Chapter 13 - The Ghost of the Past
Three hours later, Dante’s private Gulfstream jet cut through the stormy skies over the Mediterranean Sea, heading straight toward northern Italy. Inside the cabin, the lighting was dimmed. Dante sat in a leather armchair, staring intently at a physical photograph recovered from Claire Bennett’s hidden safehouse drawer—a photograph that had been overlooked during the initial sweep.
It wasn't a picture of Claire, nor of her late husband. It was a faded Polaroid taken nearly fifteen years ago, showing a young girl standing outside an orphanage in Sicily, holding a familiar silver-headed cane.
"Find anything useful?" Elena asked, walking down the aisle with a cup of black coffee.
"Everything we thought we knew about Claire Bennett was a lie," Dante said quietly, handing her the photograph. "Her real name isn't Claire Bennett. That identity was manufactured five years ago by a ghost from my father’s past."
Elena looked at the image, her eyes widening. "Is that... Katarina Petrov? The daughter of the late Russian Syndicate boss who was wiped out during the 2012 dock wars?"
"Katarina was presumed dead," Dante murmured, his jaw tight. "Everyone believed she perished in the fire that consumed her father’s compound. But she didn't die. She went underground, trained for a decade, and built a network of deep-cover operatives designed to dismantle the Moretti empire piece by piece—using a three-year-old child as an unwitting psychological weapon."
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"Which means," Elena said grimly, "the attack in Milan isn't a random raid. It’s the second phase of a total annihilation strategy. If she has the Ledger of Blood, she controls every politician, judge, and cartel leader currently allied with your family."
"She thinks she has checkmate," Dante replied, a cold, lethal fire igniting in his eyes. "She forgot that in my world, the game only ends when the king is dead."
