Chapter Five —
The rival faction struck at Luca's resources — trucks burned, shipments redirected, men taken. Luca answered in quiet, surgical moves that left rival chieftains exposed to the cold.
Each act of retaliation closed a wound and opened a new one.
Violence made clarity of purpose; it also made rubble of normalcy.
Elara found herself in the crosshairs, not by design but by association. She was tailed on the way to work.
A message slipped under her door one morning: a photograph of Luca with another woman, staged deliberately.
"He will not keep you safe," the note read.
Elara's heart crashed like a wave into a cliff. She sought Luca and found him at the club, the place he had used to conduct business and conduct himself. He stood in the corridor, face lit by a single bulb. He looked like he had aged twenty years in twenty minutes.
"They're trying to make you doubt me," he said when she confronted him. "They use every weapon."
"Do you love her?" Elara asked.
He looked bewildered. "What? No. It's a setup.
They—"
"You're lying," she said flatly.
Hurt cut into disbelief.
"Luca, if you wanted me safe you would be honest. If you wanted my trust you'd earn it."
He reached for her, pleading. "I am trying. For you."
"Then prove it," she said. "Not with blood, Luca. With truth."
At that moment he had choices that belonged to every man who had built a life out of circling cages: escalate, capitulate, or tell the truth and accept whatever came after. Luca chose the last.
He called a meeting with the heads of his family and disclosed the ledger, authenticated it, and revealed the rival's manipulation. He gave evidence, names, transactions. He forced transparency into a place that thrived on omission. The decision cost him.
Men were damned inside his organization. Alliances ruptured. He lost a valuable lieutenant; he lost an edge he had wielded for years.
But when it was done, he came for Elara.
"I told them the truth," he said.
"Because you deserved that first."
Elara saw the conflict in his eyes. For all that he'd done, for all the killing and the deals, he chose to be honest because she had demanded it. Truth, when chosen, is a kind of courage.
End of chapter four(4)
Author ....Only1praise