A Saint’s Madness

Luciano hadn't left the graveyard in two days.

Rain poured, soaking through his black shirt, but he didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't breathe deeply.

Until Simon arrived—white-knuckled, jaw locked.

> "It wasn't her."

Luciano turned slowly. Eyes hollow. Voice broken.

> "What did you say?"

Simon handed him a report. DNA.

> "The girl in the casket wasn't Grace.

She was planted."

Luciano didn't react for a full minute.

Then he exploded.

The tombstone cracked under his boot.

The silence that followed wasn't peace.

It was a storm paused mid-scream.

> "Someone is playing God with me," he said darkly, voice like gravel and fire.

"And I'm going to burn heaven down to find them."

---

Meanwhile in Venice...

Grace stepped out of the apothecary disguised as a local art dealer named Emilia Vercetti.

A man followed her.

Subtle. Good at pretending to be bad at following her.

But she knew better.

She let him tail her into an alley.

And then—

> "You were better off faking my death than chasing me," she whispered, turning fast and holding a knife to his gut.

The man smirked.

"Luciano isn't the only one who wants you found, Grace."

Her grip tightened.

"Who sent you?"

He laughed.

> "Let's just say... someone else is tired of watching a saint play savior."

He lunged.

She stabbed.

He bled.

But before he died, he said one thing that made her knees buckle:

> "Your mother… didn't die in childbirth like you were told."

Then silence.

---

Elsewhere…

Luciano found something in the autopsy report.

The woman who died wasn't random.

She was an orphan from Naples.

With a missing brother.

A brother who used to work for the Morettis.

> "This is personal," Luciano growled.

> "Whoever staged her death wants Grace out of the light.

And me in the dark."

He looked at the cracked tombstone.

Then whispered,

> "Not today, bella.

Not when I still have blood left to spill for you."

---