Chapter 9 - The King Returns
Six months passed.
We believed the danger was over.
We were wrong.
The first sign came when three Moretti warehouses exploded in one night.
The second came when Adrian received a photograph.
A man standing outside a cemetery.
The man was Gabriel Romano.
My father.
Alive.
I stared at the photograph.
My hands shook.
“No.”
Adrian looked at me.
“This could be fake.”
“No.”
I knew my father's face.
The scar beneath his eye.
The ring on his finger.
The photograph was real.
We went to the cemetery.
At midnight.
A figure stood beneath the rain.
My father.
Older.
Scarred.
Alive.
I couldn't move.
He looked at me.
“My little girl.”
I ran into his arms.
He held me.
I cried like I was sixteen again.
Adrian stood several feet away.
My father looked at him.
“The boy.”
Adrian nodded.
“Gabriel.”
My father smiled.
“You became a good man.”
Adrian's eyes filled with tears.
“I tried.”
Gabriel looked toward the grave.
“Marco did too.”
Then he told us the truth.
He had survived the massacre.
But Vincent had kept him imprisoned.
He escaped months earlier.
He had stayed hidden because he believed Vincent still controlled the network.
Then he discovered something worse.
Someone above Vincent had been giving orders.
A man known only as The King.
I looked at my father.
“Who?”
He didn't answer.
Instead, he handed Adrian a photograph.
Adrian looked at it.
His face changed.
“No.”
I looked over his shoulder.
The photograph showed an older man.
Elegant.
Silver-haired.
Sitting in a wheelchair.
Adrian whispered:
“Uncle Salvatore.”
My father nodded.
“Your father's older brother.”
“The King.”
“Yes.”
Adrian stared at him.
“He died twenty years ago.”
Gabriel shook his head.
“Everyone thought so.”
A phone rang.
Adrian answered.
A voice spoke.
“Congratulations.”
Adrian froze.
“You found Gabriel.”
Silence.
“Now bring me his daughter.”
The line went dead.
My father looked at me.
Adrian pulled me behind him.
But I stepped forward.
“No.”
He looked at me.
“I've spent my whole life running.”
I tightened my grip on the Romano ring.
“I'm done.”
My father smiled.
“That's my daughter.”
We returned to the city.
And this time, we didn't hide.
We gathered every loyal Romano and Moretti soldier.
Not to rebuild the old empire.
To destroy what remained of it.
The final battle would not be fought in shadows.
It would be fought in the open.
And the woman everyone believed was a desperate surrogate mother would finally reveal exactly who she was.
The last daughter of Don Gabriel Romano.
May you like
The last legitimate heir to the Romano legacy.
And the wife of Adrian Moretti.
