Chapter 1 Ice and Blood

Las Vegas always shined too brightly.

And now, she preferred the darkness.

The woman stepped out of the rental car without looking at the lights screaming the city’s name. She ignored the billboards pulsing like artificial hearts, the greasy smell of food mixed with the expensive perfume of tourists, the limousines parading like well-dressed predators. She walked fast, head down, as if every step had been drilled into her through months of survival.

The Strip roared.

She didn’t.

She entered Di Volterra — the biggest, most luxurious, most ruthless casino hotel — without slowing her pace. But then… she stopped.

A man was punching a slot machine, eyes glassy, begging for an electronic miracle that would never come.

“Just one more chance… for God’s sake… I need to pay rent…”

Three tables ahead, another man laughed while signing a receipt.

He had just lost enough money to buy a house.

And he looked like he was enjoying the disaster.

She took a deep breath, as if silently absorbing the city’s chaos. None of it shocked her. None of it touched her. As if she carried a purpose so heavy inside her that the world around her had lost all importance.

Then, without meaning to, she looked up.

The mirror on the wall reflected her image — chin lifted, posture firm, eyes hiding more scars than secrets.

A chill ran down her spine. Not because she saw herself.

But because, for a second, it felt like someone behind the glass wall was watching her too.

She blinked. The reflection was alone. She kept walking.

She had a meeting with the man who ruined empires with a smile:

Vicenzo Moretti.

And she couldn’t afford to feel fear now.

Upstairs, behind the mirrored glass wall meant to conceal him, Vicenzo Moretti stood watching the gaming floor like a silent king surveying his empire. He was twenty-nine, but the coldness in his gaze made him look like he’d lived a hundred years. Tall, broad-shouldered, posture flawless. The tailored black suit fit his strong frame perfectly — muscular in just the right way, the kind of body that didn’t need to be displayed to be noticed. His dark hair was slicked back, not a strand out of place. The light stubble gave him an air of controlled danger.

But what drew attention most were his eyes — blue, almost translucent, cold like freshly broken ice. There was no warmth in them, only calculation. A gaze that didn’t observe — it assessed. As if every person below was just a piece on a board he already knew how to win.

His phone vibrated on the glass desk, breaking the silence of the office. Vicenzo didn’t move right away. He kept watching the gaming floor below, eyes fixed, cold. When the vibration stopped, he calmly picked up the phone and read the message.

“Sir, we finally found Giulia Salvatore. And you won’t believe it — she’s in Las Vegas. We’re tracking her exact location now. Soon, she’ll be in our hands.”

The smile that spread across his face held no joy. It was dark, almost animalistic. He tightened his grip around the whiskey glass until his fingers turned white.

“Finally, I’m going to finish that bitch,” he murmured, voice low, thick with hatred. “I’ll make her wish she’d never been born.”

He walked to the other window, overlooking the night sky. The lights of Las Vegas reflected in his blue, almost transparent eyes. Glacial. Empty.

“I promised I’d avenge you, brother. And now, I will.”

The memory came uninvited, like a wound that never healed.

He saw himself younger, on a suffocating afternoon, sitting in the concrete yard of the Chicago orphanage. The smell of hot cement and freshly cut grass was still vivid.

“Hurry up, Vicenzo!” Lucas yelled, kicking a deflated ball hard. “You always take forever!”

“He’s fixing his hair again,” Rafael teased, laughing.

Vicenzo appeared in the doorway, hair still wet, shirt crooked. But his eyes were already the same — cold, alert.

“You’re idiots,” he said, though there was a half-smile there. Lucas and Rafael were all he had. The only ones who mattered.

The image dissolved as quickly as it came, dragging the warmth of that memory with it. The present crashed back down, heavy, and the glass in his hand trembled.

“Why didn’t you listen to me, you stubborn son of a bitch?” he whispered through clenched teeth. “If you had, you’d be here now. Not rotting in a coffin.”

But it wasn’t just childhood that came back. There was another memory — more recent, more bitter.

It was night. An elegant restaurant, dim lights, clinking glasses. Lucas adjusted his collar, nervous.

“I promise you’ll like her,” he said, trying to sound confident. “Just… don’t freak out, okay?”

“Is that for me or for Vicenzo?” Rafael asked, laughing.

Vicenzo didn’t answer. He was tense. Something inside him was already screaming that something was wrong.

Then she walked in.

Giulia Salvatore.

Her heels echoed against the marble floor. The red dress clung to her body like a second skin. Dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, and her smile was sweet. But Vicenzo saw only the last name. Heard only one name in his head: Don Vittorio Salvatore.

“No,” he said, standing up.

“Vicenzo, please…” Lucas murmured, almost voiceless.

But Vicenzo was already walking out of the restaurant. He couldn’t accept it. Not when she was the granddaughter of the man who destroyed his life.

Lucas followed him.

“You don’t understand! She’s not like her grandfather!”

“You’re blind!” Vicenzo shouted. “That bitch is getting close to you to get to me. It’s a game, Lucas! Wake up!”

“I love her, damn it!” Lucas fired back, eyes burning. “And you don’t control my life!”

The argument still echoed in Vicenzo’s mind when the last memory came — the cruelest of all.

Six months later, he and Rafael stood before the coffin.

Lucas’s body was unrecognizable. The apartment was a massacre. And Giulia… had vanished. Without a trace.

Standing before the closed coffin, Vicenzo didn’t cry. Didn’t scream. He just stared at the name engraved on the plate and swore, in silence:

She will pay.

Now, she was here. In his city. On his territory.

He lifted his gaze to the Las Vegas sky. The glass in his hand cracked under the pressure.

“You dared to come back, Giulia,” he murmured. “Now you’ll pay for every damn second.”

The door opened without warning — no knock, no permission — just the sharp click of the handle turning and the entrance of someone who clearly didn’t care about rules. Vicenzo didn’t turn right away, but his body reacted as if struck. His shoulders stiffened, his jaw locked, and his fingers tightened around the whiskey glass, as if the glass were an extension of the rage beginning to boil inside him.

One question formed clearly in his mind: who dared enter his office without knocking?

He didn’t know anyone brave enough for that kind of audacity — and even fewer who survived it.

For a moment, he thought about how much he’d enjoy punishing the intruder. The idea of inflicting pain, stripping every ounce of arrogance from the fool who crossed that door, sparked something dark inside him. Then he turned. Slowly. Like someone savoring the moment before an execution.

But what he saw made him pause.

She was there.

Standing before him with her chin lifted, small slightly upturned nose pointed high, as if ready to challenge hell itself. Her dark brown eyes stared straight at him without wavering, without fear, without hesitation. Her posture was rigid, her body still, yet her presence filled the room as if she had been meant to stand there.

Giulia Salvatore.

The woman he had hunted for six months. The granddaughter of the man who destroyed his family. The damn woman who led Lucas to his death.

She looked at him as if she were ready to face the devil himself — and maybe she was.

Vicenzo smiled, but there was no humor in it. It was slow, cold, laced with contempt and threat. He took a step forward, calm, like a man who had already decided the fate of the person standing before him.

“Did you come here to die, you whore?”

Giulia didn’t step back. Instead, she moved closer, meeting his gaze with a steadiness that defied everything he knew about fear.

“You can kill me if you want, Vicenzo,” she said, voice low, firm, unshaken, “but before that, you’re going to give me exactly what I want.”