Blood was supposed to be sacred.
But Valentina was learning that, in the Cruz family, it was currency and anyone could trade it for the right price.
The discovery of the vial should've given her clarity.
Instead, it gave her a hundred new questions.
She stared at the glowing glass now tucked inside her velvet robe pocket, pacing the halls of the Milan estate, her pulse louder than the echo of her bare feet.
Someone knew she had it.
Because less than an hour after the photo was sent to Lorenzo, an encrypted call came through. Anonymous. Untraceable. But the voice had been familiar.
Her uncle.
Esteban Cruz.
The Cruz family's "legitimate" face in Madrid. A polished politician with a tongue made of honey and knives. Her father's younger brother. Her mother's silent enemy.
He hadn't called in months.
And when he did, it was with a warning that bled betrayal.
"Your father doesn't know, yet. But he will. Someone leaked what you found. That vial Elena's secret? It won't stay yours for long."
"How do you know about the vial?" she demanded.
"Because I helped Elena hide it."
Valentina froze, blood chilling.
Esteban had always stayed distant, polite, cold like a man watching a chess match he refused to play. But now he spoke with urgency. Fear.
"Arturo was never meant to find it. Neither were you. Your mother entrusted it to me, Valentina. You were too young. Too emotional. And now you've exposed yourself."
"Exposed myself to what?"
"The Ricci legacy."
"She was a Ricci?"
"She was the Ricci."
The silence that followed buzzed like electricity through her spine.
Her mother wasn't just cartel royalty.
She was the first daughter of the Ricci bloodline. The true heir. A bloodline steeped in biochemistry, betrayal, and black-market pharmaceutical warfare. Long thought extinct.
"The vial you hold isn't poison," Esteban said. "It's inheritance. A biochemical marker. A catalyst. And if Arturo finds out you've activated it"
"He'll what? Kill me?" Valentina asked bitterly.
"No. He'll use you. The same way he used her. Until she disappeared."
"She didn't disappear. She died."
"You keep telling yourself that."
The call ended.
Valentina stood in the darkness, alone, her mother's ghost whispering through the hallways.
Her fingers curled around the vial like a lifeline.
If Esteban was right then Arturo hadn't just murdered his wife's memory.
He was planning to resurrect her legacy for himself.
And Valentina had just inherited the war Elena had tried to escape.
Venice – Moretti Estate
Lorenzo stood shirtless in front of the fireplace, his back a map of scars. Alejandro watched from the doorway.
"She's not safe anymore," Alejandro said quietly.
"She never was," Lorenzo replied.
"Do you trust her?"
"I trust her blood," he murmured. "Because it burns like mine."
Alejandro hesitated. "And Emilio?"
Lorenzo's eyes hardened. "He's moving. I can feel it."
Then, his phone lit up.
A new number.
But the message wasn't words.
Just an image.
An old photo.
Elena Cruz.
Pregnant.
Wearing the Ricci pendant.
The background? A villa Lorenzo had visited as a boy with his mother.
His hand trembled.
Because in the corner of the photo was his father.
Don Massimo Moretti.