Chapter 15
Next day, Michael handed me a sealed document stamped with the Montenegro crest. He looked me in the eye, quiet but solid.
“He’s registered under our blood now,” he said. “Eli Villacruz Montenegro. It’s official.”
I took the papers with both hands and ran my fingers along his name. My son’s name. Not erased. Not forgotten. I stared at the ink until it blurred.
Then I whispered, “I want him brought here.”
Michael raised a brow. “You mean…?”
“I want his body exhumed from the Salvacion grave,” I said. “I want him buried here, under our land. Where no one can defile his name. He belongs to this family now, not to the monsters who let him die.”
Niko stepped beside me and tapped my shoulder, his voice low and steady. “Whatever you want, hermana. Say the word and we’ll do it. If you want Niccolo’s head, I’ll hand it to you in a velvet
box.”
I shook my head slowly. “No. That’s too easy. I want him to die slowly. I want his regrets to rot his mind from the inside out. Let him feel every inch of what he threw away.”
Elle came running into the room just then, holding a sunflower she picked from the courtyard. She climbed on my lap and placed it beside Eli’s photo.
“He can see it, Mama. Right?”
“Yes, baby,” I whispered. “He sees everything now.”
After Elle was tucked in, I met with Michael and Niko in the situation room. We laid out our next move. The Salvacion empire wouldn’t fall with bullets. It would fall with signatures and servers. “We’re going to dismantle them from the inside,” I said. “Start with the shipping empire. Ports, arms routes, laundering hubs. I want their arteries cut.”
Michael nodded and pulled up files. “I have dossiers prepared. Proof of human trafficking routes, laundering through shell companies, offshore bribery trails. We can leak this to every major anti–mafia task force in the EU and Southeast Asia. It won’t just collapse their holdings. It’ll ruin their alliances.”
Niko leaned forward. “Or we use it as bait. Leak one piece and let them panic. Panic makes rats show themselves.”
‘Then light the match,” I told them.
That night, I sat alone in the server room, watching live reroutes of Salvacion’s shipments. We intercepted three massive arms shipments heading to Asia under Niccolo’s front companies. I redirected two into Montenegro control. The third, I had sent back to his private estate.
Inside the crate, I placed Eli’s old toy soldier. One he never went to sleep without. Alongside it, I wrote a note in my handwriting.
Your sins float now!
He Strapped Bombs to Our Balslee
12:53 pm
When it was done, I walked to the bathroom mirror and looked at myself. My hands weren‘ shaking anymore. My lips weren’t trembling. I didn’t cry.
I touched my cheek, once bruised. Now healed. Hardened.
“I am the daughter of Don Domino Montenegro,” I said to my reflection. “And I will bury ever name that tried to bury mine.”
NICCOLO’S POV
That night while drinking alcohol in my private office, one of the guards knocked and said I had a special delivery. I told him to leave it on the damn table and get out. I didn’t like interruption: when I drank, and I especially didn’t like surprises. But the moment I saw the crate with Geneva‘: handwriting on the label, everything in me stopped.
I kicked the lid off, and there it was–Eli’s little soldier toy. The same one he used to drag around The same one Geneva begged me not to throw away when I lost my temper that one night. Anc there was a note taped under it.
Your sins float now.
I froze. I didn’t breathe for a good minute. Then my hands started to shake, and I fucking lost it.
I flipped the entire table. Glass, bottles, everything. I threw the crate against the wall and screamed her name like a curse.
“Geneva! Where the fuck are you?!”
I wasn’t sleeping anymore. Every damn corner of the house reminded me of her. The scent of her soap in the hallway. The photo I forgot to take down in the guest room. Eli’s damn voice startec echoing in my head at night.
I tried to convince myself it was just guilt. Or whiskey. Or both.
But I couldn’t ignore the sound of a child’s laugh outside the study door. Or the fact I kept seeing that toy soldier in places I didn’t leave it.
I dug out the old flash drive. Pulled up the CCTV from the day of the explosion. The one I forced myself to never watch.
There she was. Geneva.
Running barefoot. Screaming. Holding Eli like her lungs were burning. Elle behind her, tripping on her dress. I dropped the glass in my hand. My face felt cold. I hated that feeling.
Margot barged in just then, crying and holding her stomach.
‘I think I’m bleeding again,” she said.
stared at her, dead silent.
That was the third time this year.
‘Again?” I muttered. “You always bleed when it’s convenient.”
‘Don’t say that!” she sobbed. “You’re hurting me. Stress causes miscarriage. And you’re always angry.”
I stood up, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her toward the wall. I slammed her against it- not hard enough to break bones but enough to make her shut the hell un
12:53 pm P Ppp.
༠.༦་
I stood up, grabbed her by the arm, and dragged her toward the wall. I slammed her against it- not hard enough to break bones, but enough to make her shut the hell up.
“You give me an heir. Alive. Breathing. Crying. Or you shut the fuck up,” I growled in her face. “Three miscarriages in a year. Or maybe you were never pregnant to begin with.”
“Nic…” she gasped, trying to fake more tears. I let go. She collapsed to the floor, still sobbing. “You’re not her,” I said. “You never will be.”
Then I walked out. Drove straight to the bar.
Poured drink after drink until I couldn’t see straight.
But Geneva’s name still burned at the back of my tongue like venom I couldn’t spit out.
