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HE WAS BOUND TO A WHEELCHAIR FOR 12 YEARS BY A DEADLY LIE. THEN HIS DAUGHTER TOUCHED HIS KNEE AND UNLOCKED A MAFIA WAR! / Chapter 17 / 20

Chapter 17 - THE SILENT ARCHITECT

Night descended over the estate, heavy and suffocating. Luca moved through the silent corridors of the west wing, his footsteps noiseless against the thick runner rugs. He stopped outside the quarters assigned to Elena Harper.

He didn't knock. He turned the bronze handle and stepped inside.

Elena was sitting at a small wooden desk near the window, a cup of herbal tea steaming beside a high-powered, military-spec rugged laptop. The timid, terrified maid who had cowered in the foyer during the gunfights was nowhere to be seen. Her posture was straight, her eyes calm, cold, and calculating.

She didn't look surprised to see him.

"You took forty-eight hours longer to check the IP origin than I predicted, Luca," she said smoothly, closing the laptop screen.

Luca pulled out his sidearm, laying it flat on the desk between them. "Who are you, Elena?"

Elena smiled—a faint, melancholy expression. "I am Elena Vance-Moretti. That part was true. But I wasn't running from my family when I met you fourteen years ago. I was sent to eliminate you."

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Luca didn't flinch. "Go on."

"Fourteen years ago, your syndicate was expanding too fast," she explained, leaning back in her chair. "My father, Viktor Moretti, realized you were going to dominate the entire Western hemisphere. He ordered an immediate hit. But when I met you in that South Side apartment... I saw a man who wasn't a monster. I saw someone who wanted out."

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