Page 50 of Vows Made in Silence

A velvet-lined case—inside, a forged certificate of provenance for a stolen Caravaggio. Stamped with the Vitale Gallery seal. It wasn’t an art deal. It was a laundering front.

A burner phone—one of ours. But the encryption’s been rerouted through a dead channel. Gallo’s old shadow loop. It pings with one unread message. No sender ID.

“She has the key.”

A single oil-streaked flash drive—nearly crushed, but still intact. The label? Just a date: March 16th, 2015. The day before Vittorio shut down his overseas holdings. The day before everything changed.

I don’t speak. I can’t.

Because every piece of this puzzle screams the same thing:

Giuliana was used.

Played like a pawn in a game between monsters. The art was a front. The gallery, a funnel. The curator—the perfect courier. Innocent enough to draw no suspicion. Smart enough to move things clean.

She was never meant to know.

And yet—she remembered.

Enough to run back into the fire.

Enough to steal the proof that could damn half the underworld.

Enough to become a target—again.

Turk curses, breath shallow. “Boss… this bag? This isn’t a mistake. This is an insurance policy.”

“No,” I say, cold realization washing over me. “This is a detonator.”

I glance toward the hallway where Giuliana sleeps beside our son.

She doesn’t know yet. Not all of it. But something cracked open in her tonight.

And when she remembers everything?

This war won’t just be about revenge.

It’ll be about survival.

The silence that follows is absolute.

Then the monitor beeps.

New signal. An encrypted message routed through an old Moretti channel.

No sender ID.

Just six words.

"You’re too late. She remembers now."

And just like that—the war reignites.

Luca moved like a shadow through the compound, each step echoing with quiet purpose. The blood was still drying on his knuckles. The war outside was far from over—but for the moment, the safe house stood intact.

He didn’t breathe until he reached the hallway.

He needed to see them—Guiliana and their son. With his own eyes.