Chapter 7 - Whispers from the Grave
Two weeks had passed since the night of the memorial. The DeLuca estate in the city had been rebuilt, but Lorenzo chose to stay at his coastal mansion overlooking the sea. The underworld had settled into a quiet, terrified submission under Lorenzo’s absolute rule.
Yet, despite his victory, a dark shadow still lingered in Lorenzo’s heart.
Moretti’s words on the night of the raid kept repeating in his mind: Isabella fought back. The car went off the cliff by accident.
Lorenzo sat in his private vault beneath the mansion, looking at the police evidence files from the accident eight months ago. Photos of the twisted metal, the burned coastal road, and the swallowed wreckage in the ravine.
Something didn't add up.
If Victor and Moretti wanted to take Isabella and the baby alive, why was Isabella’s body found twenty meters away from the wreckage? And why had her silver swallow necklace—a custom piece Lorenzo had forged for her himself with a hidden tracking microchip inside—never sent a signal?
At the time of the crash, the chip had been pronounced destroyed by the heat of the fire. But Lorenzo had built that chip using military-grade tech. It was designed to withstand temperatures up to two thousand degrees.
Lorenzo pulled out a high-tech tracking console from his safe. He hadn't turned it on in eight months. He hadn't wanted to look at a dead signal.
With hesitant fingers, he flipped the power switch. The screen flickered to life, showing a digital map of the East Coast.
For a moment, nothing happened. The screen showed only static radar sweeps.
Then, a tiny, faint green dot blinked on the screen.
Lorenzo’s breath hitched in his throat. He stood up so fast his chair flipped backward onto the floor.
The green dot wasn't in New York. It wasn't in the cemetery.
It was blinking slowly, rhythmically, from a remote medical facility in upstate Vermont.
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Lorenzo’s hand shook as he zoomed in on the coordinates. The signal was weak, repeating every thirty seconds—a low-power emergency distress ping from the silver swallow necklace.
"Marco!" Lorenzo screamed into the intercom, his voice cracking with an emotion he hadn't felt in nearly a year. "Get the helicopter ready! NOW!"
