The empire of ashes

CHAPTER ONE – THE ORDER

"You don't send a man like me to clean up a mess, Papa. You send me to bury it."

Marcos De Luca stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of the penthouse, a glass of neat scotch untouched in his hand. Below, the city stretched out like a glittering lie-glass towers and blinking lights trying to hide what everyone knew but never said aloud: that the De Luca family owned half of it, and fear owned the other half.

His father didn't flinch. Didn't even blink.

Alessandro De Luca, the old lion of the family empire, sat behind a black marble desk, his fingers steepled, expression unreadable. The man could order a massacre and sip espresso in the same breath. He looked at Marcos like one looks at a sword. Cold. Sharp. Purposeful.

"A journalist has been asking questions about the shipping docks. She's getting too close."

"Then pay her off," Marcos said, shrugging. "Isn't that how we keep things quiet?"

"Tried."

"Blackmail?"

"She doesn't scare easy."I haven't see anyone bold,fearless, bold and has features of a lion",Alessandro De Luca said.

Marcos finally turned around, his jaw ticking. "So what? You want me to kill a woman because she's doing her job?"

"I want you to do yours," Alessandro said simply.

There it was.

No emotion. No morality. Just business.

Marcos downed the scotch in one swallow. It burned-but not nearly enough.

"Name?"

"Vanessa Maren."

The name sounded familiar.

Alessandro continued, "She was writing a fluff piece on a politician, then started poking around the docks. Her sister was involved with someone who used to work for us. Girl got herself killed two years ago-wrong place, wrong time."

"The sister?" Marcos asked.

"Murder. Stabbed. Unsolved."

"And Vanessa thinks we did it?"

"Doesn't matter what she thinks. If she publishes anything, we have a thousand questions to answer."

Marcos didn't speak for a long time. His father's office, all glass and steel, was silent except for the distant thrum of traffic far below.

He wasn't new to this. Marcos had cleaned up the family's messes since he was seventeen. Laundering money. Threatening informants. Breaking fingers and making bodies disappear. But something about this felt different.

Maybe it was the name.

Maybe it was the growing nausea in his gut.

"I'll handle it," he said at last.

Alessandro smiled-not warmly. "I knew you would."

Marcos started working on her daily activities,how to look for her ,workplace and all

It took less than three hours to find her.

Vanessa Maren lived in a cramped, crumbling apartment on the city's edge-the kind of place with flickering hallway lights and neighbors who minded their own business to survive. Marcos didn't knock. He waited outside in his black SUV as she exited the building mid-afternoon, clutching a worn leather satchel and wearing grief like a second skin.

She wasn't what he expected.

She wasn't glamorous, powerful, or cocky like the journalists who hounded politicians,like his father described her . She looked... exhausted. Dark circles under her eyes. Hair pulled into a careless bun. Clothes wrinkled and clean but cheap. She walked with a kind of limp sadness, like every step cost her something.

Marcos smirk in disappointment so this is the threat? he thought.

She didn't hail a cab. She walked-six blocks, alone, in July heat. Marcos tailed her at a distance, growing more curious than cautious. Eventually, she turned into a cemetery.

He parked, then followed on foot.

From behind a maple tree, he watched as Vanessa knelt at a grave. Her fingers brushed the name carved into the stone. Mia Maren.

Her sister.

Vanessa didn't cry.

She just sat there. Silent. Still. Hands folded like she didn't know what else to do.

Then-very softly-she started talking to the grave.

"They still haven't called. I left another message. Maybe he doesn't exist. Maybe I'm wrong and you just... got unlucky."

A bitter laugh.

"But you didn't get mugged, did you? You were meeting someone. That's what you said in your last message. I played it thirty times."

Marcos frowned.

She pulled out a battered phone and hit play. A voicemail. He could barely hear it, but he caught the fragments.

"Mia here. Heading out. If I'm not back by ten, start worrying."

Vanessa paused the message.

Then whispered, "I started worrying. You never came back. I'm lonely Mia ,I'm tired .i don't know what to do anymore,just know I missed you"

Marcos stepped back, the weight of the moment landing like a punch. He wasn't here to kill her. He was here to decide whether she deserved to be silenced.

And suddenly, he wasn't sure anymore.

Later that evening, he returned to his apartment-luxury, cold, spotless. He poured himself another drink and stood by the window.

Vanessa Maren wasn't a problem to solve.

She was a woman in pain.

She was grieving her death sister.

A woman who had no idea she was dancing on the edge of a blade.

I could walk away, Marcos thought.

But then he remembered her voice. The voicemail. The cracked way she said "You never came back."

"What is wrong with me?" he said to himself ,unlike me,why am I starting to doubt myself ? All I need is to get the job done ......that's all

He picked up his burner phone and dialed a number only two people had access to.

A voice answered. "Report."

"I found her," Marcos said.

"Handled?"

"Not yet."

A pause.

"You know the rules, De Luca."

"I'm aware,don't worry I will do the needful I got this "

"Clock's ticking."

The line went dead.

Marcos stared out the window, hands clenched,goes into a deep thought on how to go about it .

Vanessa Maren didn't know it yet, but her sister's murder wasn't the end of the story.

It was the beginning, which might go leads to her on death

CHAPTER TWO – SHATTERED TRUTHS

The next morning, Marcos sat in his car across the street from vanessa's building, sipping bitter black coffee from a corner deli and pretending he had a plan.

He didn't.

She'd stayed inside most of the night. No guests. No movement after 9 p.m. Not even a flicker of light in the living room. It was quiet grief. The kind that turns people into ghosts before they're dead.

Still, this woman-this tired, bruised soul-was apparently the biggest threat to a multi-million-dollar crime empire.

Marcos pulled out a file folder. Vanessa Maren. Age 27. Former journalist at The City Watch. Fired after an alleged "breakdown" and obsession with her sister's death. Hadn't written a story since. Bank records showed she was behind on rent. Maxed out on two credit cards. No savings. No current employment.

She was falling apart.

"And yet, she had the entire De Luca family rattled.I can't imagine it not gonna lie"Marcos quietly said to himself

Vanessa poured hot water over the same tea bag she'd used twice already. Her kitchen was almost empty-two chipped mugs, half a loaf of bread, peanut butter, and one roach that had the nerve to show up every morning at exactly 7:00 a.m.

She'd named him Todd, because if she was going to be broke, heartbroken, and alone, she could at least have someone to yell at.

"Todd, I swear to God, today is not the day," she mumbled, smacking at the counter.

The cockroach escaped, of course.

Sighing, she sat down with her lukewarm tea and opened her laptop. A Word document stared back at her. Blank. Titled: Mia Maren: What They Won't Tell You.

She hadn't written a word.

Because every time she tried, all she could hear was Mia's laugh. All she could see was the crime scene photo the detective reluctantly showed her: her sister's body crumpled in an alley behind a nightclub, mascara smeared, neck slashed so deep the coroner had asked if it was personal.

But "no leads" and "random attack" had been the final report.

Bullshit.

Vanessa exhaled shakily and clicked open her email inbox instead. She scrolled past overdue bills, automated rejections, and one email from a former editor titled:

"Please stop, Vanessa"

She clicked it.

I know you're still grieving, but you need to stop emailing everyone about Mia. You're burning bridges you might not be able to rebuild.

She deleted it without reading the rest.

Marcos watched her leave the building around ten, carrying a tote bag and a battered camera.

She wasn't going to an office. Or a protest. Or a press conference.

She went to the county records office.

He followed her in, keeping his head down. Vanessa signed the guest log and asked for public records from two years ago-the week her sister died.

"You looking for something specific?" the clerk asked.

"Just records on a shipping company. Portside Logistics."

Marcos flinched.

That name was too close to home.

It was one of their front companies. A shell business used to launder money from drug and arms deals. Mia had no connection to it. At least, not on paper.

He sat at the far end of the room, pretending to read a land deed from 1997 while watching her work.

She wasn't taking notes.

She was taking pictures-page after page of permit logs, maintenance reports, employee rosters. Some names Marcos recognized. Some he didn't.

She's not just grieving, he realized. She's investigating.

The fear his father felt? It wasn't misplaced.

Vanessa wasn't the kind of woman who yelled. She didn't scream for justice. She whispered her way into it, quietly and dangerously.

And she was getting close.

Outside, Vanessa's camera battery died just as she stepped into the alley behind the records office.

"Damn it..."

She knelt to fix it-and that's when she heard it. A click.

Not a gun.

A lighter.

She turned around.

A man leaned against the brick wall, flicking a silver Zippo open and shut. He wore dark jeans, a black T-shirt, and an expression like he was trying not to feel anything.

His presence was quiet. Heavy.

"You following me?" she asked, clutching the camera to her chest.

"No," he said. "But maybe I should be."

His voice was smooth. Low. Dangerous without trying to be.

"That supposed to scare me?"

"Would it work if I said yes?"

She didn't back away, which impressed him. And concerned him.

"Who are you?" she asked.

"Someone who thinks you're getting close to a fire you don't understand."

Vanessa narrowed her eyes.

"Do I look like I'm scared of fire?"

Marcos didn't answer.

He just walked past her, slowly, brushing her shoulder.

"Then you've never been burned the right way."

That night, Vanessa sat on the floor of her apartment, camera beside her, Mia's photo in her lap.

She didn't know who the man was.

But something about the way he looked at her...

Like he'd already buried everything he loved.

Like he knew what guilt tasted like.

And maybe-just maybe-he'd been close to whatever killed her sister.

"Come back tomorrow," she whispered, staring at the door.

CHAPTER THREE – GHOSTS AND GRAVES

The next morning, Vanessa stood in front of her closet, holding a navy blazer that still had Mia's scent in the lining.

She put it back.

She hadn't worn anything of her sister's in over a year. Not because she couldn't-but because it made the grief too loud. Mia had always dressed better. Spoke braver. Died younger.

Today felt different.

Today, she wasn't just grieving.

She was going to do something.

Marcos watched her from across the street again-his usual spot, tinted windows up, heart ticking in a way it hadn't in a long time.

Vanessa came out wearing all black. Not fashionably. Just clean. Focused.

She had a notebook in her hand and a look on her face like she didn't care if the world burned, so long as it left answers in the ashes.

Where are you going now, princesa?

He followed her through the city's edge, past traffic lights and peeling street murals, until she reached a quiet cemetery. Not the one from before. This one was older, tucked behind a broken gate and a wrought-iron fence that had rusted with time.

She knelt again. Not at Mia's grave.

At another.

Daniel Greer.

A former dock worker who died a week after Mia.

Overdose.

Officially.

But Marcos remembered the name.

Greer had once moved product for Portside. Small-time. Never trusted.

He was supposed to have been cut loose. Not dead.

Now here he was, carved in stone, next to a plastic bouquet of sun-faded roses.

What the hell are you chasing, Vanessa?

She didn't stay long.

Just placed a note on the grave and whispered something before walking away.

Marcos waited a moment, then stepped forward.

The note read:

You saw her that night. I know it. Someone made you disappear. I'm sorry no one asked why.

No anger. Just sorrow.

Marcos folded the paper and slipped it into his coat.

That afternoon, he went to see someone he hadn't spoken to in two years.

Elias Romano-his oldest friend. The only one who hadn't tried to kill him yet.

They met in the back of a boxing gym owned by a former enforcer-turned-trainer. No cameras. No questions.

Elias looked older. Rougher. But his hug was the same.

"Shit, man. I thought you were dead," Elias muttered, stepping back and looking him over.

"Not yet," Marcos said.

"If you're here, that means something's wrong."

"I need a name."

Elias frowned. "We giving or taking?"

"A dock worker. Daniel Greer. He died a week after Mia Maren. You remember?"

"Yeah. OD. Trash in and out."

"No. He was silenced."

Elias raised an eyebrow. "You're chasing ghosts now?"

"No," Marcos said. "I'm following one."

That night, Vanessa sat on her couch with Mia's old camera in her lap. She wasn't sleeping much these days. The tea didn't help. The quiet was worse. The silence used to scare her. Now, it just made space for guilt.

She'd sent an email to Mia's old boss earlier. He hadn't replied. She knew he wouldn't.

People ran from truth when it knocked too hard.

But someone had followed her yesterday. She hadn't imagined that.

The man with the lighter.

He hadn't threatened her. Hadn't even touched her. Just walked by like he belonged in shadows.

And still, she couldn't stop thinking about him.

There was something in his eyes-tired, haunted. As if he'd stood in too many graves and still couldn't name which ones he'd dug.

"Who are you?" she whispered, not expecting an answer.

Marcos lit a cigarette he wouldn't smoke.

Sat alone on the balcony of his temporary apartment-low-rise, cheap, nondescript.

He stared at the sky like it owed him something.

"What the hell were you doing with Greer, Mia?"

A photo lay on the table beside him. From Elias. A grainy security cam still from the docks.

Mia. Late night. Talking to someone. A man in a De Luca suit. Not him.

"Who sent you there?"

His phone buzzed. A text.

From: UNKNOWN

She's getting too close. You were supposed to handle it.

Another buzz.

We're sending someone else.

"No.....fuck!!"

He said it out loud. A whisper. A decision.

Not this time.

Not her.