Chapter 7

Vito's calls got responses in less than two hours.

But the response didn't come from the Massimo family or the Pellegrini family. It came from Verna Harbor.

Edmund Helsing called him directly.

Edmond's voice was low on the phone. "Mr. Costa, I heard the person the Costa family sent over is named Luciano?"

Vito's heart sank, because Edmond didn't sound like he was asking a question. He sounded like he was confirming something he'd already looked into.

"He's our adopted son. What about it?"

"What about it?" Edmond let out a short laugh. "He grabbed me by the throat yesterday and yanked me off a shipping container in front of a dozen of my men. Nearly choked me to death. And you're asking me what about it?"

Vito went still.

He never expected that the first thing Luciano did after arriving in Verna Harbor was lay hands on the actual head of the Helsing family.

That wasn't the kind of nerve a nobody who'd spent seven years in a fighting pit was supposed to have. And it definitely wasn't the kind of confidence a discarded adopted son was supposed to carry.

Vito stayed quiet for a few seconds, his mind running fast.

He'd originally planned to pressure Luciano by rallying a few smaller families against him, forcing him to fall in line. But now Edmond had come to him first.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

"Mr. Helsing," Vito chose his words carefully, "Luciano is, plain and simple, a dog the Costa family raised for sixteen years. Now he's turned around and bitten the hand that fed him. I want to deal with him even more than you do."

Silence on the other end.

Edmond didn't respond, because he was waiting for Vito to show his cards.

Vito knew that just taking a stance wasn't enough. He had to put something real on the table.

"How about this — I'll fly to Verna Harbor myself tomorrow. Let's talk in person. Some things don't come across well over the phone."

Edmond thought it over and agreed.

But right before he hung up, he said something that sent a chill down Vito's spine.

"Mr. Costa, those seven years your adopted son spent on Mornveil Isle — are you sure you don't know anything about them? I hope you'll be straight with me tomorrow."

The line went dead.

Vito sat on the couch gripping his phone, that sentence lodged in his head like a splinter he couldn't pull out.

He genuinely didn't know.

After sending Luciano to the fighting pit all those years ago, he'd never given the boy another thought. The way Vito saw it, a sixteen-year-old kid thrown into the underground fights on Mornveil Isle was lucky to survive the first year. Seven years? That basically meant scraping by at the bottom, taking beatings and hanging on by a thread.

But now it seemed like things hadn't gone the way he'd imagined.

Vito had a nagging feeling that something was off, though he couldn't put his finger on exactly what.

The next day, Vito flew to the island where Verna Harbor was located, with Alessio in tow.

Edmond had arranged for them to meet at a private club on the east side of the port district. The whole building was his — three floors above ground, two below. It used to be where Cameron Helsing entertained important guests. Now it was Edmond's personal territory.

The moment Vito walked in, he spotted four bodyguards in black tactical vests, all of them radiating menace. "Mr. Helsing, it's been a while."

Edmond's gaze landed on Alessio standing behind Vito and lingered for a moment.

"And this is?"

Vito quickly nudged Alessio forward. "My biological son, Alessio Costa. The rightful heir to the Costa family."

Edmond looked Alessio up and down.

Alessio squirmed under the scrutiny and forced himself to stand a little straighter. But compared to Luciano, whom he'd seen in the warehouse the day before, this so-called rightful heir looked like an underfired brick — decent to look at, useless under pressure, one knock away from crumbling.

Edmond saw it clearly, but he kept it to himself.

Because what he needed wasn't someone capable. It was the opposite — he needed someone useless. Someone he could control completely.

From that angle, Alessio was practically a gift.

Vito skipped the small talk and got straight to it.

"Mr. Helsing, I know Luciano better than you do. He's an ungrateful piece of work. We raised him for sixteen years — fed him, clothed him, gave him our name. And what did we get? He turned on us faster than you can blink."

Edmond held his glass and said nothing. He had no interest in Vito's grievances. He only cared about one thing.

"Get to the point."

Vito stumbled slightly but recovered quickly.

"The point is, Cecilia has woken up, and Luciano is the one who woke her. By the rules, that gives him the right to become her husband. That's bad news for both of us."

That landed.

The position Edmond had spent three years building was constructed entirely on the assumption that Cecilia would never wake up. Now that foundation was gone, and everything he'd put in place was falling apart. But what frightened him most wasn't Cecilia waking up — it was the man who had woken her.

Yesterday in the warehouse, in the moment Luciano's hand closed around his throat, he'd seen something in those eyes.

Not anger. Not a threat. Something else — a cold, detached appraisal. Like Luciano had already decided his fate before he even made a move, and was simply taking his time choosing whether to follow through.

It was the exact same feeling he used to get around his uncle, Cameron Helsing, when Cameron was still alive.

So Edmond was afraid.

Not of Luciano's strength — of the part of him he couldn't read. And what he couldn't read, he couldn't control. And what he couldn't control was dangerous.

"What's your plan?" Edmond finally said.

That was exactly what Vito had been waiting for.

He leaned forward and dropped his voice. "Luciano is just an adopted son. He doesn't have a drop of Costa blood. What right does he have to the direct heir of your family? You can take that argument straight to the elder council and challenge the legitimacy of this marriage on those grounds. We are an affiliate family, after all."

Edmond narrowed his eyes. "And then?"

"And then," Vito glanced back at Alessio, "my son Alessio is the true bloodline of the Costa family. If you need someone with a more legitimate standing to replace Luciano, Alessio can fill that role. Once the real Luciano disappears from the islands, Alessio becomes 'Luciano' going forward."

Edmond set down his glass and looked at Vito properly for the first time.

"And after it works? What does the Costa family want from the Helsing family?"

Vito shook his head and played his real card.

"Alessio and Cecilia marry in name only. But every asset the Helsing family holds stays entirely under your management, Mr. Helsing. The Costa family only wants the title. Not a single cent of the real assets."

Edmond didn't respond right away.

He walked a slow circle with his glass, running the numbers in his head.

What Vito was offering sounded almost too good — the Costa family takes just the name, no material gain, essentially handing over a puppet son-in-law for free while the Helsing family's assets stay entirely in his hands.

But that was exactly why he didn't trust it. When something sounds that good, it usually isn't.

"Mr. Costa, you're trading your own son for an empty title. What are you actually after?"