Chapter 5 THE RED BOOK

OBSIDIAN VEINS

Book One – The Spark & The Secret

CHAPTER FIVE: The Red Book

"Sometimes, loyalty kills quicker than betrayal."

CARMINE CITY – RICCI TERRITORY – NIGHT

The streets south of Croce Boulevard were boiling.

A Ricci capo was dead. Shot at a Moreau gala. In Ricci culture, that wasn't a message-it was a war hymn.

Vittorio Ricci, the godfather himself, sat in silence at the head of a black stone table, a heavy crystal tumbler sweating in his hand. No music. No conversation. Only the rhythmic ticking of a gold watch and the distant echo of the storm outside.

In front of him was a file.

A blurry photo of a girl in a silver mask.

And beside it: a burnt-edge note.

"She is hers."

EVA

The Moreau Archives were buried three floors beneath a former cathedral, behind enough steel to survive a bomb.

But I had one thing they didn't expect-I wasn't afraid of them.

And I had Siena's blood on my hands, figuratively speaking. I owed her. I owed her mother. And if Siena's mother really was who I thought she was... then the answers were here.

I picked the lock to the server room in less than thirty seconds.

The flickering screen buzzed to life.

Password? Easy.

ElenaRicci.

A folder blinked open:

"Codename: RED BOOK"

SIENA – EARLIER THAT NIGHT

I sat on the velvet window seat of my guest room in the Moreau mansion. The sky outside split with thunder.

And yet the real storm was inside my chest.

My fingers traced the edges of a key. The only thing my mother gave me before she died. I used to think it was sentimental. Now I knew it was strategic.

It opened a box in the Moreau west wing. A place Nikolai had never taken me.

A room that hadn't been touched in fifteen years.

When I crept down the west corridor and found the door-number 19-it unlocked with a soft click.

Inside was a forgotten study. Dust cloaked the furniture like a shroud.

And there, on the desk, wrapped in red leather and bound with a brass lock:

The Book.

I opened it. And the world changed.

THE RED BOOK

It wasn't a diary. It was a ledger.

A record of names, payoffs, affairs, murders.

Elena Ricci-my mother-had written everything.

Moreau men listed beside Ricci accounts.

Politicians bought with drugs.

Judges compromised with evidence.

And at the center of it all: a name scribbled again and again.

"NIKOLAI M."

Next to it: "do not trust."

My breath caught.

And beneath her handwriting, a newer note in darker ink:

If she finds this book, protect her. Or bury her.

- E.R.

LATE NIGHT – MOREAU ESTATE

Nikolai paced his office like a caged beast.

The package had arrived ten minutes ago. No return address.

Inside: a lock of dark hair, tied with a gold ribbon.

Siena's hair.

And a note:

You took what was Ricci's. We'll take her back-piece by piece.

Lucien stood in the doorway, watching Nikolai grip the paper so tightly his knuckles cracked.

"She needs to disappear," Lucien said coldly.

"She's not a pawn."

"She's Ricci blood."

"She's not him."

"She will be."

Nikolai slammed the drawer shut. "Find the source. Burn them."

EVA – LATER

I ran. Footsteps thundered behind me.

Someone had triggered a silent alarm.

The server data was on a flash drive shoved in my bra. My boots slipped on the marble as I turned a sharp corner, nearly colliding with a security guard.

He swung.

I ducked, caught him in the ribs with my elbow, grabbed his gun and pistol-whipped him unconscious.

I wasn't a killer.

But tonight, I was close.

Outside, I hit the alley running and slipped into a van parked in the shadows.

"Go," I screamed. "DRIVE!"

The engine roared. I didn't breathe until we hit highway.

SIENA – BACK IN HER ROOM

I didn't sleep.

The Red Book sat under my pillow like a grenade.

I had a choice: expose what I knew-and destroy everything-or burn it, and become like them.

But then the knock came.

Not the door.

The window.

I pulled back the curtain.

And Nikolai stood there, in the rain.

NIKOLAI

"I got your scent in the mail," I said.

She froze.

"They sent me your hair."

Her hand instinctively moved to her braid.

"And you came to... what? Return it?"

"No."

I stepped inside. Rain on my jacket. Storm behind me.

"I came to tell you that you're not safe anymore."

She narrowed her eyes. "I was never safe."

"Not from Ricci. Not from me."

Her breath hitched.

"And still you came?" she whispered.

"I couldn't stay away."

She turned. "What if I told you I found something?"

"Then I'd ask you to give it to me."

"What if I said it could ruin you?"

He stepped close.

"Then I'd ask you to burn it. And stay."

SIENA – HER POV

Something cracked inside me.

He stood soaked, haunted, raw.

Not the poised king of the gala, not the killer in the alley.

A man. Tired. Barely holding it together.

"You're a monster," I whispered.

"I know."

"And I think I might be one too."

His hand brushed mine.

"You want to see how deep it goes?" he asked.

I should've said no.

Instead I said, "Show me."