Chapter 3 - THE CAGE BURNS DOWNPanic erupted instantly among the elite politicians, crime bosses, and business leaders. Shouts echoed through the ballroom as guests scrambled backward, tripping over designer gowns and expensive chairs, desperate to reach the heavy oak exit doors.
"Stay where you are!" Valentina shrieked, pressing her thumb hard against the detonator’s safety switch, her eyes wide with psychotic adrenaline. "One step closer and I press the activation sequence! No one leaves this room alive!"
Luca Moretti did not panic. He did not flinch.
Instead, a slow, dark, predatory smile spread across his lips—the exact smile that had terrified the European underworld a decade ago.
"Valentina," Luca said softly, his voice cutting through the shrieks of the terrified guests like a razor blade. "Do you honestly believe I spent the last twelve years sitting in this chair without preparing for the day my empire would try to swallow me whole?"
Valentina blinked, her thumb hovering over the button. "What... what are you talking about?"
"When you replaced my trusted captains with your incompetent relatives," Luca continued, his voice rising in steady, terrifying volume as he pushed his palms hard against the armrests once more. Both of his legs straightened with a sickening, audible pop of dormant joints protesting a decade of muscle atrophy. "Did you really think I didn't notice? Did you think my network of loyal assassins, hackers, and enforcers disappeared just because my legs stopped working?"
With a sudden, explosive surge of sheer willpower and raw fury, Luca Moretti stood completely upright for the first time in twelve years.
The entire ballroom fell dead silent. Even the politicians stopped screaming. Valentina stared in pure, unadulterated horror at the man she believed she had successfully entombed in a wheelchair forever.
"And as for your C4 explosives, sweetheart," Luca murmured, taking a deliberate, heavy step forward across the marble floor, his joints popping, his shadow looming massive and menacing over her. "My tech division disabled your remote frequency jammers twenty minutes before this party even started. Your detonator is currently sending signals to a disconnected receiver in an empty trash bin outside."
Valentina frantically pressed the button. Click. Click. Click.
Nothing happened. The red light blinked uselessly.
"No... NO!" Valentina screamed, lunging forward with a hidden ceramic dagger pulled from her garter belt, aiming straight for Luca’s chest.
Before the blade could even clear her waistline, a deafening gunshot echoed through the hall.
Bang.
Valentina froze. A tiny, perfect red circle bloomed on the shoulder of her white gown. The ceramic dagger clattered harmlessly against the marble floor. From the upper balcony, Luca’s head of security, Marco—whom Valentina had thought she successfully bribed and replaced three weeks prior—lowered a smoking sniper pistol with a cold grin.
"Nice try, signora," Marco muttered from above.
Two massive Moretti bodyguards materialized from the shadows, grabbing Valentina by her arms and slamming her hard against the floor, stripping the detonator from her limp fingers.
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Luca walked slowly toward her, his footsteps heavy, resonant, and steady. He stopped right beside her trembling form, looking down with eyes as cold as a frozen grave.
"Take her to the deep vaults beneath the vineyard," Luca ordered quietly. "Let her contemplate the next twelve years in total darkness. No light. No visitors. Just the poison she loves so much."
