The Mafia's Silent Keeper

Luca:

The city pulsed beneath my feet, its lights flickering like dying stars. From the balcony of the safehouse I was using-far from my penthouse, far from comfort-I watched the skyline, espresso untouched beside me, and thought about the girl I was about to ruin.

Cassie Reed.

I knew everything about her. She lived alone, tucked away in a quiet neighborhood with peeling paint on the walls and broken intercoms. A twenty-three-year-old college student, no siblings, just a mother she barely called and two best friends she thought she could trust.

She had no idea who her father really was. No idea that the little flash drive tucked somewhere in her apartment was the reason five mafia families were circling like wolves. And she definitely had no idea that I-Martelli Luca, the man every paper called a ghost or a monster-was coming for her.

I told myself it was for survival. That this was just business. But it felt like something more. Something personal.

"She's clean," Matteo said behind me, stepping into the room. My right-hand man. Loyal, quiet, observant. "No movement around her place. You sure about this?"

I didn't answer. Not immediately.

Because no, I wasn't sure. Not about dragging a stranger into this life. Not about terrifying some innocent girl who didn't know her blood carried secrets. Not about the fact that every time I saw her photo, something stirred-a flicker of something I'd buried years ago.

"We move tonight," I said finally.

Matteo didn't push. He never did.

I stared once more at the city and downed the now-cold espresso. My father would have called me weak for hesitating. But my father was dead, and I didn't care what his rotting opinion would've been.

Cassie was about to step into a world darker than she'd ever imagined.

And I was going to be the one to drag her there.