Page 88 of Crown of Blood

"Sir," Matteo's voice is tight with controlled urgency. "There's been a breach at the family crypt."

"For fucks sake," I freeze, hand on the car door. "What kind of breach?"

"Desecration, sir." Matteo's breath hitches slightly. "Your mother's tomb. They... opened it. Violated it."

The world narrows to a pinpoint, rage crystallizing into something cold and deadly. Blood roars in my ears as I process his words. My mother's grave. Desecrated. Defiled.

"When?" The single word scrapes from my throat.

"Within the hour. Guards found it during routine patrol."

My gaze snaps to the sedan across the street, where a man now stands beside the open door, watching us with calculated interest. Could be one of Dante's crew, judging by the tattoo visible on his neck.

"Fuck," I breathe through my frustration.

This is a distraction. This entire situation—a carefully orchestrated distraction to pull me away from the estate while they committed the ultimate sacrilege.

They waited until Bianca or I moved. Just like they did with the Volkovs meeting and the files disappeared.

"Seal the crypt," I order, sliding into the driver's seat. "Full lockdown. No one enters or leaves the estate without my direct authorization."

As I end the call, Bianca watches me with growing concern. "Luca? What's happened?"

I start the car, the engine roaring to life with satisfying violence. The Aston Martin launches forward, tires screaming against asphalt as I accelerate away from the facility.

From the corner of my eye, I see Bianca grip the dashboard, her earlier defiance momentarily forgotten in the face of my evident rage.

"When we return to the estate," I tell her, voice dropping to that dangerous register that makes her shiver, "you will go to our quarters. You will stay there until I say otherwise. No wandering. No questions. No defiance."

She opens her mouth to argue, then closes it, something in my expression warning her that this is not the moment to push.

"And then?" she asks finally, her voice smaller than I've ever heard it.

I meet her gaze for a brief moment before returning my attention to the road, my knuckles white against the steering wheel, a muscle jumping in my jaw.

"Then I find who did this," I promise, the words coated in ice and blood, "and I make them wish they'd never touched what belongs to me."

Chapter Twenty-One

Bianca

It’sbeenaweeksince Elena Ravelli's desecrated tomb was discovered. Since Luca's already questionable humanity dissolved into something I barely recognize.

The mansion creaks around me, swallowing my footsteps as I wander its shadowed corridors like a ghost. I've hardly seen my husband in a week. He appears only at dawn, crawling into our bed with blood crusted beneath his fingernails, his eyes vacant and cold.

Sometimes he takes me with brutal, beautiful thrusts that leave me sore inn all the best ways. Other times, he simply stares at the ceiling until exhaustion claims him.

He doesn't speak. Doesn't explain. And bit by bit, I've learned not to ask.

Teresa warns me with her eyes when I approach certain wings of the mansion.Not now. Not while he's like this.The staff move through the halls with their gazes fixed on the floor. Even Matteo, normally composed and stoic, shows strain in the tightness around his mouth.

Something has broken in this house—something beyond the violation of a dead woman's rest.

I've heard whispers. Dante's men are disappearing from the mansion one by one. Bodies found in the Thames with their fingernails removed. Others simply vanishing, their families evacuating London overnight.

The Ravelli name has always carried fear.

Now, with Vito's condition deteriorating further with each day the suns warmth kisses these cold grounds, it carries also terror.

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