her name was trending on social media. Journalists praised her courage, readers shared her work, and half the city whispered about what kind of woman would dare poke at a man like DeLuca.
Her inbox filled with congratulations and warnings.
One email stood out.
No sender name. No subject line. Just a single sentence:
You’ve made yourself visible.
Ava exhaled slowly. It wasn’t the first threat she’d ever received. But something about this one felt different. It wasn’t angry. It was certain.
She closed her laptop and looked out the window. The city below buzzed, gray and loud, unaware of the storm about to break.
Across the river, inside the glass walls of DeLuca Tower, the atmosphere was equally tense but colder.
Luca stood by the floor to ceiling window of his office, the morning light cutting hard lines across his jaw. In his hand, he held a printed copy of the article. The paper was crisp. His expression wasn’t.
Behind him, Marco waited silently.
“She’s persistent,” Luca murmured finally. His voice was calm, deep the kind of tone that made men listen carefully.
Marco cleared his throat. “Do you want it handled?”
Luca turned slowly. “No.”
Marco blinked. “No?”
“Not yet.” Luca placed the paper on his desk. “If we silence her too quickly, people will start asking why. The smarter move is to watch.”
Marco frowned. “Watch her?”
“Yes. Find out who she talks to. Who funds her. Who protects her.”
He picked up his glass of scotch though it was barely ten in the morning. “A woman who digs this deep either has a death wish or a motive. I want to know which.”
Marco hesitated. “And if she keeps digging?”
Luca’s gaze flicked to the skyline. “Then I’ll dig deeper.”
By late afternoon, Ava was back at her office. The newsroom buzzed with noise phones ringing, printers humming, editors shouting deadlines. But she couldn’t shake the feeling that the air had shifted somehow.
Her coworker, Daniel, leaned over her desk. “You’ve caused a war,” he said, half impressed, half terrified.
“I just did my job.”
He snorted. “You just poked at the richest man in London. You think he’s going to let that slide?”
Ava looked up, defiant. “If he’s innocent, he won’t need to.”
Daniel gave her a look that said you’re insane but brave and walked off.
Ava tried to focus, but something felt off. A man in a gray suit stood by the elevator, watching. When her eyes met his, he turned and walked away.
She shook it off. Paranoia was part of the job. But later, when she left the building, she caught sight of the same man across the street leaning against a car, pretending to smoke.
Her pulse jumped.
She ducked into a café, heart hammering, pretending to scroll through her phone while watching him from the corner of her eye.
He didn’t follow her inside. But when she left fifteen minutes later, he was gone.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being followed.
That night, Ava came home to find her apartment door slightly ajar.
Her breath caught. She stepped back instantly, reaching for her phone.
Then she noticed the door wasn’t broken. Just… unlocked. She could’ve sworn she locked it that morning.
“Hello?” she called quietly. No answer.
She pushed the door open slowly. Everything looked normal. The lights were off, her notes stacked neatly where she’d left them.
Then she saw it her desk drawer open.
Her recorder was gone.
Panic surged through her. She tore through her files, her hard drives, everything. Nothing else seemed missing. Just that one item.
A warning.
She sat down, forcing herself to breathe. Whoever had been here hadn’t come to steal they’d come to send a message.
Her phone buzzed again. This time, a text.
Unknown: You’re in over your head.
She stared at the message, fingers trembling.
Then she typed back.
Ava: Then you should’ve left me on the surface.
No reply came.
She tossed her phone onto the couch, exhaustion catching up with her. Her reflection stared back at her from the dark window the woman who had started this story now looked like the one trapped inside it.
And deep down, she knew, there was no turning back.
- Writer
