The Milan streets had never been so quiet. After the break-in, they should have been triumphing the Morano bank secrets were within reach. Yet instead of joy, nervousness curled like a cloud in Adriana's heart.
She sat in the back of the black sedan with Damian driving them back to their safehouse, Julian hunched over his laptop beside her, the screen illuminating his features with blue-green light.
"Someone's been here before us," Julian muttered, eyes darting over pages of code. "This isn't a sloppy hack. This was deliberate. Whoever it was.they deliberately left their own fingerprints behind.".
Damian's fingers tightened on the wheel. "Then they wanted us to know."
His statement sent a shiver down Adriana's spine. She looked out at the whirligig of Milan, bright through the tinted glass sophisticated storefronts, evening-to-closing cafés, the sparkle of city lights along the canal. The world was normal, unscathed. But beneath the charm, she felt it: someone pursuing them.
Its sanctuary was a plain apartment nestled between two old stone facades on Brera. Once inside, Damian checked the locks, windows, and blinds with meticulous attention while Julian arranged his gear on the dining table. Adriana flopped on the couch, shoes discarded, muscles tensed in fatigue.
It was to be reprieve. Instead, the shadows at the edges felt too oppressive.
She had first noticed it as she paced back and forth by the window: a man on the street below, standing too long in one position. He wore a cap pulled low over his eyes, and though cars flowed around him, he did not stir. She blinked once, twice and he was gone.
Her heart surged. "Damian."
He stood beside her in an instant, eyes cutting through the glass. But there was no one on the street anymore.
Julian cursed. "It's not out there." He turned his laptop to show it. "Our burner phones? Hacked. Someone remote-mirrored them. All calls, all texts, even GPS they know where we are."
Adriana had a cold, nauseated sensation in her stomach. "So we've been…tracked?"
Damian cursed, something hot and angry. He ran a hand over his jaw, pacing the room like a trapped animal. "We move. Now."
Julian sprang to his feet. "If we go blindly, they'll catch us out in the open. At least here we have walls to take cover behind, screens to screen us, doors to make an exit through."
Their tension was electric, volatile. Damian's glare could have cut steel, but Julian stood firm. Adriana wedged between them, her voice cutting just high enough to shatter the oncoming storm.
"Stop. Both of you." Her breath was rapid, but her tone was even. "Arguing gets us nowhere. If someone is watching, they will turn our fear on us. We need to think."
For a single beat, there was silence. Damian finally let out a sigh, his eyes unclenching when he met her gaze. Julian muttered something under his breath but turned back to his laptop.
The truce was fragile but it would have to do.
Adriana's Vulnerability
Adriana slept restlessly on the couch that night, eyes glued to the vaulted, cracked ceiling. Sleep did not come. Any snap of the building startled her. Every shadow seemed to move.
Her thoughts spiraled. What if the mole wasn't just one person? What if the Moranos planted more spies, deeper, waiting for moments like this? She had fought so hard to prove herself worthy of her father's empire, but what if she was already losing it piece by piece, betrayal by betrayal?
She sat up, pulling her knees close, trying to still the pounding in her chest.
"You're awake."
Damian's voice echoed from the doorway. He leaned against the frame, arms crossed, in a plain black shirt that made him less crime lord, more man she couldn't seem to stop staring at. His eyes eased when they fell on her.
"I did not sleep," she admitted. "As soon as I close my eyes, I see that message in the code. Someone somewhere knows what we're doing. Knows who I am."
He came into the room, the air flowing with him. "Fear makes you keen, Adriana. But don't let it destroy you."
She searched his face, seeing not just the calm predator, but the lines of weariness etched at the corners of his mouth. "You've lived like this before, haven't you? Being hunted."
He hesitated, then nodded once. Slowly, he undid the cuff of his shirt and rolled up his sleeve, revealing a thin scar that curved across his forearm. "A rival family marked me like prey once. They hunted me in three countries. I slept with one eye open for months." His eyes locked onto hers, dark and unyielding. "And I'm still here."
Adriana's throat closed up. "How did you survive?"
His lips twisted up slightly. "By not running. By turning every hunt into an ambush. Fear is not weakness it can be your tool."
A thing in his voice, in the intense conviction of it, sank deep into her. She felt her walls trembling.
Instinct made her speak, without a thought, "You make it sound simple.".
He leaned in, kneeling beside her with their faces close. "It isn't. But you don't have to do it by yourself."
Her breath caught. Everything else faded around his eyes, his scent, the warmth radiating from his skin. For an instant, she was sure he was going to kiss her or maybe she hoped he was.
The awareness that Julian clicked his laptop shut shattered the illusion. "We have a problem.".
Adriana jumped back, color rising in her cheeks. Damian straightened, expression unchanging, but his gaze remained on hers for the briefest moment longer than it should have before he glanced away.
They ventured out the following day. It was irresponsible, but Julian insisted that he needed a stronger signal to break more of the files. Adriana concealed herself behind a scarf pulled low across her face, Damian hovering at her elbow.
It didn't take long to sense it: the black sedan trailing two cars behind them. Adriana glanced into the rearview mirror, heart stuttering. "We're being followed."
"I see it," Damian muttered, steering them sharply down a narrower street. "Hold on."
Chaos followed a maelstrom of turns, alleys, and stops. There was a time that they left the car and fled down narrow alleyways, Adriana's boots pounding cobblestones as Damian pulled her along by the hand.
In their wake, the sedan screamed, tires screeching as it tried to cut them off.
They managed to lose it in the maze of Milan's old town but not before Adriana caught a glimpse through the tinted windshield. A face. Looking at her with unnerving familiarity, even though she couldn't place it.
Her stomach twisted. These hunters weren't strangers.
Julian finally cracked another level of encryption in the safehouse. He tensed, his face whitening.
"What is it?" Adriana spat.
Quietly, he turned over the screen to them. On it, hidden deep in the pilfered information, was a simple message.
We See You, Adriana.
Her blood ran cold. They weren't looking for the Moranos only. They had her name.
Damian's jaw locked, his voice a growling threat. "This is no longer just a hunt for the Moranos. This is personal."
And for the first time, Adriana felt the walls closing in.