Inside the Walls
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I stare at the box in my lap like it might explode.
In a way, it already has—detonated something inside me I haven’t been able to name.
It’s not just the contents. It’s what it means.
What it could unravel. The illusion of safety.
The lies I’ve lived with. And now that it’s in the open, everything’s about to change.
It’s heavier than it should be. Not just in weight—but in meaning. My chest feels like it’s caving in under it. My fingers tremble around the worn leather edges as memories pulse like aftershocks through my veins. I haven’t opened this thing in a decade. I never dared. I swore I wouldn’t.
And now Luca knows.
He’s standing just feet away, pacing like a caged animal, a storm building in his eyes. And I know him well enough to understand what’s coming—blood, vengeance, fire. That’s how the Moretti’s deal with betrayal.
But I can’t stop shaking.
Because I’m the one who kept this secret. I’m the one who carried it like a grenade. And now that it’s out… there’s no un-pulling the pin.
God, Vittorio. What did you leave behind? What did I promise to protect?
Luca crouches in front of me, voice low but taut with fury. “Guiliana. Look at me.”
I lift my gaze and I almost can’t breathe. His eyes are wildfire and loyalty and rage—all aimed at whoever dared to threaten what’s his. Me. Daniel. Us.
“You kept this for ten years. You swore to my father you’d protect it. So, tell me now,” he growls, “what the fuck are we protecting?”
I blink, once. My breath catches in my throat. A memory flashes—Vittorio’s voice, low and urgent, the night he handed me the box. I remember the fear in his eyes, and how I promised to guard it with my life. That weight is still here, coiled tight in my chest, rising like smoke.
My throat tightens. I can’t speak.?”
Because I don’t know.
That’s the worst part. I’ve never opened it.
I clutch it tighter, voice cracking. “All I know is that your father said it would bring down the wrong people. People inside your family. People close to him. And if it got into the wrong hands—”
“They’d bury you, me and our son."
I nod. Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Not now.
“I left that compound to get it because I couldn’t let Daniel grow up in this world without the truth. Without some kind of leverage if something happened to us.”
Luca’s jaw clenches, muscle ticking as he stares at me like he’s holding back a storm. His hand presses firmly to my knee—not gentle, but grounding. Possessive.
"You did the right thing,” he says, voice low and sharp, “but you should’ve told me, Giuliana. You don’t get to disappear on me again—not after everything.”
His touch scorches through my skin. His words wrap around the shattered places inside me, binding them tight, like stitches across a wound I’ve been bleeding from for the last ten years.
But my mind won’t stop racing.
Who betrayed us?
Who inside the Moretti family is willing to kill for this box?
I whisper, my voice shaking, “I hid it in a false wall at the gallery—someplace only I knew. I thought it was safe there, that I could keep an eye on it without drawing attention. But someone was watching me, Luca. Waiting.
The night of the break-in, while Daniel and I were asleep… someone came looking for it. They were careful, methodical—but I knew.
I felt it the moment I woke up and walked to the kitchen. Someone had been in the apartment.
At first, I thought it was you—because you had the photo when I showed up at the gallery to get the file.
But now… now I know it wasn’t random. They were watching. Waiting. And I think they realized they were too late.
Luca’s gaze sharpens to a blade. “Then we find out who. Starting with the inner circle. If this ties back to Vescari’s play, he's a dead man.
I nod again, the panic rising in my throat like bile. “It’s not just Vescari. This box… it’s connected to the death of your father. Maybe even your brother. There are names in it. I saw them once. Just enough to know if I kept reading—I’d be dead.”
Silence falls between us, thick as smoke.
Luca’s voice is steel when it breaks through. “Then it’s time we find out who wants to kill us... and who already tried.”
Because this box isn’t just about secrets.
It’s about legacy. Blood. Revenge. And now that we've opened it, nothing will ever be the same again.
The moment Giuliana said the box might hold names tied to my father’s death—and maybe even my brother’s—I felt the axis of my world shift.
And if that box holds proof someone inside our bloodline was involved in Tommaso’s death?
They’re already dead. They just don’t know it yet.
I rise slowly, pacing the edge of the room like a beast barely chained. My knuckles are white from clenching too hard, too long.
Every heartbeat is a warning drum in my ears, pounding out one word: betrayal.
She still has the box tucked against her, like it’s part of her body.
I can see the way her fingers tighten around it, white-knuckled and unyielding.
It’s not just protection—it’s defiance. And beneath it, I can feel my own fury threading with something sharper.
Protective. Possessive. Whatever's in that box, it won’t touch her.
Not while I’m breathing.. I don’t blame her.
That thing could ignite a war of empires.
“You said you saw a name?” I ask quietly, too quietly.
She hesitates.
“Yes.”
Her voice shakes, and it nearly kills me. Not because she’s scared of me—but because whatever she read in that box is worth killing for.
For ten years she carried this, alone, while I cursed her name and plotted vengeance against ghosts. Hating the memories and her with each passing day.
“Whose name?” I demand, stepping in close.
Giuliana looks up at me, tears glinting but unshed. “It was fast. I never even meant to look. But one stood out… Adriano Vescari. And below it… your brother’s name. Crossed out in red.”
My vision blurs. Not from grief—but fury.
Tommaso. Crossed out like he was some casualty on a kill list.
And Vescari? That greasy bastard always claimed loyalty to my father. Always sat two seats down from me at family dinners.
Now I know why he always looked at me with that damn smug smile. He thought I was too green to dig up the truth.
He underestimated me.
I move to the window, looking out over the safehouse grounds.
It looks calm—guards on rotation, lights glowing, the illusion of control.
But I know better. Safety is a mask, and behind it, the betrayal is already blooming.
The real war isn’t out there—it’s inside these walls.
, over the soldiers I trained, the dynasty I helped built, the blood I bled to hold this empire together.
And all this time, the rot was inside the walls.
Behind me, Giuliana whispers, “You were never supposed to find out.”
I turn slowly. “So, he lied to me. Your father. Mine. They all swore Tommaso’s death was a hit gone bad.”
She nods. “That’s what I was told too. Until I saw the list. Until I saw what they did to make sure you’d never know the truth.”
I cross the room in three strides and drop to my knees in front of her. My hand finds her waist, grounding us both.
“Giuliana, I need you to trust me now. This doesn’t end with us running. Or hiding. It ends with death.”
She shudders beneath my touch. “You’re going to kill them.”
“Yes.”
I call Turk.
“Get Sal, Leo, and Frankie. Quietly. No open channels. I want to meet in the war room. Lock it down—no eyes, no ears, not even our own unless I say so.”
Turk doesn’t ask questions. He knows that tone. It’s the same one I used before I leveled the Genovese compound back in ’21.
I hang up and face Giuliana. She’s paler than I’ve ever seen her. She clutches Daniel’s blanket against her chest like it’s armor.
I walk over and pull her against me, hand sliding into her hair, breathing in the scent I memorized when I was too young to understand what obsession was.
“I’m going to find out who helped Vescari. Who crossed Tommaso out like he was nothing. And when I do?”
“I know,” she whispers. “You won’t stop.”
“No,” I rasp, “because I can only stop when the threat is gone.”
She doesn’t flinch.
And tomorrow?
We'll be ready to attack.
Luca’s expression darkens, something ancient and dangerous simmering beneath the surface. His jaw clenches, the muscle ticking like a silent countdown.
“They think they’re a step ahead,” he says, voice low and lethal. “They think they can play in the shadows while I rebuild my house. But they don’t know what I’ll do when I find out who touched what's mine.”
He stands, eyes blazing. “You’re sure it was after I took the photo?”
I nod. “Positive.”
A beat of silence stretches between us. Then he pulls out his phone, dials fast, his voice a growl. “Check the surveillance grid. I want every camera within a five-block radius of the gallery and her apartment. Scrub the metadata.”
I swallow, nerves coiling tight. “What if they already have a copy? What if this was just the start?”
Luca turns to me slowly, his eyes like steel through smoke. “Then we stop waiting.”
His phone buzzes. He answers, listens—just a second.
Then: “We’ve got movement. Someone just accessed a Moretti vault code from New York.”
My blood runs cold.
“They’re not running,” Luca says, sliding a gun into his jacket. “They’re coming.”
And I know what that means. No more warnings. No more shadows. This is the part where blood answers blood—and this time, we decide who bleeds.
And next time, they won’t miss.