The screen flickers, a series of red bars turning green one by one. It’s a silent victory. No alarms, no sirens, just the quietdisappearance of a digital shield that has protected a monster for decades.
“Node one is down,” I whisper. My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard it hurts. “He’s not untouchable anymore.”
Alessio’s hand drops to my shoulder, his grip almost painful in its intensity. “Not yet. We finish the map. I want every bolt-hole, every shell company, every name on his payroll before we put him down.”
I nod, shifting my focus to the secondary server. Now that the shield is down, the internal files are lying bare. It’s a treasure trove of filth. Invoices for hits, payoffs to city officials, the logistics of a smuggling empire that has bled this city dry. But as I dig deeper, something starts to feel wrong. The architecture of the system—the way the files are nested—it’s familiar.
It’s not just a generic security setup. It has a signature. A way of routing data through a specific series of ghost terminals that I’ve seen before.
"Wait," I say, my brow furrowing. I pull up the last three months of maintenance logs. "This isn't right."
Alessio leans in, his face inches from mine. "What?"
“The dead-man's switch,” I say, my voice trailing off as I scan the timestamps. “Someone patched it. Not ten years ago. Not five. Three weeks ago—right when Vane started building his way out.”
The silence that follows is deafening. Three weeks ago, Vane still thought his death certificate was enough cover. Three weeks ago, someone updated his lock from inside the Costa house.
"Someone maintained the lock," Alessio says, his voice dropping to a register that makes the hair on my arms stand up.It’s the voice of a predator who just realized the prey is inside the cave with him. "Someone with administrative access."
"It’s more than that," I say, my hands starting to shake. I point to the screen, to a specific string of code that acts as a digital fingerprint. "This specific encryption method... it’s old-school. It’s elegant, but it’s proprietary. I’ve only seen it in one other place."
"Where?"
I look up at him, and the look in his eyes scares me more than Vane ever could. It’s a look of total, devastating realization.
“It matches the library terminal,” I say softly. “Turi’s terminal.”
Alessio doesn't move. He doesn't blink. He just stands there, a statue of rage and grief. The man who raised him. The man who sat at the head of the table and told us stories about the old days while we ate pasta and drank wine. The man who held me while I cried for my brother.
“He didn't just sell the routes twenty years ago,” I whisper, the truth tasting like ash in my mouth. “He kept one hand on the lock afterward. Maybe to control the damage. Maybe to hide the first sin. He’s part of why Vane’s still breathing.”
The sound that comes out of Alessio isn't a word. It’s a low, guttural snarl of pure, unadulterated pain. He turns and slams his fist into the stone wall of the vault. The impact sends dust from an old seam over his scarred knuckles. He doesn't even flinch. He just leans his forehead against the cold stone, his shoulders shaking with the effort of not screaming.
I stand up, my chair screeching against the floor. I want to go to him, but I’m afraid. This is the "vault" of the Costa family—the secrets that were never supposed to be told. And now the biggest one is staring us in the face.
"Alessio," I say, my voice trembling.
He turns around, and for the first time since I met him, he looks old. The Costa silver at his temples catches the blue light, and the lines around his eyes look deeper. He looks like a man who has just watched his entire world burn to the ground.
"He was the one," Alessio says, his voice hollow. "All those years. I looked for a traitor in the ranks. I looked at the soldiers, the cousins, the outsiders. I never looked at the man who bought me my first stethoscope. The man who stood beside me the first time my hands shook over a wound.”
“He loved your mother,” I remind him, my heart breaking for the twenty-year-old he used to be, the one who never got to put the grief down. "Maybe he thought he was protecting you. Maybe he thought if he controlled the secrets, he could keep the war from coming back to your doorstep."
“He sold the routes for a gambling debt, Amara,” Alessio says, his voice regaining its edge, turning into a blade. “My father paid first. My mother paid later.” “He opened the door, and the Bellantis kept walking through it for years. And then he spent twenty years acting like our savior while he managed the ledger of our destruction. He didn't protect us. He managed us."
He strides toward the door, his movements jerky, violent.
"Where are you going?" I ask, catching his arm. His muscles are like iron cables under his skin.
"To end it," he says.
"No," I say, digging my heels in. "Alessio, listen to me. If you go out there now and kill him, the family breaks. Dominic will lose his mind. The brothers will turn on each other. That’s exactly what Vane wants. He wants the Costas to implode from the inside."
He stops, his chest heaving. He looks down at my hand on his arm, then up at my face. The possessiveness is there, but it’s twisted with a desperate need for something to hold onto.
"He’s a traitor," Alessio spits.
“He’s the final access point,” I counter, using the logic of the machine because it’s the only thing that might reach him. "He’s the final link. We don't kill him yet. we use him. He knows where Vane is. He knows the final codes. If we tip our hand now, Vane disappears again, and your father’s murder and your mother’s death stay unavenged. My brother’s death stays unavenged.”
