Chapter 8 - The Ghost of Geneva
Luciano stares at the monitor in absolute disbelief. The man stepping out of the shadows on the screen is not Viktor Vance. It is someone Luciano trusted with his life, someone who attended every family dinner, someone who supposedly died defending the Palermo docks decades ago.
It is Dante, Luciano’s sworn godfather and the man who inducted him into the syndicate as a boy.
“Surprised, my boy?” Dante says on the screen, taking a slow sip of his amber drink as he looks directly into the camera lens. “You thought you outsmarted Bernadette? You thought you cleaned house by shipping her off to South America? She was just the bait, Luciano. A convenient pawn to test your reflexes.”
The video cuts to a live feed overlay. The timestamp shows real-time footage from the Venturi private airstrip in South America.
On the screen, Bernadette’s private charter plane is sitting on the tarmac. Suddenly, a black armored SUV rams through the perimeter gate, cutting off the jet's path. Armed men in unmarked tactical gear pour out of the vehicle, surrounding the plane.
Luciano’s blood runs cold. They aren't rescuing Bernadette—they are executing her to tie up loose ends.
“Marco! Scramble the tactical team! Now!” Luciano roars, spinning away from the desk.
“It’s too late, Boss,” Marco whispers, staring at a second monitor tracking satellite telemetry over South America. “The signal from Bernadette’s tracker just went flat.”
Back on the video feed, Dante smiles a cold, grandfatherly smile. “The Venturi name ends tonight, Luciano. You kept the boy, Theo, thinking he was safe. But bloodlines are tricky things. And Theo isn't who you think he is.”
May you like
Luciano freezes, his hand gripping the edge of the mahogany table so hard his knuckles turn white. “What... what did you say?”
“Look at the back of the journal, my boy,” Dante’s recorded voice echoes through the vault. “Read the birth records from the Palermo hospital fire. Theo isn't your son’s half-brother. He is your father’s son. Your true-born brother. And Viktor Vance wants his pound of flesh before dawn.”
