The ledger felt heavier than it looked.
Luna held it in her hands as though it might burn her. The cover was cracked leather, blackened at the edges, worn by time and blood. The scent of old paper and secrets filled her lungs.
She didn't sit. She stood over Damien's desk, flipping through the yellowed pages while he watched her in silence.
Names. Codes. Locations. Transactions.
Each page was a map of power of weapons moved in silence, of money laundered across oceans, of alliances forged and shattered.
But it was the initials she kept seeing that made her throat tighten.
D.C. — Dominic Cross.
Her father's mark. Scrawled beside almost every high-value entry.
He wasn't a shadow in someone else's empire.
He was the empire.
"You told me he was betrayed," Luna said, her voice hoarse. "That he trusted the wrong people. That he"
"He did," Damien interrupted, rising from his chair. "And he paid the price. But there was more to it than that. The Virelli Syndicate didn't just kill him to take territory. They killed him because he refused to hand you over."
Her head jerked up.
"What?"
"You were four years old," Damien said quietly. "Your father discovered something… something they wanted. He refused to give it up. They gave him a choice hand you over as leverage, or die."
Luna's stomach turned to ice.
"And you knew all this?" she whispered.
"I was there," Damien said. "Your father was my best friend. He helped build this world. He was the reason I left the blood streets behind and chose something else. And I owed him everything."
He walked toward her, slowly.
"When they came for you, he sent you away. Changed your name. Buried your identity. Then he handed me this ledger and told me to find you when the time was right."
"Why wait?" she asked, voice trembling. "Why now?"
"Because the Virellis are rising again," he said. "They've rebuilt. And they've found out you're alive."
Luna felt the room spinning around her, but she refused to fall.
"They want me," she said. "Why?"
Damien's gaze didn't waver.
"Because there's something only you can unlock. Something your father hid. And if they get to it first, they won't just destroy what's left of the Cross name they'll use it to burn down the entire syndicate world."
Luna's breath caught in her throat.
Everything she'd known her quiet life at university, the orphaned identity she wore like a second skin it was all a lie built to keep her hidden.
But now… she wasn't hiding anymore.
She was the key.
And keys could do more than unlock secrets.
They could open doors or destroy them.
She closed the ledger slowly, her voice steady now.
"Then teach me how to fight them."
Damien didn't smile.
But he nodded.
And somewhere far beyond the gates of the estate, the shadows stirred.
Because the mafia's hidden heiress was awake.
And she was done running.
The air between them felt heavier now. Not with silence, but with unspoken truths.
Luna took a step back, holding the ledger tightly to her chest. "All this time… you've been grooming me for a war I didn't even know existed."
Damien's eyes narrowed slightly. "I've been preparing you to survive it."
"By controlling every part of my life?" she snapped. "You trained me like a soldier. You isolated me. You made me think I was just another pawn."
"I made you strong," he said, voice low. "Because one day you'd have to choose whether to kneel… or to rule."
Luna's heart slammed against her ribs. "You still see me as a Cross. Not as me. Not Luna."
"No," he said. "I see you as both. That's what makes you dangerous."
The words hit her harder than she expected.
Not broken. Not weak. Not a victim.
Dangerous.
It should have frightened her but instead, it made something stir deep inside her chest. A piece of her that had slept for too long.
She turned away from Damien and looked out the wide glass window of his office. The estate sprawled out below like a kingdom soaked in secrets. But beyond it, far past the gates and guards, the city waited. And somewhere in that city… so did the Virellis.
Luna swallowed.
"If I'm going to do this," she said, her voice firm, "I need more than lessons in self-defense. I need the truth. All of it. About my father. About the Syndicate. About you."
Damien stepped beside her. The hard lines of his face softened for just a breath.
"You'll get it," he said. "But truth comes with a price."
She turned to face him. "I already paid one."
His gaze met hers and for a moment, something flickered there. Respect. Maybe guilt. Maybe something else.
Then his phone buzzed.
He looked down, frowned, and answered with a curt word. A beat later, his voice changed.
"What do you mean she's here? She's not supposed to no, don't stop her. Let her in."
Luna's eyebrows lifted. "Who is it?"
Damien ended the call and pocketed the phone.
"Verena's back. And she brought someone with her."
"Who?"
A pause. Then:
"Someone who used to work for your father."
Luna's pulse spiked.
She didn't know what was waiting for her down those halls, but she knew one thing for sure whatever it was, it would change everything.
And she was ready.
The name Verena echoed in Luna's mind like a ghost from a story she was never told.
She followed Damien out of the office, down the long marble corridor. His footsteps were quiet but fast, purposeful. Luna's heels clicked sharply behind him, every sound louder in the tension that wrapped the mansion like a second skin.
The main doors were already open when they reached the foyer.
Verena stood at the threshold, dressed in an emerald-green trench coat, her dark hair twisted into a sleek knot. She was elegance sharpened to a blade beautiful and lethal in the same breath.
And beside her, cloaked in a gray scarf and dark glasses, stood a man who didn't belong in this world of clean-cut violence. He looked older, maybe late fifties, his face weathered by sun and sorrow. But his eyes when they met Luna's froze her in place.
Blue. The same deep, stormy blue she'd seen in old photos hidden in her childhood closet.
He didn't bow. He didn't speak.
He only stared.
Damien stepped forward. "You said you found him dead."
Verena shrugged off her coat and handed it to a guard. "I was wrong. He survived. Barely. But he remembers enough to be useful."
The man took a shaky breath.
"She looks just like her mother," he murmured.
Luna's heart squeezed. "Who are you?"
The man pulled off his glasses and stepped forward, voice soft and broken. "My name is Elias Vance. I was Dominic Cross's right hand. His friend. His shadow."
She blinked. The name was unfamiliar, but the way he said her father's name the reverence in it made her chest ache.
"I was there," Elias whispered, "the night the Cross Empire fell. And I know who pulled the trigger."
The foyer fell silent.
Verena looked between Luna and Damien, her lips pursed. "We don't have long. The Virellis are already circling. Elias came out of hiding because he believes there's still time to stop them."
Luna stepped closer. "Tell me who killed my father."
Elias glanced toward Damien, then back to her.
"Not yet," he said. "First, you need to know what he died protecting."
He reached inside his coat and pulled out a silver locket tarnished, old, and familiar.
Luna's breath hitched.
"I gave this to my father," she whispered.
Elias nodded.
"And inside is the key to everything the Virelli Syndicate wants. That's why they need you alive until they get it."
He opened the locket and revealed a microchip, impossibly small, embedded inside the metal.
Luna stared at it, her pulse thundering in her ears.
Her life… her bloodline… was more than legacy.
It was a lock.
And now, the key had been found.