Vanessa called me a worthless maid for serving Luca a chipped bowl of chicken soup, but the moment he tasted it, he realized his mother had been waiting downstairs for nearly two hours. / Chapter 23 / 40

Chapter 23 - The Blood Oath of the Carbone

A heavy thud shook the reinforced steel door leading to the rear courtyard. Marco instantly shifted his stance, training his shotgun on the deadbolt.

"Boss," Marco said tensely. "They’re using thermal charges on the outer hinges. We have about ninety seconds."

"Let them burn," Luca said, his jaw locked, though his eyes never left his mother and me. "Mother, finish what you're saying."

"Twenty years ago," Mrs. Moretti said rapidly, her voice calm despite the scorching hiss of thermite eating through the exterior door frame, "the Council decided that no single family should hold absolute authority over the ports, the banks, and the transit lines. Your father, Lorenzo, held the master charter—the original founding ledger and the sovereign seal of the Five Families."

"The Carbone family..." Luca muttered, his eyes widening slightly. "The ones who vanished overnight in ninety-nine. Everyone assumed they were wiped out in the harbor turf wars."

"Lorenzo knew the Council had been corrupted from within," Mrs. Moretti explained, looking at me. "He knew that if they found his newborn daughter, they would either murder her to extinguish the bloodline or use her as a pawn to control the entire Eastern seaboard. So he came to me. He placed you in my arms when you were only three months old."

My breath caught in my throat. "If you knew... why did you let me live as an orphan? Why did you let me work as a maid in this house?"

"Because your father demanded it," she said softly, grief tinting her words. "He staged his own disappearance and hid in plain sight as a humble transit mechanic, watching over you from afar. His dying wish was that you should never know the poison of this world—unless the Ouroboros came looking for you."

She pointed to the wax seal on the box—the serpent swallowing its tail.

"The Council has awakened," Mrs. Moretti said, her voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper. "They know Lorenzo hid the Master Charter. And they know that only his blood can unlock the Grand Vault where it rests."

A blinding flash of white fire erupted at the kitchen door as the thermite blew the heavy hinges apart. The heavy steel door fell inward with a deafening crash, billowing black smoke and ozone into the room.

"Down!" Luca roared.

Two tactical operatives in unmarked combat gear and night-vision goggles surged through the smoke, weapons raised.

Luca didn't wait. He stepped out from behind the stainless steel island, firing three rounds in rapid succession. The lead operative collapsed instantly. Marco fired his shotgun, the blast tearing through the second operative's tactical vest and throwing him back into the courtyard.

Before the smoke could settle, Luca grabbed my arm with one hand and his mother’s with the other.