Page 1 of The Scars We Keep
Chapter One
Lorenzo
Thewarehousestillreeksof death.It’s been a week since the fire.Since Matteo chose love, and everything went to hell.Every breath I take feels filthy, as if the air itself senses I’m on the wrong side of history.
This place used to hum with quiet orders.Steel flashing under bright lights.Men moving bodies with such efficiency you don’t question it if you want to keep breathing.No wasted movements.No raised voices.Just the sound of flesh hitting tile, the low grind of metal dragging across concrete, and the occasional scream swallowed by soundproof walls.It was a rhythm.Cold.Relentless.Sacred.
Now the roof’s half gone, gaping open to the dusk-grey sky as darkness starts to creep in, as if the building is trying to exhale its sins.The floor is scorched black, heat-buckled, and split, littered with ash and bones no one ever bothered to clean.
Every step I take echoes loudly.Bouncing off ghosts that never left.
I pass a rusted hook fused to the floor, twisted by heat.
This was the De Luca slaughterhouse, the heart of an empire where information was torn from flesh and silence was bought with blood.There used to be bodies hanging from that beam—men who opened their mouths too early and closed them too late.By the time it mattered, they had nothing left worth hearing.
I stop by one of the old drain grates.
It’s still stained.A place where loyalty was tested, secrets were carved into flesh, and the De Luca name was branded into fear itself.And now?
Now it’s hollowed out by fire and betrayal.Matteo made damn sure of that.
But I’m still here, walking the ground my uncle once ruled.This building may be broken, but it still waits and remembers what happened inside these walls.
So do I, and I plan to bring it all back.With fire and with blood.With every bastard who ever thought the De Luca name was finished.
A single whisper of our name used to open doors, cause knees to bow and people remember their place.
Now the files are out, and all the dirty little secrets are spilling across newspaper headlines and courtrooms.
The De Luca name once symbolized power.
It was feared.
Now, the world uses it as a punchline in backroom deals and a threat that no longer hits the way it used to.They speak of Matteo in hushed, vicious tones.The heir who burned his throne.The man who chose a girl over blood.
And with that decision, he destroyed us all.
But they forget one thing.
The name didn’t die with the files or the flames.It’s still alive.And I’m the one keeping it that way.
By any fucking means necessary.
I pause under the old chain hoist, its metal blackened.I used to be too short to reach it.Matteo would lift me over his shoulders and let me swing from it when I was a kid.He protected me from the ugliest parts of our world.When Alessandro De Luca ordered his men to carve messages into skin, Matteo would take me out back.He shielded me from it.I have fond memories of him.Or I did.Now all I see is the betrayal stitched into everything he touched.
Matteo was soft.Soft enough to believe love surpassed blood ties.That a woman’s touch could erase the mark of who we are.That forgiveness holds more value than fear.
He believed he could outrun his past.He thought that if he walked far enough, the consequences wouldn’t catch up to him.
But they always fucking do.
He turned his back on an empire built with fists and fire, with obedience carved into flesh and loyalty paid for in lives.He traded a kingdom for whispered I love you’s and soft bedsheets.
And now there’s nothing left but ash, a shattered family name, and a loyalty no one remembers.
My sleeves are black by the time I reach the car.Soot, ash, and whatever’s left of this place rubbed into my skin.
The driver opens the door, and I slide in.The engine turns over.We pull out, and three black sedans fall in behind us.Men I’ve bled with.Men who would put a bullet in someone’s skull without blinking if it meant keeping me alive.Loyalty forged in blood and bad decisions.
