The DeLuca name was not just a surname in Milan—it was a verdict. When men spoke it in darkened taverns or in the cramped backrooms of cafes, they did so in hushed tones, as if the syllables themselves could summon a shadow in the doorway. The family had built an empire upon fear, an empire that reached beyond the alleys and piazzas of the city, spilling into Rome, Naples, Palermo. Wherever there was blood to be spilled, money to be laundered, or loyalty to be bought, the DeLucas had a hand in it. To outsiders, they were myth. To Milan, they were reality—brutal, inescapable, and eternal.
Adrian had spent years trying to escape that reality. But sitting now in the warehouse safe house, staring at the documents scattered across the table, he realized that no matter how far he had run, the shadow of the DeLuca crest followed him like a curse. The papers bore names, numbers, offshore accounts, secret vaults, bribes, and murders disguised as suicides. They were more than ledgers. They were a map of rot, the arteries of an empire that had survived for decades on silence and fear.
And at the center of it all stood his father—Don Salvatore DeLuca.
Salvatore's rise had been forged in blood long before Adrian was born. He had not inherited the family; he had stolen it, carving his way up from soldier to capo to Don with the precision of a butcher. Rivals who had once mocked him for his ambition vanished overnight, their wives left to weep and their children forced into the service of the very man who had slaughtered their blood. Those who bent the knee were rewarded. Those who hesitated were erased. He was not a man of patience, but of violence sharpened into strategy. In his youth, he had been known as Il Toro—the bull—unstoppable once he charged. By the time Adrian came into the world, Salvatore had already crowned himself Milan's king of shadows.
Adrian's mother, Isabella, had been there in those early years. She was not born into that life; she had been swept into it, the quiet beauty who softened the hard edges of a man who knew only cruelty. For a time, she was the beating heart of the household, the anchor that tethered Adrian's childhood to something resembling warmth. But that illusion shattered when Adrian was eight. One day, without explanation, without warning, Salvatore cast them both aside. Isabella and her son were driven out of the estate as if they were ghosts haunting a house that no longer wanted them. Adrian had begged to stay, confused and terrified, but the iron gates had closed behind him, and his father's men had made sure he never returned.
It was not long after their exile that Salvatore installed another woman in Isabella's place. From her came Luca, Matteo, and Enzo—the brothers who would grow to embody the Don's twisted vision of succession. Where Adrian had been banished and forgotten, they were raised in the lap of violence, sharpened into blades his father could wield.
Luca, the eldest of the three, wore brutality like a badge. Thickset and merciless, he was his father's fist, breaking men in alleys and leaving their bodies in the gutter as reminders of what happened to those who hesitated. He ruled the streets with fists and knives, earning his reputation long before he was twenty. Matteo, quieter, more calculating, was the mind. He handled the books, the accounts, the maze of shell companies and false charities that laundered the family's billions. Where Luca left scars, Matteo left contracts—signed under duress, sealed with silence. Enzo, the youngest, was reckless, drunk on the untouchable status of being the Don's favored son. Spoiled, arrogant, quick to insult and quicker to draw a blade, he was a wildfire that burned without thought, leaving ashes his brothers cleaned up in his wake.
Together they became the recognized heirs, the "princes" of the DeLuca dynasty. And over them, like a dark sun, loomed Salvatore himself. The Don did not need to shout to command loyalty. His presence alone was enough to silence a room. A tilt of his head could decide life or death. He rarely raised his own hand anymore; his sons did that for him. But the menace in his eyes, the cold patience with which he studied those around him, made it clear that every drop of blood spilled was still his will, whether or not he pulled the trigger.
Adrian remembered those eyes. He remembered them from nights when the family gathered around the dining table beneath the glittering chandeliers, the smell of roasted meat thick in the air. There was no warmth at those dinners, no laughter, no music. Only silence, enforced by fear. Silverware clinked, wine glasses trembled in hands too afraid to spill, and Isabella kept her gaze lowered, her hands steady only because she willed them to be. A single misplaced word could bring Salvatore's temper, and when it came, it came like a storm.
But it was in the courtyard, not the dining hall, that Adrian had learned the truth of his family. He had been eight—the year his life was torn apart. A merchant had failed to pay his dues. Salvatore had gathered the family to watch the consequence. The man was dragged in, gagged and weeping, and without hesitation the Don pressed a pistol into Luca's small hands. Luca had been perhaps twelve then, eager to prove himself, his young face hard with forced courage.
"This is loyalty," Salvatore had said, his voice smooth as velvet. "This is obedience. This is the price of disrespect."
The shot had echoed, a thunderclap that startled the pigeons into flight. Adrian had flinched as blood sprayed across the marble fountain. He remembered his mother's hand clutching his shoulder, trembling as she pulled him away, shielding his eyes though it was far too late. That stain, that dark splatter on white stone, had never left his memory. It was the moment he understood what kind of world his father ruled—and what kind of man he would become if he stayed.
That was the language of the DeLucas. Not love, not loyalty, not trust. Only fear. And it was fear that had built their empire. Every nightclub that flourished in Milan paid their tithe. Every dockworker who unloaded a crate with their insignia knew to look the other way. Politicians dined in their halls, police took their envelopes of cash, and judges signed their orders without protest. Resistance was a death sentence. To defy the DeLucas was to invite erasure—not just of yourself, but of your family, your neighbors, your entire bloodline. They were not content with silence; they demanded obliteration.
Now, years later, Adrian sat among his team with the evidence laid bare before him. Ledgers, accounts, testimonies—all pointing to the same truth: the DeLuca empire was not just criminal. It was parasitic. It fed on Milan, drained it of wealth, of freedom, of hope. Marco, leaning against the wall, broke the silence with a bitter laugh.
"Do you know what they call your family in Naples?" he said. "La Bestia. The Beast. People whisper it like a prayer they don't believe in. Cross them, and you vanish. Entire streets have been silenced because one man spoke too loudly."
Adrian's jaw tightened. "They're not legends," he said. "They're monsters. And I am their blood."
The words hung heavy in the air. Elena's eyes lingered on him, not with accusation, but with something close to fear. She saw in him the same fire that had burned in Salvatore, and though Adrian had fought his entire life to escape it, he knew he could never erase it. The DeLuca blood was a chain, binding him to a legacy of violence whether he embraced it or not.
But there was one difference. Adrian had been cast out. He had been forgotten. His brothers grew fat on fear, basked in the protection of the Don, while he was left to rot in the shadows. That rejection had broken him, but it had also remade him. He was not his father. He was not Luca's brute strength, Matteo's cunning, or Enzo's recklessness. He was something else. Something sharper. Something his father could never control.
He closed the ledger with steady hands, his voice calm but cold. "They've ruled Milan with blood for too long. Now it's time they drown in it."
Outside, the city pulsed with its usual rhythm—sirens in the distance, muffled laughter spilling from taverns, the hum of a restless night—but for Adrian, it was all drowned out by the memory of that courtyard, by the crack of the pistol in his brother's hands, by the stain that had never left the marble. The DeLuca dynasty was feared because it never forgave, never forgot. But Adrian had not forgotten either. And this time, the ledger would not be written in numbers. It would be written in blood.