Chapter 199 Alessandro Virelli
Chapter 199 Alessandro Virelli
Third-person POV,
At the same time in the Kórvac Mansion.
The Kórvac mansion had never been this loud.
The communications room had descended into controlled chaos as voices overlapped one another, soldiers rushed from one console to the next, and every available frequency dissolved into nothing but static. No matter how many times they attempted to reconnect with Team A, every transmission died before a single coherent word could be heard.
Lucien wasn’t answering.
Neither was Dante.
Nor Nikolai.
Elara stood several feet away from everyone else with her back against the wall, biting at the skin around her fingernails until they bled. Every failed attempt to establish contact tightened the knot in her chest until breathing itself became difficult.
Her thoughts refused to slow down, replaying the contents of Matteo's file over and over until she could barely distinguish memory from panic.
She had been right.
She prayed she had been wrong.
The contradiction was driving her mad.
Noemi was arguing with one of the communications officers while Celene paced relentlessly across the room, her expression growing colder with every passing second.
“It doesn’t make sense," Celene muttered. “If Lucien had reached the rendezvous point by now, somebody would’ve reported in.”
Nobody answered.
There was nothing left to say.
Elara pressed both palms against her face before dragging them upward into her hair, gripping the roots so tightly that tears immediately sprang into her eyes.
She couldn’t think.
She couldn’t breathe.
She couldn’t—
Celene stopped walking, and her breath caught.
“...No.”
The single word was so quiet that nobody reacted.
Elara looked over.
“What?”
Celene didn’t answer.
Instead, she crossed the room slowly, staring at Elara with an expression that became increasingly unreadable the closer she came.
“What?” Elara repeated.
Still nothing.
Without warning, Celene reached forward and grabbed a fistful of Elara’s hair.
“What are you doing?!”
Elara winced as Celene yanked her head backward. The movement exposed the side of her neck completely.
The birthmark.
For years, Elara had never thought twice about it. But for decades, Celene had never forgotten it.
Her fingers began trembling.
“No…”
She leaned closer, then her entire body froze.
“It…” Her voice cracked. “It can’t…”
Elara pulled against her grip.
“Celene, you’re hurting me.”
Celene barely heard her.
Ten years vanished from her mind in an instant.
She was no longer standing inside the communications room.
She was standing aboard a pirate ship with blood soaking the deck while a little girl no older than fifteen wrapped both tiny arms around a frightened teenage boy and screamed at armed men twice her size.
“No!”
“You can’t take him!”
“He’s mine!”
She remembered those furious little green eyes. She remembered the birthmark. She remembered that impossible courage.
Celene stumbled backward as though she’d been struck.
Her lips parted, and her eyes filled with tears.
“It’s you.”
The room fell silent, and Elara frowned.
“What?”
Celene looked at her as though she were seeing a ghost.
“It’s you.”
“What are you talking about?”
Celene slowly raised a trembling hand toward Elara's face.
“You…” Her voice broke completely. “...you’re the pirate girl.”
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
Celene shook her head in disbelief before whispering the words that shattered the room.
“You’re the little girl who wouldn’t let Lucien go.”
~~
At the same time in The Dungeon
While panic consumed the Kórvac mansion and Matteo celebrated his victory elsewhere, another operation unfolded beneath the burning remains of the Virelli estate.
Above ground, explosions continued to tear through the mansion as bullets echoed across the courtyard. Smoke rolled through shattered windows, soldiers exchanged relentless gunfire, and flames climbed higher with every passing minute. The battle had become exactly what Dante intended it to become: a distraction large enough to pull Matteo’s remaining forces away from the one place Lucien believed mattered most.
Deep beneath the mansion, where centuries of stone muffled every explosion above, Viktor and Kallian descended into darkness.
The staircase seemed endless.
Each level grew colder than the last until even Kallian’s enhanced senses struggled to ignore the damp air that clung to the walls. Rust coated the iron railings, water dripped steadily from the ceiling, and every footstep echoed through corridors that looked abandoned decades ago.
Neither man spoke, and the silence itself demanded respect.
At the very end of the corridor stood a single iron door.
Unlike every other door they had passed, this one showed signs of constant use. The lock had been replaced recently, the hinges carried fresh scratches, and beside it rested several empty food trays that had yet to gather dust.
Kallian looked toward Viktor.
“This is it.”
Viktor nodded once.
“It has to be.”
He inserted the final key, and the lock clicked. The heavy door groaned open. The smell reached them before the room did.
Blood.
Rust.
Mold.
Decay.
Kallian instinctively covered his nose.
“What the…”
The room beyond contained almost nothing except chains bolted into every wall and a single figure suspended from the ceiling.
His wrists were restrained, his ankles were chained apart, and his head hung forward, hidden beneath long strands of fiery red hair that reached almost to his waist.
For a long moment, neither Viktor nor Kallian moved. Then the prisoner slowly lifted his head.
Green eyes opened.
Bright and sharp. Still burning despite everything that had clearly been done to him.
Kallian’s heart stopped. The face staring back at them looked impossibly familiar.
Not identical, not quite.
But close enough that the resemblance stole the air from his lungs.
It was Elara.
If Elara had been born a man.
Viktor’s face drained of every trace of color. He took one unsteady step forward before whispering a single name.
“...Alessandro.”
Kallian turned toward him, confused.
“Alessandro?”
Silence settled between them. Then realization slowly crept across Kallian's face. His eyes widened.
“You mean…”
He looked back at the prisoner.
“...Alessandro Virelli?”