Chapter One Hundred and Forty Seven - Brother's
(Sienna’s POV)
The city woke in smoke.
By dawn, Arcadia’s skyline was a bruise against a blood-orange sky, the storm clouds dissolving into haze that clung low over the water. Sirens pulsed in the distance, muted, tired. Somewhere between the docks and the old district, a fire still burned, the last echo of what had happened hours ago.
Sienna hadn’t slept.
She stood by the sink in the safehouse, the faucet dripping, her reflection fractured in the cracked mirror. There were blood smears on her sleeve, not hers this time. She didn’t remember how long it had been since she’d changed her clothes. Her thigh still ached, but the pain had dulled to something she could live with.
Jory was pacing. He’d been pacing since they came back.
“You’re out of your damn minds,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “You both. Going back down there, shooting council men like it’s target practice? You think they won’t come for us now?”
Sienna tightened the bandage on her leg and didn’t look at him. “They already were.”
“Yeah? Well, now they’ll send more than scouts.” He gestured toward Luca, who sat at the table, sleeves rolled, hands bloody from cleaning his gun. “You wanna tell me what the hell the plan is, or are we all just waiting to die together?”
Luca didn’t answer immediately. The silence between gunfire and his voice always felt heavier than anything he said after. Finally, he looked up.
“They’re cleaning the city,” he said. “Anyone tied to Rafael, gone. Anyone tied to me, next.”
Jory scoffed. “So what, we run?”
Luca shook his head. “No. We move first.”
Sienna met his eyes across the room. “Where?”
He unfolded a map of Arcadia, worn, water-stained, edges curling. Red Xs marked half the city. He tapped one near the industrial quarter.
“Martell’s holding his private meetings here. Warehouse sixty-eight. Off the grid, no council insignia, no security cameras. Rafael’s been there before, years ago.”
Jory frowned. “You’re thinking he’s meeting Rafael?”
“I’m thinking he already did.”
The words hit like a blade to the ribs.
Sienna stepped forward, leaning over the map. “If Martell’s working with Rafael, that means the council’s split. It’s not just a cleanup, it’s a coup.”
Luca nodded once. “Rafael’s rewriting the hierarchy. And Martell thinks he’ll come out on top.”
Jory blew out a slow breath. “So what’s our part in this genius plan?”
Luca’s tone was calm, almost too calm. “We go there tonight. We watch, we listen. And if Rafael’s there ”..
Sienna cut in, voice sharp. “We don’t confront him. Not yet.”
His gaze flicked toward her, unreadable. “You think I can’t handle him?”
“I think that’s exactly what he wants you to believe.”
The muscle in his jaw twitched. “You think I don’t know him by now?”
“No,” she said quietly. “I think you know him too well.”
The silence that followed was knife-edge thin. Jory muttered something under his breath about stubborn fools and walked off toward the back room, giving them space he didn’t want to be in the middle of.
Sienna stayed where she was.
“Luca,” she said after a moment. “He’s baiting you. The knife at the docks, the message through the boy, he’s pulling your strings.”
Luca stood, his chair scraping against the floor. “Then it’s time I cut them.”
He holstered his pistol and grabbed his coat.
They left the city that night when the fog rolled in again, wrapping the streets in silver smoke. The safehouse lights flickered out behind them, a fading heartbeat.
Jory drove this time, the old sedan rattling with every pothole. Sienna sat in the back beside Luca, her eyes on the city lights fading into the distance. The hum of the engine filled the silence neither of them seemed willing to break.
When they reached the industrial quarter, the air was colder. The warehouses lined the river like skeletons, empty shells of a trade long gone.
Warehouse sixty-eight stood at the far end, half-hidden behind a wall of stacked containers. A few lights glowed faintly inside.
Jory parked in the shadows, cutting the engine. “Tell me again why we’re doing this instead of putting bullets in both their heads?”
“Because I need to see it,” Luca said. “Need to know who’s holding the knife.”
Sienna checked her gun, then the small earpiece in her pocket. “We stay out of sight. We listen, we record. We leave before anyone knows we were here.”
“Right,” Jory muttered. “Easy as breaking into hell.”
They slipped out of the car and into the fog. The ground was slick with oil and rain. Luca led the way, his movements controlled, precise, the kind of quiet that came from years of surviving places like this. Sienna covered their flank, scanning the shadows.
The back door to the warehouse was unlocked. That alone set every alarm in her head ringing.
Inside, the space opened wide, empty crates stacked high, the air thick with the smell of dust and fuel. From somewhere deeper in the building came the low murmur of voices.
They crept closer, staying low behind the steel columns until they could see the source.
A meeting.
Martell sat at the head of a long metal table, flanked by two of his men. Across from him, Rafael.
Alive.
He looked almost the same. The same sharp smile, the same eyes that glinted like he knew every secret you’d ever tried to hide. But there was something colder in him now, something carved deeper.
Sienna’s heart kicked hard against her ribs. She glanced at Luca. His hand had tightened around his weapon, knuckles white.
Rafael’s voice carried clearly across the floor. “You said you wanted order, Martell. Control. That’s what I’m offering. A new Arcadia. Clean. Efficient. No more loyalty to ghosts.”
Martell’s expression was thin, calculating. “And Romano?”
Rafael smiled. “He’s the last ghost. Once he’s gone, the rest will fall in line.”
Sienna saw it, the shift in Luca’s face, the storm breaking behind his eyes. She moved fast, pressing a hand to his arm. “Don’t,” she whispered.
But it was too late.
Luca stepped from the shadows, gun raised. “You should’ve stayed dead.”
The room froze.
Rafael turned, slow, deliberate, his smile widening. “Luca. I was wondering when you’d stop hiding.”
Martell surged to his feet, shouting, but Luca didn’t even look at him. His focus was locked entirely on the man across the table, the man who’d burned half his life to ash.
“You killed my crew,” Luca said, voice low, steady. “You killed my brother.”
Rafael’s expression didn’t change. “No. I freed you from them. From all of it. You just never learned to thank me.”
Gunfire erupted before Sienna could move.
Luca dove for cover, pulling her down with him as bullets shredded the crates behind them. Jory fired from the mezzanine above, his voice a string of curses. Martell’s men scattered, shouting orders.
Smoke filled the air, thick, choking. The lights above shattered.
Sienna fired blind toward movement, hearing someone scream. She felt Luca move beside her, felt the heat of his rage more than she saw him.
Then, silence.
Just the creak of metal, the hiss of steam.
When she blinked through the haze, Rafael was gone. Martell was slumped against the table, blood spreading beneath him.
Luca stood over him, breathing hard.
“He’s gone,” Sienna said, scanning the shadows. “He planned this.”
Luca’s eyes were distant. “He always plans everything.”
She reached for him. “We have to go. Now.”
But he didn’t move. He was staring at something on the table, a photograph.
He picked it up.
It was of the boy. Same one from the safehouse. Only this time, Rafael stood behind him, hand on his shoulder.
Sienna’s stomach turned. “What the hell is this?”
Luca’s grip tightened on the photo until it bent. “It means Rafael got to him first.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the boy isn’t a witness.” His voice was hollow, dangerous. “He’s leverage.”
Jory dropped down from above, coughing through the smoke. “We need to move before the cops show. Whatever game he’s playing ”.
Luca cut him off. “He’s not playing. He’s building something.”
Sienna looked around the wreckage, the blood, the fire starting to spread. “Then we stop him before he finishes.”
Luca’s eyes met hers, the reflection of the flames burning in them. “No,” he said quietly. “We finish it.”
He turned toward the exit, the photograph still clenched in his hand, and walked into the night.
Sienna followed, the heat of the fire chasing them out into the rain, knowing the war had just begun, and this time, it wasn’t just between brothers.
It was between the living and the ghosts they’d made.