Retribution Has a Name
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A cold dread coils through Luca’s chest. He tightens his grip on Daniel, eyes narrowing.
They lied to him. They used his mother’s name—used her love as bait. Bastardi.
"It’s not your fault," Luca says, voice rough as he strokes the boy’s hair. "You did good. You stayed strong."
But inside, his mind is already spiraling, calculating.
Giuliana’s in more danger than ever.
"Turk," Luca growls into the comm, "Giuliana’s been compromised. They used her name to grab Daniel. We’re dealing with a coordinated hit—someone inside leaked her movements. I want a lockdown on all safehouses. Now."
Turk answers, voice tight. "Copy. Lockdown initiated. Teams on the move."
Luca glances down at Daniel again—his son, flesh and blood, still shaking in his arms.
"Where is she?" he asks softly, brushing hair from Daniel’s forehead. "Did the man say where he was taking you?"
Daniel sniffles, trying to be brave. "No… he just said... they wanted her. Said she wasn’t going to run anymore."
The words punch through Luca like a bullet. They’re making this personal. They’re making this about her.
"Turk," Luca barks again. "Find her. Every eye on the street, every camera we can tap. We find Giuliana, and we do it now."
"Understood. Already moving. But Luca—" Turk hesitates. "We may have a bigger problem. Intel says Vescari’s crew was spotted near the Strip. They’re not just coming for her. They want Daniel too."
Luca’s vision tunnels.
"Then they’ll have to crawl over my dead body to touch him," he spits.
"Good," Turk answers. "Because they’re trying."
The SUV turns sharply, tires screeching as Daniel curls tighter against Luca’s chest.
"It’s okay," Luca whispers. "I’ve got you. No one will hurt you again. I swear it."
But as he looks out the window—his heart pounds with a savage new purpose.
They came for my son. They came for Giuliana. and now they’ve declared war.
The SUV cuts through the Vegas night like a blade—fast, silent, deliberate.
Luca’s hand grips Daniel tighter. Giuliana’s voice echoes in the boy’s words. She said she was coming. But she never made it.
Where the fuck is she?
Luca is on the comm with Turk, phone pressed to his ear, barking orders to the safehouse team.
Luca stares out the tinted window, jaw clenched.
“Pull up every street cam between the gallery and the safehouse Turk,” he growls. “I want to know where the hell she was taken.”
Inside the vehicle, Luca’s fury simmers.
If Giuliana’s hurt—there will be no treaties. Just bodies.
“We found the car. Giuliana never made it past the first red light.” Turk says
—
The air inside the SUV turns electric—thick with rage and dread.
Luca’s voice drops, to a whisper on the comm. “Where?”
“Corner of Charleston and Fremont,” Turk says. “Driver-side glass is blown out. Bullet pattern suggests precision—professional. Single shot through tempered glass, right below the line of sight. Silent. Clean. No shell casings left behind. They were waiting, Luca.”
He swipes through security footage on his phone. “Two black sedans. Coordinated blockade. They never stood a chance.”
Luca’s jaw grinds. “She was stalked.”
“This wasn’t random. This was mapped, rehearsed. They knew the route and where she was going, ” Turk says.
“Which means someone gave them her pattern. Someone close.”
Daniel looks up at Luca, wide-eyed. “Where’s my mom?”
Luca grips the boy’s hand, forcing his fury back down. “We’re going to find her, Daniel. I swear to you.”
“I am at the location” I’ll see you there.
The vehicle jerks into a sharp turn, tires screaming across asphalt.
As they approach the scene, Luca’s eyes lock on the black sedan. The car sits crooked at the curb, door open, hazards still flashing like a pulse that never flatlined.
But there’s no sign of Giuliana.
Luca turns to Daniel, his voice is firm, commanding. “I need you to stay here, in this seat. No matter what you hear, no matter what happens—you don’t move. You don’t open this door unless Turk or I come back for you. Understand?”
Daniel nods slowly.
His small hands grip the seatbelt as Luca shuts the door, locking it behind him.
Inside, Daniel watches through the window. Silent. Trembling.
Luca steps into the chaos with his men flanking him, guns drawn but held low. The street is eerily silent.
Only shattered glass—scattered like broken promises. A drop of blood streaks down the driver-side door, dark against the silver paint. Her burner phone lies cracked and discarded, on the asphalt.
Turk signals to the perimeter team, who fan out. “Sniper positions secured. No heat signatures yet.”
Luca crouches by the broken window, fingertips brushing the edge of a bullet hole. Clean entry. Professional.
“This wasn’t a hit,” he murmurs. “It was a retrieval.”
Another soldier finds drag marks near the curb. Boots scuffed the pavement. A struggle. A second vehicle parked here just long enough to take her—and vanish.
Luca’s eyes darken. “They came for her. And they knew exactly when to strike.”
Luca picks up the phone and sees the last outgoing call—his number. The screen still reads: call failed.
—
“She tried to reach me,” he mutters. “Seconds before they hit.”
Turk kneels by the curb, studying the tire marks. “Two vehicles boxed her in. They dragged her out. We’ve got footage from a gas station camera across the street. Sending it now.”
Luca’s jaw locks as the video pops up on Turk’s tablet. Grainy footage. Two black SUVs. Men in tactical gear. Giuliana fighting before they force her into the back seat.
“Activate Code Black,” he tells Turk. “Every contact. Every soldier. Lock down the Strip and hunt the bastards.”
Turk’s phone buzzes with a ping. A grainy still frame appears: Giuliana, unconscious, her wrist bloodied. The message beneath it is short.
We have what belongs to us.
—
Luca’s grip tightens on the phone until the plastic casing creaks.
Turk steps closer, face grim. “They’re baiting you.”
Luca’s voice drops to a growl. “Then we give them what they want.”
He turns to the nearest soldier. “Bring me Ricci. Now. He’s got contacts with the New York families. One of them sold this intel. I want names.”
Turk’s phone lights up again. “Street cam two blocks down caught plates on one of the black SUVs.”
“Run it.”
“Already did,” Turk says. “It’s clean. Government registered. Ghost protocol.”
Luca’s eyes narrow. “Then we’re not dealing with street rats. We’re dealing with someone with real reach.”
“She was right all along,” he murmurs. “This war didn’t end with my father. It started with him.”
Turk’s radio crackles to life. “We’ve got movement near the old Fremont tunnel entrance. Convoy—three black SUVs. Southbound. Heat signature confirms one passenger in the back… female. Restrained.”
Luca’s blood turns to fire.
“Confirmation?” he snaps.
“Positive visual on the bracelet. It’s her.”
A deadly calm settles over him like a storm before the slaughter. “Then this ends now.”
He looks at Turk. “Call in the heavies. We hit them hard; we hit them fast lets—lock Vegas down.”
Turk’s already on the move, phone to his ear, shouting orders to every Moretti underboss within city limits.
Luca turns to his soldiers. “Gear up. Body armor. Full sweep. This isn’t just extraction. Now we take everything.”
He slides into the SUV, slams the door, and for a moment—his rage falters.
Because staring back at him from the other seat is Daniel.
His son. His blood.
Those eyes—dark, haunted, too damn knowing for a child—lock onto his. And in them, Luca sees Giuliana. Her defiance. Her fire. Her love.
He exhales slowly, the weight of legacy pressing down on his shoulders. The rage is still there, but it bends beneath something else now.
Resolve.
He leans forward, placing a steady hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “I’m going to find your mother,” he says.” “And I’m going to bring her home. That’s a promise, Daniel. And in this family…”
He squeezes once.
"…we don’t break promises."
Then, without hesitation, he holds out his hand, pinky extended—just like Giuliana used to do when she wanted to make something unshakable. A pinky pact.
Daniel blinks, then slowly hooks his smaller pinky around Luca’s.
"Pinky promise," Luca says, voice rough, eyes never leaving his son’s. "That means it’s unbreakable."
Daniel nods, something steady sparking behind his fear.
Luca pulls back, straightens, the weight of that small promise sinking into his bones.
“Drive,” he commands. “And if anyone gets in our way… bury them.”
—
Turk glances over his shoulder. “You want me to pull Sophia in?”
Luca’s jaw hardens. “Already ahead of you. Too many details only she had.”
Turk nods, the weight of something unsaid thick in the pause. "She’s hiding out at a no-name motel, three blocks from the Strip—Room 12. Fake ID, cash payment."
Luca’s eyes narrow, jaw tightening as the pieces fall into place.
Turk continues, “Security cam shows her pacing the window, restless. She’s expecting someone. But not us."
Luca doesn’t flinch. “Then we don’t give her a chance to run. Get her out fast.”
Turk nods once more, already issuing the order into his comm.
Luca’s glare sharpens. “Then don’t knock. Don’t give her the chance to bolt. Take her fast and quiet”.
Minutes later, Turk’s men pull Sophia from the motel, panic in her eyes. She’s dragged into the safehouse.
Luca stares at her from across the room, arms crossed, silence colder than steel.
“Where is she?” he asks.
Sophia’s face crumples. “I don’t know. I swear—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
Tears stream down her cheeks.
“They came to me weeks ago and threatened the lives of my family. They said if I didn’t tell them where Giuliana lived, they’d make me disappear. I thought I could protect her by controlling what they knew.”
Luca steps forward, his stare cutting like a blade. “You didn’t just put Giuliana in jeopardy. You put my son in the crosshairs.”
Sophia freezes, the weight of his words hitting her like a gunshot. “Your… son?”
Her eyes widen in disbelief, breath hitching. “She never told me she—”
“She couldn’t,” Luca snarls. “Because trust like that could get a child killed.”
Sophia’s lips tremble. “She said it was bad, but… she never told me everything.”
Luca leans in, voice low and venomous. “Because she was trying to protect you. And you sold her out.”
Sophia drops to her knees. “Please… I didn’t know they were going to hurt her.”
He pauses, then turns to Turk without looking away from her. “She doesn’t leave the compound. And if anything happens to Giuliana… you make her the first to pay.”