QUEEN OF THE UNDERWORLD

Matteo was gone.

Valentina stood frozen, eyes locked on the symbol drawn in blood across the wall—a vulture, wings outstretched. Crude. Intentional. A calling card.

Her breath hitched, but she didn't allow panic. No. Panic would get her killed. And Matteo.

Bryan stepped beside her, scanning the shattered window. "Glass pushed inward. They came from the outside."

Valentina turned on her heel. "Where are the cameras?"

Bryan moved fast. A wall panel opened. Monitors flickered to life—security feeds looping over and over.

"They've been wiped," he muttered.

Valentina stared at the static-filled screens.

"They wanted me to know. But not how."

Bryan's jaw tightened. "They're sending a message."

She nodded once. "And I'm ready to send one back."

⸻

The underworld moved quickly when blood was involved.

Valentina stood before the council that night—men and women cloaked in wealth, ambition, and ancient grudges. The secret keepers. The seat-holders. The ones who believed she was a girl playing dress-up in her father's empire.

"Someone has abducted one of my own," she said coldly. "From my stronghold."

"Your stronghold isn't as impenetrable as you'd like to believe," one of the older men replied—Adil Marchetti. Greying. Thin-lipped. Loyal to no one but coin.

"Then perhaps we've grown too comfortable," she said, eyes sweeping the room like knives. "I intend to remind the vultures why we buried them in the first place."

Murmurs.

"You speak of vultures. Yet we have seen none in years," another said. "How do we know this isn't your mess to clean in silence?"

Valentina slid the blood-stained photo across the polished table.

The vulture.

Drawn in human blood.

Silence dropped like a guillotine.

"They've returned," she said. "And they want the throne."

⸻

Later, in her private office, Bryan poured two glasses of dark liquor and passed her one.

"We need to find Matteo before they break him."

Valentina stared at the drink, then drained it in one motion.

"I know where they'll take him."

He raised a brow. "Where?"

"Where it all began."

⸻

Three hours later, Valentina and Bryan were in the underbelly of the city—the place her father once ruled with fear, fire, and endless silence. Abandoned slaughterhouses. Subterranean tunnels. Forgotten war rooms.

The door was marked with a claw-scratch—deep, fresh, deliberate.

Bryan glanced at her. "You sure?"

She nodded. "This was his sanctuary. His dungeon. If anyone wants to unearth my father's sins, this is where they'd start."

They entered with guns raised.

The air was sour with mold and rot. Water dripped from rusted pipes. And from the far corner—*

A cough. Guttural. Broken.*

Valentina sprinted toward it.

Matteo was chained to the wall. Bloodied. Breathing shallowly.

But alive.

Bryan covered them while she picked the lock. The chain snapped.

Matteo groaned. "He's… back."

Valentina froze. "Who?"

"Your uncle," he wheezed. "He's not dead. He never was."

⸻

They barely made it out before the building exploded behind them.

Someone had followed.

Someone wanted no survivors.

Back at the safehouse, as Matteo was treated by their medic, Valentina paced, fists clenched at her sides.

Bryan leaned against the wall. "So. A secret uncle, thought dead. Now orchestrating blood games."

She met his gaze. "His name is Silvano Vellaro. My father's younger brother."

Bryan whistled softly. "Then we have a problem."

"No," she said, dark fire in her voice.

"We have war."