Chapter Four
Smoke still lingered in Aria's hair.
Even after two showers and scrubbing the soot from her palms, the scent clung to her skin like a memory refusing to fade.
She sat in silence in the back of Siena's secondary bolt-hole—a condemned monastery turned data den—for nearly an hour before Nico finally spoke.
"We need to disappear."
"Again?" Aria asked, her voice hoarse.
Nico turned from the wall of surveillance monitors. His eyes were bloodshot, jaw clenched from too many hours without rest. "This time with precision. Not fear. Leone isn't just tracking us—he's baiting us."
"Then let's stop running."
He paused. "Are you sure?"
Aria straightened, eyes hard. "He burned my mother. He lied about her death. He's trying to erase her from history. I'm done being protected, Nico. I want to fight."
A door creaked behind them. Siena entered, wiping blood off a knife. "Good. Because someone just cracked our shadow line."
Nico frowned. "That's impossible. That relay was isolated."
"Was," Siena said dryly. "Until someone rerouted the ping from an abandoned node in Marseille. Guess who left the trail?"
Aria blinked. "Who?"
Siena smirked. "An old friend of your mother's. Codename: Flicker."
Nico's posture tensed. "No. He's dead."
Siena tossed a photo onto the table.
It showed a man in his early thirties, seated at an outdoor café. Tanned skin, dark hair buzzed short, and a tattoo of binary code running down his neck. His smile was lazy, charming—but the eyes were calculating, hungry.
"Meet Elias Navarro," Siena said. "Master coder. Former deep-web broker. Once worked alongside Rosalia Moretti when she was trying to smuggle out names tied to Project Baratto. Until she vanished. He blames your father."
Aria leaned forward, tracing the ink along the man's throat. "Can we trust him?"
Siena shrugged. "Trust? No. But if we offer him something valuable enough—he'll lead us to what your mother was protecting."
"And what would that be?" Nico asked.
Siena looked at Aria.
"Evidence. Not just about Cesare. But the entire Triumvirate."
Aria stared at the photo on the table as if it might whisper secrets if she looked hard enough.
The man's smirk didn't just suggest confidence—it promised war.
"What exactly does Elias Navarro want?" she asked.
Siena leaned against the exposed stone wall, one boot up on a crate, arms crossed. "He wants two things: access to Rosalia's encrypted archives… and Cesare's head on a platter."
"Sounds like we have something in common," Aria muttered.
"Maybe," Nico warned, stepping between them. "But Elias is dangerous. More than Cesare in some ways. He doesn't have rules. Just vendettas."
Siena smirked. "A perfect ally, then."
Aria stood, grabbing the photo. "Set the meet. I'll talk to him."
Palermo, Italy — Hours Later
The safe house they reached wasn't just hidden—it was forgotten. A collapsing fish market on the edge of a disbanded port. The smell of brine, rust, and blood hung in the air.
Aria moved through the shadows beside Siena, pulse loud in her ears.
"He used to be one of the best," Siena whispered as they approached a door painted with three black X's. "Then he turned on the families. Started leaking files, wrecking clean accounts, and exposing trade routes. One day, he just vanished."
Aria stopped. "And now he's back?"
"Because something bigger is coming," Siena murmured. "Something he thinks we can't stop without him."
She knocked three times.
Nothing.
Then the door creaked inward.
The man inside looked exactly like his photo—only live, he radiated something more dangerous. Charisma turned corrosive. A mind is always ten seconds ahead.
Elias Navarro was barefoot, shirtless beneath a half-buttoned leather jacket, with black cargo pants and a patch cable wrapped around his wrist like a rosary. His eyes were electric green and utterly unreadable.
"Aria Moretti," he said, lips curving into a grin. "You have your mother's fire. And your father's taste for destruction."
Aria held his gaze. "You knew her?"
"I worked with her. I bled with her. And I watched Cesare kill everything she stood for."
"Then help me bring him down."
He tilted his head. "You think it's that simple?"
"No," she said. "But I'm not asking for easy. I'm asking for truth."
Elias studied her for a long moment, then turned. "Follow me."
Inside the Lair
The room beyond was part data haven, part fever dream. Walls lined with shattered monitors, keyboards stripped for parts, wires like veins across the ceiling. A projection of the Sicilian coastline blinked across one wall, blinking red in places.
"This is how close Cesare is to wiping out the rest of your mother's network," Elias said, pointing to red dots. "And it's only the beginning."
Aria folded her arms. "Why now? Why reach out?"
"Because her last message just resurfaced. Not to me. Not to any of her allies. To you."
Aria's pulse stumbled. "What message?"
Elias hit a key. A distorted audio file played.
"If this reaches you, it means I've failed. But if you still have my blood in your veins… fight. Project Baratto wasn't about trade. It was about ownership. Names. Codes. Files that could rewrite the entire structure. And Cesare—"
The recording glitched, then cut out.
Elias turned. "That's all I could recover. But she left fragments scattered. Breadcrumbs. And I've been following them for years."
"Then help me finish the trail," Aria said.
He arched a brow. "And what do I get in return?"
Nico, who had been silent by the wall, stepped forward. "If you're looking for payment—"
Elias waved him off. "I'm not interested in money. I want Rosalia's archive. Full access. No limits."
Aria hesitated. "You'll get it—when Cesare falls."
He grinned. "Then we have a deal."
That Night — The Plan Takes Form
The trio returned to Siena's underground war room where Elias plugged into the mainframe like a symbiote.
"Cesare has three primary vulnerabilities," he said, typing rapidly. "The first is an offshore shell in Gibraltar—money laundering under the guise of a shipping alliance. The second is a deep-sealed contract with a Russian biotech firm—Project Kharon. And the third…"
He looked at Aria.
"…is you."
"Me?"
"Your existence is a loose thread in his empire. One he didn't control. That makes you dangerous. That makes you a symbol."
Aria swallowed. "Then I'll become something he fears."
Elias grinned. "Good girl."
Meanwhile… Cesare Moves
Location: The Moretti Estate, Northern Sicily
The storm outside matched Cesare Moretti's mood—violent, brooding, and utterly unrelenting.
Lightning cracked against the glass walls of his study as he stared at the satellite image on his screen. Three red pings had just gone dark—safehouses tied to dormant aliases from Rosalia's era. Burned in under an hour.
He clicked his tongue, annoyed. "Someone's woken a ghost."
Behind him, heavy boots echoed across the marble as Dimitri Volkov entered.
Dimitri was the kind of man built for chaos. Towering at 6'5", his frame was forged from brute muscle and war. A faded scar bisected the left side of his jaw—rumor said it was carved there during a prison coup in Siberia. Every inch of him screamed ruthlessness: buzzed dark hair, coal-black eyes, and a voice like gravel soaked in vodka.
He didn't speak unless spoken to. And Cesare valued that.
"They're moving faster than expected," Cesare said without looking back. "Elias Navarro's name just pinged off one of our ghost servers. Aria's been in contact."
Dimitri stepped closer, silently awaiting orders.
"I want them fractured," Cesare continued. "I want Navarro buried in pieces, Siena back in a cage, and my daughter…" He hesitated.
Dimitri's eyebrow lifted. "Dead?"
Cesare's jaw clenched. "Not yet. She has something I need. She's Rosalia's shadow. That means she's hiding the map to Baratto."
A pause.
Then: "You have permission to use the Sokol unit. Quietly. Cleanly."
Dimitri gave a curt nod and turned, already placing a call in Russian as he vanished down the hall.
Cesare remained, pouring himself a glass of Laphroaig. He stared out over the rain-slicked courtyard.
"They think they understand betrayal," he murmured. "They have no idea who taught it first."
Back in Palermo — Siena's War Room
Hours later, Elias stood before a wall-sized whiteboard, sketching out the plan with a marker in one hand and a half-eaten blood orange in the other.
"Three coordinated breaches," he said. "We hit Gibraltar's server nest first. Siena and I will ghost in from Lisbon with a deepwave relay. Nico, you handle the fallback contingency."
He turned to Aria. "You, however, have the hardest task."
"Which is?"
"You're going to intercept Cesare's courier before the next contract is signed."
"Contract?" Aria asked.
"Project Kharon," Elias said. "It's not just research. It's a mercenary development plan. Mind-enhanced killers, data-fused warfare. And the first test subject was taken from one of your mother's black sites."
Aria's chest went tight. "You think he's experimenting with the families' old weapons?"
"I think he's trying to evolve them," Elias said grimly. "Your father is building something monstrous. And if he signs with the Russians, no one—not even you—will be able to stop him."
Aria stared at the map.
Lisbon. Gibraltar. Istanbul.
Every line is connected. Every thread led back to one man.
Cesare Moretti.
She looked at Nico, then Siena, then Elias.
"We take everything from him," she said. "One step at a time. Until his empire chokes on its lies."
Elias smirked. "Now you're speaking my language."
Outside, the wind howled against the narrow alley.
A black van idled across the street, headlights off. Inside, Dimitri Volkov sat beside two silent operatives in white helmets, encrypted tablets glowing.
On the screen, a live feed from a drone is locked onto Aria's location. Her heat signature pulsed.
Dimitri cracked his neck and gave a single nod.
"Execute."