Alessia’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her eyes flicking between the two figures who stood beside her hospital bed.
Seraphina’s gaze burned with authority, a strange mixture of sisterly warmth and venomous secrecy.
Lorenzo, quiet and brooding, lingered behind her like a shadow. A man with a face so familiar yet wrapped in a fog Alessia couldn’t pierce.
Her voice ca out broken, trembling. "Who... who are you?"
Seraphina stepped forward, her smile soft yet calculated. "I am Seraphina. Your elder sister. Blood of your blood. And Lorenzo..." she turned with a theatrical sweep of her hand, "is the man who stood by you when the world betrayed you.
He is your lover, the one who has always protected you."
Alessia’s lips parted, confusion swirling. Her temples throbbed as if nails were being driven inside. "Lover?" she repeated, her voice laced with disbelief. "But... my heart feels..... " She stopped, unsure. A hollow ache clawed at her chest, as though a na she couldn’t recall lived there, haunting her.
"Your wicked ex ca to kill you, Alessia," Seraphina cut in sharply, her tone sliding like poison into Alessia’s ears. "Not only that... he kidnapped you, played with your trust, and left you half dead."
Alessia blinked, her lashes wet with unshed tears. "My... ex?" Her throat tightened. "Who was he?"
Seraphina’s lips curled, her eyes gleaming with a sinister satisfaction. "Luca. Luca Morano. A ruthless, cold devil who bathed in blood and called it love.
He fooled you, Alessia. He broke you. He doesn’t deserve your mory, not your tears, not your heart."
The na... "Luca" stabbed through Alessia’s chest like lightning.
She gripped the blanket, a chill racing down her spine.
For a fleeting second, a mory flickered strong arms wrapping around her, a voice whispering her na like a vow.
Her pulse surged, her chest ached. Luca... who are you to ?
Before she could reach for that fragile thread, her head split with searing pain.
She gasped, clutching her temples. The room spun, Seraphina’s voice echoing, twisting, choking.
"Stop... please..." Alessia’s cry broke as her knees buckled.
Her fragile body collapsed back into the bed.
The monitor beeped rapidly, the sound of her fragile heart straining under the weight of confusion.
A nurse rushed in, her expression grave. "Enough... Do you want her to lose everything?" She turned sharply to Seraphina and Lorenzo.
"Her mind is fragile. She cannot be forced into rembering. If you keep pressing her, she may never co back, she may lose it all forever. Let her heal, let her mory return naturally."
Seraphina lowered her head, masking her triumph with an obedient smile. "Of course. We only wanted to help her."
The nurse frowned, suspicion lingering, then adjusted Alessia’s IV before leaving.
The mont the door shut, Seraphina’s smile stretched wider, her eyes glinting like a viper ready to strike.
She reached out, brushing a strand of hair from Alessia’s damp forehead. "Rest, my sweet sister. Forget the devil who cursed you. When you wake, you’ll only see the ones who truly love you."
Lorenzo shifted uneasily, his hands clenched into fists. For the first ti, his eyes softened as they landed on Alessia. There was sothing buried there. Regret, guilt, or perhaps a truth he dared not voice.
Alessia stirred faintly, her lips whispering in her unconsciousness. "Luca..."
The na slipped out like a prayer, fragile yet fierce.
Seraphina’s jaw tightened, rage flashing in her eyes. She leaned close, whispering so softly even Lorenzo barely caught it. "I’ll erase him from you, Alessia. Even if I have to tear your soul apart."
The room grew still. Alessia lay unconscious, caught between the war of mories she couldn’t yet claim. One heart cried out for her devil, while another hand sought to chain her to lies.
And Seraphina? She only smiled, playing the role of savior while sharpening her knife in the shadows.
*****
The air inside the Morano mansion was heavy, weighed down with silence that whispered of secrets and the shadows of choices past.
For days, Luca had walked the halls like a storm in human form, each step echoing with the fury of a man who had lost not only his wife, but perhaps even his sanity.
Alessia was still missing.
Every hour without her was like a knife pressed deeper into his chest.
His n searched tirelessly, yet the streets offered nothing but silence.
Then, fate arrived in the most unexpected form.
A boy, no older than fifteen, stood at the iron gates of the Morano estate. His clothes were plain, his shoes dusty from travel, but it wasn’t his appearance that stunned the guards.
it was the sharpness of his jaw, the piercing darkness of his eyes, and the cold authority in his voice that mirrored only one man.
"I need to see Luca Morano," he said, his voice steady despite the steel-barred gate before him.
When the guards hesitated, his next words froze them.
"Tell him... Gina sent . She was my mother. She’s gone now. But she told before she died.... "He is my father."
The words carried across the gates like the crack of thunder.
When Luca finally erged, drawn by the commotion, he stopped in his tracks. His breath caught, his body stiffened. For a mont, he felt like he was staring into a mirror of his own youth.
The boy’s face bore Gina’s softness, but his eyes, his stare, his commanding presence, those were Luca’s.
"Your mother..." Luca’s voice broke, hoarse and unsteady, "was Gina?"
The boy nodded. His hands trembled, though he fought to stand tall. "She said you’d know. She said you loved her once and you were her first love at a very early age of her life. She never told you she was pregnant, but she made promise, before she died, that I would co to you. That I would find my father."
Luca’s chest constricted, Gina.
His first lover. A girl who had carried pieces of his heart in a ti before he beca the devil everyone feared. He rembered the softness of her laughter, the warmth in her eyes. He had lost her to silence long ago, never knowing why she disappeared. And now.... now she had left him sothing far greater than mories.
"I need an official result before I will believe you are mine..." Luca said with Authority, his hand lifting but falling halfway, too stunned to touch the boy. "Are you really ... mine."
The boy’s eye narrowed. "My na is George Matteo, son of Gina. And now... son of Luca Morano."
The revelation shook the household. Whispers spread among the city.
A Morano heir, born of secrecy, surfacing in the midst of chaos. So saw it as a sign of fate. Others, a dangerous distraction when Alessia’s disappearance remained unsolved.
But Luca, his heart warred with itself.
He had been betrayed, broken, and haunted by blood and loss. Now, to find out he had a son hidden from him for fifteen years. It was almost too much to grasp.
Yet even in that mont of discovery, duty gnawed at him. Alessia was still missing.
*******
Across the estate, Daisy moved like a shadow of her forr self.
Since Alessia’s disappearance, she hadn’t slept properly, her eyes red from tears and worry. Luca’s pain was hers too. though she bore it differently. She clung to hope, to instinct, to scraps of information that might lead to her friend.
And it was instinct that led her to Roo.....
She t with him near the outer grounds, the soldier leaning against a wall, his eyes darting as though thoughts plagued him.
Daisy, never one to hesitate, demanded answers.
"Roo. You’ve been restless for days. What is it you’re not saying?"
Roo hesitated, then exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face. "Because I think... I think my madam knows sothing."
Daisy’s brows furrowed. "Madam? You an Seraphina?"
He nodded, "I caught her making calls late at night. Secretive calls and always stepping outside, always lowering her voice when I got close.
She’s careful, but not careful enough. Sothing in says she’s hiding knowledge about Alessia. Maybe even where she is."
The words sent a jolt through Daisy. She had always distrusted Seraphina, her poisonous beauty masking a heart black as tar.
But to hear Ro, one of Luca’s trusted n speak it aloud gave her suspicions weight.
"If that’s true," Daisy whispered, fire flaring in her eyes, "then we follow her, Every step, Every call. She won’t hide from us."
Roo gave a short nod. "Agreed. But we must be careful. If she senses we’re onto her, she’ll vanish or worse, we will expose her."
And so, an alliance ford in silence.
Daisy and Roo prepared to shadow Seraphina , to unearth the truth buried beneath her carefully painted smiles.
****
Luca gathered his strength. The boy sat in the study, the shadow of a lost childhood clinging to him, but Luca had no ti to process fatherhood fully.
His voice carried like a thunderclap when he addressed his n.
"Listen to , Alessia is still out there. Every day she breathes in danger. Every second we waste is a second closer to losing her forever. So hear this well.... "
He strode to the balcony overlooking the city, the press and public already swarming with questions about his silence.
He stood tall, unyielding, his dark gaze cutting across the crowd like a blade.
"I will say this once. The offer still stands. The bounty remains open.
Ten million dollars cash for whoever brings Alessia’s location,
every rat in this city will crawl from their holes for that kind of prize.
If anyone..... anyone, knows where she is, speak. Deliver her to . And be rewarded beyond asure."
The declaration spread like wildfire. Phones rang across the city. Informants, rcenaries, even rival families, all who slled blood and wealth were stirred into motion.
The hunt for Alessia was no longer a whisper in the shadows, it was a war cry heard across the underworld.
******
Far away from the Morano world, dawn spread its pale fingers across the horizon.
Princess Elowen stumbled through the misty forest, her breaths coming in ragged gasps.
Her gown was torn at the hem, streaked with mud and blood from thorns that clawed her skin. Yet she did not stop.
Run, Elowen.. Donato needs you alive.
She had been running since midnight, fleeing the whispers of betrayal that clung to Enzo, the traitor lurking at Donato’s side. Her steps slowed only when exhaustion clawed at her legs. At last, when the moon dipped low and the first rays of morning glimred, she sank beneath a towering tree.
Her body trembled with fatigue, but just as she closed her eyes, sothing glimred at the base of the trunk. A faint light, soft yet commanding.
Elowen’s heart skipped. Slowly, she crawled toward it.
The glow grew sharper, illuminating the mist like a hidden star. She brushed away the damp leaves, her fingers trembling.
And then she saw it.
A book Black as midnight, yet pulsing with a faint, eerie light. Its surface shimred like it had been touched by the cosmos themselves.
Etched into the cover was an ancient sigil, one she had seen only once before, when her father placed the book into Donato’s hands.
"The Black Book..." Elowen whispered, awe and dread lacing her voice.
She hesitated, her hand hovering above it.
she scread through her min, a curse for the soul that dares read its pages, a coin that must be paid in blood.
But destiny did not wait.
With a deep breath, she wiped the dirt from its surface, her reflection glimring faintly across the cover. As her fingers closed around it, the air grew heavier, the forest trembling like it recognized the book’s awakening.
"Yes," she breathed, clutching it tightly to her chest. "It is indeed the black book... the one my father gave to Donato."
But as she stood, a shadow moved among the tree, Watching and Waiting.
The black book had found its way back into her hands but at what price?....
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