Isabella
The press stormed like vultures.
Isabella watched the chaos unfold from behind the heavily tinted windows of her car, the media clustered outside Santoro Holdings like bees to blood. Flashbulbs popped. Reporters shouted Aurelio's name as if their voices could pierce stone.
She sat still, fingers clenched tightly around her phone. Raven's face on the screen stared back at her—smudged by the low-quality photo, but unmistakable. Luna's blurry figure was circled beside it with a grotesque red outline. "Secret Heiress to the Santoro Empire?" the headline read.
She felt sick.
The moment she stepped into the elevator, she felt it. That familiar coil of tension in the pit of her stomach, the feeling she got when danger slithered through the walls of her family.
Someone had betrayed them.
Again.
The difference this time? The stakes weren't just money. They weren't even reputation. They were flesh and blood. Her niece. Her brother. Raven.
The office floor was a battlefield of whispers and panicked staff when the elevator doors opened.
She headed straight to her own office, locking the door behind her before dialing the one person she trusted without question.
"Leo," she said when the line picked up, "I need you to pull up internal access logs for the last forty-eight hours. Someone leaked a photo of Raven and Luna. I want to know who, when, and how fast we can bury them."
Her bodyguard's voice came through, steady and clipped. "On it. Already checking security footage from the hospital too. I flagged a nurse—she made an unusual phone call ten minutes after taking Luna's vitals."
Isabella's jaw clenched. "If she's involved, I want her name sent to me. I'll handle her personally."
"You got it."
She hung up.
Her mind churned with possibilities—rivals from her father's day? Corrupt board members still loyal to the old ways? Or worse... someone new. Someone inside.
She was so focused on the threat that she barely noticed the message that pinged across her computer screen:
> "Your family's secrets are unraveling, Isabella. Try to contain the spill… if you can."
No sender. Just that cryptic line and a blinking cursor.
Her blood turned to ice.
She picked up her phone again—but paused. Whoever this was, they wanted fear. Wanted reaction. And they weren't going to get it. Not yet.
Meanwhile – Aurelio
Aurelio stood in his private study, the room dark except for the gold glow from the fireplace. He held Luna's drawing in his hands. A little house, a man with dark hair, a woman with red streaks, and a girl with pigtails. Labeled above the stick figures was a single word in crooked writing:
Family.
It was harder than he expected to breathe.
All the power he'd amassed. All the blood he'd spilled. All the empires he'd crushed. And the thing that broke him… was a child's drawing.
His child.
And Raven, who had slipped away like smoke all those years ago, was back in his world—looking more haunted than ever. His fingers curled around the paper. What else hadn't she told him?
He barely heard the knock.
"Come in," he muttered.
Isabella entered quietly, her eyes sharp.
"They're coming at us from the inside, Aurelio," she said, tossing a file onto the table. "The nurse who took the photo was bribed. Paid off by a dummy account linked to… Cero Holdings."
He froze.
"That's one of ours," he said coldly.
"No. That's one of Father's old holdings. Still under the umbrella. Still operating with legacy clearance."
Aurelio's face darkened. "Then it's someone he left behind."
"There's more," Isabella said grimly. "The whistleblower who gave the press our shipping logs? He used to be in our security division. Fired five years ago for misconduct. He's back. And someone reinstated his access two weeks ago."
Aurelio's jaw ticked. "Find them. Cut them out like a cancer. I want to see their world fall before they ever touch mine again."
Isabella nodded. "I already started."
As she turned to leave, Aurelio stopped her.
"She's braver than I remembered," he said quietly.
Isabella glanced back, a soft smile touching her lips. "She had to be. You broke her."
He didn't argue.
Because it was true.
Meanwhile – Luna
Luna watched the shadows move across the hospital ceiling, hugging the stuffed bear the nice nurse had given her.
Her ears picked up whispers.
Words she didn't understand—like threat and danger and safety protocols.
But she wasn't scared.
Because Mommy was near.
And so was the man with the stormy eyes.
She didn't know what "Papa" meant yet, not fully. But when she'd said it, when she'd tried it out in her mind earlier that day, her heart had fluttered like it knew something her brain didn't.
He smelled like cinnamon and something dark. Like the books Mommy hid in her closet. She didn't know why, but she liked him.
Her hand reached under the blanket and pulled out the locket she wasn't supposed to touch.
The one with a photo inside.
She flipped it open.
It was the same man.
Her Papa.