Chapter 17.5 – The Boy Behind the Wolf
Lupo's Flashback
The night was colder than most in Palermo. A storm lashed the coast with violent hands as young Lupo sat alone in the back seat of his stepmother's black Mercedes. He was only thirteen, but that night had aged him by decades. His stepmother, sleek and cruel, didn't even glance back at him as she instructed the driver to leave him at the train station with a single suitcase.
"She says you're a bastard," the driver mumbled, pity in his eyes. "Not fit for the Moretti name."
The boy stared at the rain-smeared window, numb. Inside the suitcase, no money. Only a loaf of bread, two shirts, and the weight of shame.
But Lupo didn't cry.
That night, he slept under the bridge, hugging the suitcase like it was a sibling. And he swore: "I'll never beg again. I'll never trust again."
Years later, he stood at the edge of a brutal fight pit in Sicily, bloodied and unbeaten. A man approached him, whispering a name into his ear Valentina Arturo, La Fiera.
He didn't know why, but the name lingered like perfume.
Now, in the present, he watches her walk away from him, her hips defiant, her eyes daring him to follow.
She was his undoing.
Chapter 17.6 – The Pact
Don Arturo's Flashback
Don Arturo knelt in the dim chapel, blood dripping from his knuckles. A priest's body lay twisted behind him, but he wasn't here to pray.
He remembered the day his siblings were slaughtered by the very allies they trusted. He was twenty-five and had watched his family's house burn from across the valley, his younger sister's screams echoing into the hills.
In the ruins, he met Moretti.
"You want vengeance? Give me your loyalty. Give me your bloodline."
Arturo agreed. He signed a pact in blood and steel a promise that one day, his daughter would be married to one of Moretti's sons to secure an unbreakable alliance.
Love was never part of the deal.
Years later, when Valentina was born, he held her and whispered, "Forgive me for the war you'll inherit."
Now, present day, he watches her rebel, kiss Lupo in shadows, burn every cage he's built for her.
And he clenches his jaw.
"She thinks she's free. But I decide when the blood pact ends."
Chapter 17.7 – Poisoned Gold
Emilio's Flashback
Even as a boy, Emilio had a face like carved gold and a smile that could gut you.
He had everything power, looks, charm. But he never had Lupo's raw magnetism. And that stung. His father loved Lupo's ruthlessness more than his own perfect plans.
So Emilio learned how to play dirty. He seduced tutors, bribed allies, whispered secrets to the right ears. And when he met Valentina for the first time, he didn't see a girl. He saw a throne.
One night, he lay beside a woman an enemy's daughter trailing his fingers across her skin as he confessed, "I'll make her mine, only to destroy her. And the empire will be mine."
Now, he watches Valentina laugh with Lupo. His glass sweats in his palm.
"She'll never see it coming. But the next time she drinks, it'll taste like betrayal."