"You’ve got ninety seconds to explain why you’re sitting in my chair," I growl.
"Of course," he says, crossing one leg over the other. "I came to offer a proposal. Not for a hit. Not yet. For something… bigger. The game you're playing? I’ve seen it before. But the way you're building it?" His eyes glint. "That’s new. That’s worthy."
He flicks his hand toward the server wall.
"I thought I’d see it for myself before I made my offer."
I still don’t lower the gun. But I’m listening now.
Because how the hell did this ghost get in here? And more importantly, what kind of war is coming that Ledyanoy Prizrak just walked into my kingdom uninvited… while smiling?
"Let's start with what you built,Umbra Arcana," he nods appreciatively, "word of your company slips through the criminal underworld like smoke—heard, but rarely confirmed."
He pauses; he's probably waiting for me to appear impressed by his homework. Even though I am, I'd rather shoot myself than let him see it. I don’t know how he came by his knowledge. I haven’t even made itpublicyet. Omertà Infernale has evolved beyond its original mission of hunting down Omertà code traitors. No matter what people try to hide, I dig out the truth. I’d recently decided to change the name from Omertà Infernale to Umbra Arcana—the Hidden Truth.
As if reading my mind, he continued. “Omertà Infernale. A violent whisper meant to punish those who broke the Omertà code. And it was exactly what the name promised: a silent retribution service. Cleaning up the messes nobody else could. Quietly. Permanently." He tilts his head, "I like that version better."
I shrug, wait him out.
He doesn’t warm up to it. He doesn’t try to sell it. Igor just looks at me like a man who’s been carrying a thing too long and decides it’s time to put it down.
“Leonardo Zanello is your father,” he states flatly, as if he’s announcing the time.
For a second, the whirring of the servers seems to stop. My brain stumbles over the name the way a cracked engine stalls over a hill.Leonardo Zanello. The name lands like a hand across my face.
“You’re joking,” I say, because saying anything else would be an admission that the sentence could be true.
He tilts his head, allowing the faintest smile to curve his lips, but there is no warmth to it, just calculation. “Would I drive all the way up here, break into your house, just to sit on your chair and tell you a story for the hell of it?”
“Why would you even—” My voice narrows. “Why should I believe you? I don’t even know you.”
Igor’s face is unreadable for a beat. Then, without drama, he reaches into his coat and slides a small glass vial across the table. It catches the light and looksabsurdly ordinary—no cardboard, no wrapping—just a tiny thing with a dark red liquid inside of it.
“I'm your uncle. We're family,” he says. “Have it tested." He points at the vial of blood. "Take it to anyone who knows how to read a lab report. It’ll tell you what you want to know.” He taps the vial with one knuckle, not possessive, not threatening, just practical.
My hand edges toward it and then pulls back. “You can’t just give me a thing and expect me to?—”
He produces a pair of small, surgical tweezers from his pocket like a conjurer with a coin. “I can hand you the tools,” he says. “If you want hair, I can give you chest hair—funny, I know—but this,” he nods at the vial, “is blood. It’s fresh. It’s mine. If you want drama, take the tweezers and pull my hair. If you want to waste time, go find Ed and make a scene. Your call.”
He rests the tweezers on the table between us, casual as folding a napkin. The offer is obscene: instruments for proof laid on my desk like a pact.
I stare at the vial as if it might explode, and the room tilts. Everything I thought I didn't know about my life rearranges on its axis. If Leonardo Zanello is my father, then?—
The word king flashes across my skull. Leonardo Zanello was the Don of the La Famiglia before he died in a tragic car accident, and Edoardo took over. Too young. The inked queen on my ribs burns, reminding me of Sophia. Of my dream. Of my sense that I haven't found mydestiny. The notion that I was born for something bigger isn’t romanticism anymore; it’s a blood vial with a label.
“Why you?” I ask finally, because anger is easier to spit than awe. “Why would you bring me this? Why tell me now?”
He leans forward, palms flat. “Because people you don’t trust are talking about you. Because names move, and someone wanted to see what you’d do when you learned the truth. Because I have reasons for doing this that involve a chessboard and someone who wants a certain piece moved.” He gives a short shrug. “And because I’m family. I’m your uncle. If you don’t want to believe that, have the vial tested. It will tell you the same thing.”
“Uncle.” The syllable tastes foreign and heavy. Images cascade, dinner tables I never sat at, a man who might have sat in a chair I was supposed to own, a half-brother whose hands might be on the very things I want. Edoardo. The name is a new weight in my mouth; it could be alliance or executioner. Either way, the ledger of my life redraws itself.
Igor watches the change in me the way a man watches a watch hand move. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t beg me to accept it. He simply offers the means to prove it or deny it. The sway of his presence is quiet but absolute.
“Take it,” he says, nodding at the vial, “or don’t. Have it run. Get Ed’s blood if you need theatre. Pull his brush for a hair. I’ll help if you want. If you don’t, burn it. Your life either way doesn’t get smaller.”
My fingers close around the vial. It’s cool, heavier than I expected. I feel ridiculous and enormous at once. I’m looking at a piece of my life I never knew I had.
He taps the edge of the tweezers with a fingertip and then pockets them. “One more thing,” he says, standing. “If you accept it, don’t do anything stupid alone. Not yet. Not until you understand the game.” He smooths his coat and moves toward the door, then pauses and looks back. “If you want the slow certainty, get it tested. If you want the shortcut—if you want me to run a trace on Ed for you—I can get you what you need quietly.”
