Chapter 9 – THE BURNED PHOTOGRAPH

The wine glass slipped from my fingers, shattering on the stone patio.

Teresa and Elena immediately stood up.

“Nora?” Elena asked, alarmed.

I stared straight ahead, my blood turning to ice.

“Roman,” I whispered.

“I’m coming for what belongs to me,” Roman’s voice hissed through the phone. He sounded unhinged, breathing heavily. “The Commission took my territory. They burned my house. But they didn’t kill me. I escaped.”

“If you come near us, I will shoot you myself,” I said, my voice shaking with pure terror.

“You won’t have to,” Roman laughed bitterly. “Check the mailbox, darling.”

The line went dead.

I dropped the phone and sprinted across the massive lawn toward the front gates of the estate.

“Leo, go inside!” I screamed as I ran past him.

I reached the heavy iron mailbox. My hands trembled violently as I opened it.

Inside was a single, burned photograph.

It was a picture of me, Leo, and Elena sitting at a café in Florence just two days ago.

He was here. He had tracked us to Italy.

I ran back to the house, locking the heavy doors. “He’s in Tuscany!” I told Teresa and Elena. “Pack a bag. We have to move.”

“No,” Teresa said firmly.

I stared at her. “Teresa, he’s coming to kill us.”

“This is my house,” the seventy-eight-year-old matriarch said, her eyes flashing with a terrifying authority. “I ran the DeLuca family from the shadows long before my son thought he was king. We do not run.”

Teresa walked to the antique grandfather clock in the hallway. She opened the glass door, reached inside, and pulled out a heavy, black satellite phone.

She dialed a number.

“This is Teresa DeLuca,” she said in fluent Italian. “My son has broken the decree. He is in Tuscany. Execute the contract.”

She hung up.

I looked at her in shock. “You put a hit on your own son?”

“He stopped being my son the day he put my grandson in a cage,” Teresa said coldly.

That night, the house was heavily guarded by local men loyal to Teresa’s old contacts.

Leo slept in my bed, his head resting on my arm. I stayed awake, staring at the locked bedroom door, listening to every sound in the dark.

At 3:00 AM, the dogs in the distance began to bark.

Then, the alarms on the perimeter fence wailed.

Gunfire erupted in the courtyard.

I grabbed the heavy iron poker from the fireplace and stood in front of Leo’s bed.

The gunfire was brief. Then, silence.

Heavy footsteps climbed the stairs.

I raised the iron poker, my heart hammering against my ribs.

The bedroom door slowly clicked open.

But it wasn’t Roman who walked into the room. It was Elise.

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