Luca did not answer.

Matteo did.

“Someone your husband buried before tonight.”

Luca’s voice went quiet. “You disappeared after Palermo.”

“No,” Matteo said. “I was handed over.”

The words struck the room.

Luca’s expression hardened. “That’s a lie.”

“Is it?” Matteo stepped into the candlelight. “Ask Declan.”

Luca went still.

Outside, thunder cracked.

Matteo’s smile faded. “Your father made a deal. My life for his empire. Declan delivered me. You inherited the throne and never asked why your best friend vanished.”

“I looked for you.”

“You looked until it became inconvenient.”

The accusation landed too close to the bone.

Isabella’s eyes moved to Luca, searching his face.

Matteo saw it and laughed without humor. “Ah. There it is. That look. The one people get when they realize Luca Rossi’s love has conditions.”

Luca took a slow breath. “This is between you and me.”

“It became about her the moment you made her your weakness.”

Isabella lifted her chin. “I’m not his weakness.”

Matteo turned to her. “No. You’re worse. You’re his conscience.”

Something flickered in Luca’s eyes.

Matteo walked behind Isabella and rested a hand on the back of her chair. Luca’s entire body went rigid.

“Easy,” Matteo said. “I didn’t bring her here to hurt her.”

“Then why?”

“Because she is the only thing in this world that could make you come without an army.”

Luca’s voice was ice. “Say what you want.”

“No.”

Matteo’s gaze darkened. “Think carefully.”

“I said no.”

Isabella stared at him.

Pain crossed her face—not from fear this time, but understanding.

Even now, Luca was choosing secrets.

Matteo noticed too.

He leaned closer to Isabella. “Do you see? Even with you tied to a chair in his family tomb, he still hesitates.”

Luca’s jaw clenched. “The ledger protects more than me.”

“It protects criminals.”

“It protects people who will start a war if exposed.”

“Good,” Matteo said. “Let them.”

Luca shook his head. “You don’t want justice. You want fire.”

Matteo’s eyes flashed. “I want names.”

“You want revenge.”

“Yes,” Matteo said, voice breaking for the first time. “I want revenge. I want the men who sold me, tortured my family, erased my life, and then drank champagne at your wedding to stop sleeping peacefully.”

The mausoleum fell silent.

Isabella’s eyes filled slowly.

Not for Matteo.

For Luca.

Because she understood now that the world she had married into was not only dangerous—it was rotten with ghosts.

Luca looked at Matteo. “My father did that. Not me.”

“You lived from it.”

The words hit harder than any weapon.

Luca had no answer.

Matteo reached into his coat and took out a small black drive.

“This is what I already have,” he said. “Enough to begin. But the ledger finishes it.”

Luca stared at the drive. “Who gave you that?”

Matteo smiled faintly. “Someone who still hates you more than I do.”

Behind Luca, footsteps echoed at the mausoleum entrance.

Declan appeared in the doorway, rain dripping from his coat, weapon raised.

“Step away from her,” Declan ordered.

Matteo looked amused. “There he is.”

Luca did not turn around.

He watched Matteo.

But his voice changed. “Declan.”

“Yes, boss?”

“How did you know where to come?”

A small pause.

Too small for anyone else to notice.

But Luca noticed.

The air shifted.

Isabella noticed too.

Declan’s weapon remained raised, but his eyes moved briefly to Matteo.

That brief glance was enough.

Luca closed his eyes for half a second.

When he opened them, nothing in him looked surprised anymore.

“Put it down,” Luca said.

Declan’s face tightened. “Boss?”

“I wasn’t talking to him.”

For a heartbeat, nobody moved.

Then Declan slowly turned the gun.

Not toward Matteo.

Toward Luca.

Isabella gasped.

Luca did not.

Matteo watched with a satisfaction that looked almost like sorrow.

Declan’s voice was low. “You should have stayed away from the ledger.”

Luca stared at the man who had protected him for twelve years. The man who had stood outside his bedroom door after assassination attempts, carried messages from his father, guarded Isabella at charity events.