Chapter 12 - The Ghost from the Past
Three days later, the quiet peace of the Viscanti estate was shattered by a delivery that bypassed every security checkpoint at the front gates.
It arrived via a courier who dropped a heavy, wax-sealed envelope on the front steps before vanishing into the morning fog.
Mrs. Vance brought it to the private study on a silver tray.
Mateo broke the red wax seal with a silver letter opener. Inside lay a single photograph and a handwritten note in faded black ink.
The photograph showed a younger Mateo standing beside an older, severe-looking man with striking pale blue eyes—his father, Lorenzo Viscanti—alongside a third man whose face had been aggressively slashed out with a razor blade.
The note read: “The debt your father left in Sicily hasn't expired, Mateo. The sins of the old world cross oceans. Look behind you.”
Genevieve walked into the study just as Mateo lowered the paper. The look in his eyes—a mixture of cold shock and dark fury—made her freeze in the doorway.
“What is it?” she asked, stepping closer.
“A ghost I thought was buried thirty years ago,” Mateo said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. “My father didn't just build this syndicate on shipping and construction. He settled a blood feud in Palermo before we fled to New York. I thought the men who hunted us were all dead.”
“Who scratched out the face in that photo?”
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“Salvatore Rossi,” Mateo replied, standing up so abruptly his chair scraped loudly against the hardwood floor. “The man my father stripped of his territory in 1994. And if his name has surfaced in New York now, it means someone inside our current alliance let him through the perimeter.”
Genevieve’s blood ran cold. The internal war wasn't over. It had just scaled up from a localized mutiny to an international vendetta.
