Chapter 23
The arrival of the photograph changed the atmosphere of the house instantly.
Alessandro sat at the kitchen table,
the image staring back at him like an accusation.
Rosalie watched him from the doorway,
her hands trembling as she wiped them on a towel.
"What does it mean?"
she asked,
her voice thin.
"It means the game isn't over,"
Alessandro replied,
sliding the photo across the table.
"Someone is trying to remind me that I can't just walk away from my history."
"Is it Dominic?"
"He's in a maximum-security facility,"
Alessandro said,
"but he has friends."
"And he has a long memory."
He picked up the phone and dialed Claire’s private number,
the one she only used for emergencies.
She answered on the second ring,
her voice sharp and professional.
"Alessandro? Is something wrong?"
"I’m being watched, Claire,"
he said,
getting straight to the point.
"Someone sent a photographer to the beach,
and someone left a message at my door."
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
"I was afraid of this,"
Claire sighed.
"There’s been some movement in the old accounts, Alessandro."
"What kind of movement?"
"Someone is buying up the old Rizzano debt,"
she explained.
"The private ones. The ones that weren't part of the corporate restructuring."
"They’re using shell companies based in the Cayman Islands."
"I’ve been trying to trace them,
but the walls are thick."
Alessandro felt a familiar weight settling in his stomach.
The debt wasn't just money.
In his world,
debt was an obligation of service,
a tie that could only be severed with blood or a complete surrender of autonomy.
"Who would want that debt now?"
he asked.
"The empire is dead."
"The empire might be dead,"
Claire said,
"but the name still has power."
"If someone holds your debt,
they hold a piece of you."
"Stay inside, Alessandro."
"I'm sending a team to sweep the area."
"No,"
Alessandro said firmly.
"No teams. I won't have Livia living in a fortress again."
"I'll handle this myself."
He hung up the phone and looked at Rosalie.
She was pale,
her eyes wide with a fear she was trying to hide for Livia’s sake.
"We’re not leaving, are we?"
she asked.
"Not yet,"
Alessandro said,
though the uncertainty in his heart was growing.
"If we run now,
they’ll just follow us to the next place."
"I need to find out who is pulling the strings."
He spent the rest of the day reinforcing the locks and checking the security feeds.
Livia was confused by his sudden intensity,
asking why she couldn't go back to the beach.
"The ocean is a little grumpy today, sweetheart,"
he told her,
kneeling down to her level.
"We’re going to stay inside and watch movies instead."
"Is the grumpy ocean going to go away?"
she asked,
her lower lip trembling slightly.
"Always,"
he promised,
pulling her into a hug.
"I won't let anything hurt you, Livia."
"Ever."
But as the sun began to set,
casting long,
bloody shadows across the floor,
Alessandro felt the walls of the cottage closing in.
He realized that the "clean" life he had built was as fragile as a house of cards.
The Rizzano blood debt was a ghost that didn't care about legal documents or moral redemption.
It wanted what was owed,
and it was coming to collect.
