Chapter 82: When the devils wear saint faces
Bianca’s laughter still lingered in the air of Mamadi’s Pizza, but inside her veins the rhythm had changed.
She couldn’t drag her gaze away from Enzo.
The man who should have been swallowed by Virenkai’s graveyard of betrayals, now stood pouring smoothies as if death had been a costume he’d merely slipped out of.
Enzo looked leaner, harder, his cheekbones shadowed with hunger and secrets.
His eyes those dark, bottomless pits lifted and caught hers.
For a second too long, neither blinked. Recognition cracked between them, dangerous as lightning striking dry wood.
Jackson babbled about the pineapple topping, tugging at Bianca’s sleeve, grounding her in the charade of motherhood.
She smiled at her son, but the corners of her mouth twitched with something far less innocent.
"Enzo," she whispered under her breath, tasting the forbidden syllables like venom licked from a blade.
The man inclined his head just slightly, the smallest acknowledgment, and walked away as if her existence had been dust.
But she knew better, Men like Enzo never ignored they calculated.
If he lived, then he carried a secret worth its own empire and perhaps an axe to grind sharp enough to split the Moranos in two.
Bianca’s mind burned with new blueprints.
Her son’s eyes.
Enzo’s resurrection. A map of betrayal layered itself before her.
What if she didn’t need to play under the Morano name anymore? What if she could build her own dynasty on lies, blood, and the miracle of Enzo’s survival?
She wiped her mouth with the napkin, disguising her storm. "Jackson," she said softly, "finish up, sweetheart. We have somewhere else to be."
But inside, her decision was made, she would find Enzo before the night fell silent.
******
Meanwhile, back at the Morano estate, Luca had not moved from the balcony since Alessia left.
The moment Alessia’s footsteps faded down the corridor, silence claimed the room.
It was not the gentle silence of peace, but the suffocating kind that pressed into his chest, reminding him of what had just walked out of the door.
Luca’s eyes swept the room as though searching for the remnants she had left behind her radiance that always seemed to ignite the very air, her smile that could turn the darkest corners into light.
Now, without her, the chamber felt stripped, cold, and barren.
His heart throbbed with an ache he could neither cage nor calm.
Every breath tasted of her absence.
His body remembered the warmth of her skin, the way her laughter nestled into his chest like a vow.
He yearned for it with a hunger so fierce it made his hands tremble.
Sunset felt like centuries away, and he was a man on the edge of losing himself before the day surrendered her back to him.
How cruel, he thought, that once upon a time he had let his pride run wild enough to threaten divorce, the very word that now felt like a dagger against his own soul.
It hadn’t been because his love for her was weak, but because it had been too consuming.
He had seen another man close to her, and his mind, poisoned with jealousy, had twisted love into fury.
He had misinterpreted her innocence, allowed the shadows of his own fears to cloud the brilliance of their bond.
But the past was just that past.
And Luca Morano had learned, in the most searing way, that the present was all that mattered.
And the present was still his Alessia, His light, and his reason.
He would not trade her for power, for vengeance, for the world itself. Not now, not ever.
The air in the room grew heavier with his restless longing, until he could no longer bear it.
He pushed himself from the chair and walked toward the balcony.
. The doors groaned open, spilling a rush of cool air into the suffocating quiet.
Luca stepped out, gripping the railing, tilting his face toward the sky.
The world beyond was alive the hum of the city below, the sweep of the evening wind but inside him there was only one truth, he missed her.
With every heartbeat, he missed her.He went out to the balcony, He tried to steady his breath, to tame the storm of desire and ache that clawed at his chest.
But the more he inhaled, the more he realized nothing, not even the fresh air, could dilute the excess of missing Alessia.
She was not in the room, but she lived in his veins.
And he swore to himself, as the sun edged its descent, that when she returned at sunset, he would hold her in his arms as though the universe itself depended on it.
Cigarette smoke curled against the bruised dusk sky, but his jaw clenched tighter than any vice.
Dante, his secret spy men capo, stepped into the shadows behind him. "Boss," he said, low, respectful. "The streets are whispering. Someone was seen in Garam. Someone wearing the ghost’s face."
Luca turned, his pupils shrinking. "The ghost?"
"It’s Enzo."
The word was a blade cutting the quiet.
For years Luca had built his empire on certainty, on strategy sharp enough to predict betrayal before it sprouted. But this? This was a rupture in the narrative of power. Enzo was supposed to be ash, swallowed by Virenkai. If he wasn’t... then every plan Luca had so carefully woven risked unraveling.
His fingers tapped once on the railing, then stilled. "Double your watch, we must not be caught unaware," he ordered, voice glacial. "If Enzo breathes near my Family, I want to know before his second breath leaves his lungs."
"Yes, boss." Dante vanished, but Luca remained, staring into the horizon where night was stitching itself across the sky.
His heart ached for Alessia’s absence, but his mind sharpened into war.
Enzo’s return meant ghosts were walking and ghosts always came carrying debts.
*****
Across the city, Enzo untied his apron in the back room of Mamadi’s Pizza, each movement slow, deliberate, as if he were shedding not fabric but a mask. He stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror above the sink.
His own eyes stared back at him, wild with survival, burdened with secrets.
He hadn’t expected to see Bianca tonight.
He hadn’t expected the blue-eyed boy either.
"Blue eyes," he muttered to himself, recalling Jackson’s innocent stare. His jaw set. "So this is how fate twists its knife, I have been looking for the blue eyed child all along."
He pulled on a leather jacket, slipped a blade into his boot, and pushed out the back door into the night, bianca would come.
He knew her hunger, He knew the kind of woman who would smile at a child and scheme at the same time.
And when she came, he would be ready.
Because Enzo had returned not as a man. But as a reckoning.
*******
Daisy edged closer, her eyes wide with dread, as though she already feared what Alessia’s trembling hands might reveal.
But when her gaze finally landed on the object, her heart plummeted so violently it echoed in the silence of the chamber.
Her lips parted, soundless, before a bitter cry tore free, raw and sharp. Tears streaked down her cheeks in unrestrained betrayal.
"I dined with the devil all along?" Her voice was a cracked whisper, heavy with disbelief. "So Romeo, the man who paraded himself as my God-sent saint has been married to Seraphina all this while? No wonder..."
She pressed her shaking palm against the cold wall, her breath ragged. "No wonder only his prints worked on this chamber. I was blind, Alessia..... I was so.... Blind."
Alessia’s chest tightened, seeing her friend collapse under the weight of cruel discovery.
She reached for Daisy, steadying her trembling frame, and her tone was low, soothing, almost desperate.
"It’s not the end of your life, dear. I know the pain claws deep, but thank Goodness you found out now.
You’re no longer trapped in his shadows. Let this truth free you, Just... let it be."
Daisy let out a hollow laugh, brittle and sharp, as she sank onto the crimson carpeted stair.
Her laughter rang like broken glass mocking herself, mocking fate.
"Let it go?" Her tear-rimmed eyes lifted to Alessia, wild with storm. "You mean I should let it go without asking him anything? You want me to bury this wound in silence? Even if I’m weak, Alessia, I won’t choke on this anymore. I must confront Romeo. I will strip away his mask, and I will tell him his dirty games end tonight."
Her voice wavered, but in her chest burned a fierce, defiant flame.
Alessia squeezed her hand. "Then we will face it together. But first, let’s find the box and get out of here. We can’t afford distraction now."
Daisy wiped her tears with the back of her hand, her shoulders squared with fragile determination.
Alessia helped her rise, steadying her weight. And just as Daisy stood, Alessia’s eyes caught a glimmer beneath the carved mahogany staircase.
There it was... her stolen box. Tucked deep within a hollow crevice, hidden beneath layers of dust, as though the chamber itself conspired to keep it from her.
She slipped it quickly into the folds of her gown, pressing it against her body with a possessive grip.
Her heart thudded, wild and uneven.
They had what they came for.
They only needed to leave.
Together, Alessia and Daisy approached the heavy door.
Their breaths mingled in the charged silence as Alessia’s trembling fingers reached for the handle. She pressed.....
But before she could even turn it, the lock clicked from the other side.
The metallic groan of gears shifted, the system verifying fingerprints not their own.
The door swung open with a slow, dreadful hiss.
And there they stood.
Seraphina and Romeo.
Face to face, Eye to eye, shadows and secrets colliding.....