Chapter 5 - The Wolf’s Shadow
For the next seventy-two hours, Villa Moretti became an armed fortress preparing for a siege.
Black SUVs with tinted windows patrolled the perimeter round the clock. Elias replaced every domestic staff member in the house with trusted veterans from his private security detail. Tailors from Paris were brought in under armed escort, blindfolded until they reached the North Tower, tasked with creating a wardrobe worthy of a dead dynasty.
Seraphina stood before a three-way gilded mirror, staring at a stranger.
The dress was sculpted from midnight-blue velvet, falling in liquid folds to the floor. The back was cut in a daring, elegant V, plunging just low enough to frame the jagged silver scar on her shoulder blade rather than conceal it. Elias had insisted on it.
“If you hide it, it is a wound,” he had told her that morning. “If you display it, it is an executioner’s banner.”
Around her throat rested the Valenti choker—a serpentine collar of sapphires and diamonds that Elias had retrieved from a bank vault in Zurich the previous night. It felt heavy, cold, and suffocating, like a collar of ice.
A soft tap sounded at the door.
Stefan, the broad-shouldered security chief who had taken Leo on the day she was captured, stepped into the room. He bowed his head respectfully. “Miss Valenti. Mr. Moretti is waiting in the courtyard.”
“Stefan,” she said, turning around. “How long have you worked for him?”
The older man offered a faint, melancholy smile. “Since he was eighteen, miss. Since he took his father’s seat.”
“Is he a monster?”
Stefan looked at her through warm, weary eyes. “In our world, everyone is a monster to someone. But Elias… Elias has only ever used his claws to keep the wolves away from the nursery. He took Leo in when his sister died in childbirth, claimed him as his own son so the boy wouldn't be murdered by rivals. He carries more ghosts on his shoulders than any man I’ve ever known.”
Seraphina’s chest tightened. Leo wasn't his biological son? He had claimed an orphaned infant to shield him from the syndicate’s merciless succession laws—just as he had tried to shield her in the flames twenty years ago.
She gathered her velvet train and walked down the grand marble staircase.
Elias was waiting in the foyer. He wore a classic black tuxedo, his hair brushed back, his jaw sharp and freshly shaved. When he looked up and saw her descending the stairs, his breath caught in his throat.
For an instant, the cold mafia king vanished, replaced by the fifteen-year-old boy who had run into a burning house for a little girl.
He offered his arm. His fingers were steady, but when she placed her hand on his sleeve, she could feel the iron tension beneath the fabric.
“You look like your mother,” he murmured, his voice husky. “She had the same fire in her eyes when she defied the Council.”
May you like
“I’m not doing this for the Council, Elias,” she said softly, meeting his gaze. “I’m doing this so Leo doesn't grow up in a world ruled by men like Mateo.”
A ghost of a smile touched Elias’s lips. “Then let us go remind them why the wolves used to fear the dark.”
