A young woman named Giuliana Torrino was found dead in her home, an apparent overdose.
The police ruled it a suicide, but there were whispers of foul play. She was recently married to Lorenzo.
My heart starts racing.
I click through to related articles, piecing together the story.
Giuliana had been dating someone her family disapproved of before her marriage.
There were rumors of a pregnancy, and not by Lorenzo.
Then suddenly she was dead, and the investigation was closed within days.
I dig deeper, following the trail of breadcrumbs.
It takes me three more hours and a dozen different databases, but finally I find it.
A sealed police report that someone leaked years later.
Witness statements that were never followed up on.
And a name that makes my blood run cold.
Marco Torrino. Salvatore’s son and Giuliana’s brother.
Marco and Lorenzo had been seen arguing with Giuliana the night she died.
I sit back in my chair, my mind racing.
This is it.
This is the leverage I need.
If Marco and Lorenzo killed Giuliana, then the Moretti’s don’t owe a blood debt for Lorenzo’s death.
His death was half the debt paid for Salvatore’s daughter’s murder.
But revealing this information could make everything worse. It could reignite a blood feud that’s been simmering for decades. It could put us in even more danger.
I need to think this through carefully.
Over the next three days, I gather more evidence.
Photos, witness statements, financial records showing payments made to silence potential witnesses.
By the time the day of the fight arrives, I have a folder thick with proof that Marco Torrino and Lorenzo Moretti murdered Giuliana Torrino and covered it up.
The question is whether to use it.
Mikhail spends those three days training with am intensity that frightens me.
He works with a guard who had sparred with Marco the most, knowing his fighting style more intimately than any other.
He studies videos of Marco’s previous fights, looking for weaknesses.
He pushes his body to the limit and beyond, coming to bed each night covered in bruises and too exhausted to do more than hold me.
On the morning of the fight, I wake to find him already dressed, staring out the window at the gray sky.
