Chapter 59: Between the rivers and the mountain of desires
Bianca’s heart drummed like a fist against her ribs as she stood before the rusted black gates of the house on Garam Street.
The address felt like fate whispered it into her ear.
She had followed Jackson’s bus for nearly an hour, her palms sweating against the leather seat of the taxi, her eyes glued to the boy’s profile against the windowpane.
"Those eyes.... Blue like a storm rolling over the sea"....
Now, she was here.
Her lips trembled as she rehearsed her opening words in the shadows of the gate, whispering to herself like a woman gone mad.
"Hi... I’m Bianca Williams. Twelve years ago, my son was pulled into river basket, I think you picked him up..."
"No, no, that sounds desperate..." She shook her head and started again.
"Bianca Williams here, I came far because of coincidence, because of fate... the blue-eyed boy is my son..."
She stopped mid-sentence, her voice cracking. What am I saying?
Just then, the creak of the gate startled her.
A slim young woman stepped out, auburn hair tied in a messy bun, eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Excuse me, ma’am? We don’t entertain strangers loitering around our home," the young woman said.
Bianca’s stomach clenched. "I... I’m sorry. Are your parents in? I need to speak to them briefly. It’s important."
The girl’s suspicion softened into reluctant curiosity. "Wait here."
Moments later, the gate opened wider. "Come in."
Bianca’s legs nearly buckled, but she forced herself to walk through. Inside, her entire body buzzed with something that was both terror and hope.
She was walking into a home where fate had hidden her son.
******
Far away from Garam Street, Alessia and Luca were threading a path far more treacherous one not paved by fate but carved by fire and shadow.
Their convoy of men had packed canned food, bottled water, dry snacks nothing that could rot on a journey into Virenkai.
"Network’s dead," Luca muttered, glaring at his phone. "Damn it."
"Then we go back to the old ways," Alessia said softly, pulling the ancient map from her jacket.
The parchment was older than memory itself, lines jagged and cryptic, symbols bleeding into one another like riddles only a wise soul could understand.
The path led them toward the mountain. A spine of jagged rock rising endlessly into the clouds.
Below it, like the veins of the earth split open, roared a river so deep and furious it looked ready to swallow the world whole.
Alessia’s breath caught. "Do we really have to cross this?"
"Yes," Luca said, his voice iron and comfort all at once.
His warm hand slipped into hers. "I’ll never let you fall, "àmorè mió". Not now, not ever."
Her heart trembled. How can a man be both death itself and yet the only breath I trust?
The climb was brutal. The mountain surface was cold, slippery, cruel. Rocks crumbled beneath their boots. Darkness fell quickly, smothering them with the scent of damp stone and rushing water below.
They set camp on a flat ledge, as the sunset and night falls, laying out a foldable canvas shelter.
Soldiers slept in one, two people in each. While Luca and Alessia curled in the other, their bodies pressed against the chill.
"Don’t worry," Luca whispered, pulling her closer when she shivered. "The mountain is wide enough. Even if you roll from this end to the other, you won’t fall."
Alessia laughed weakly, her fear softened by his steady tone. "It’s creepy knowing we’re lying above a river that could swallow us whole."
"When will this end, Luca? When will we reach your mother in Virenkai? I hope she’s alive... I hope she’s not hurt."
Luca’s frowned his face, his eyes burning with a promise that made her breath freeze. "If they dared touch her... if they laid one hand on my mother... I’ll turn Virenkai into ash. I’ll make sure no living thing breathes under its cursed sky again."
"You’re terrifyingly protective," Alessia whispered.
But he didn’t answer. His eyes lingered on her instead, so intense she squirmed beneath their weight.
"Luca?" she asked softly.
He blinked. "Forgive me. I get carried away when it’s you. You’ve stolen my heart, Alessia. Captivated my soul. And tonight... tonight I won’t just hold you. I must have you."
Her lips parted. "Here? In the middle of a mountain?"
He didn’t answer with words. Instead, he kissed he. .. hard, hungry, devastating. The kiss melted every shred of fear until only fire was left.
Clothes tore like fragile paper beneath desperate hands. His pants dropped. His long length, thick and hard d*cm pressed against her thigh. Her lingerie shredded under his grip.
"Luca.... " she gasped, already trembling.
"Be my mother tonight," he whispered in a sinful growl, "feed me, make me lose myself in you."
Her voice came low, sultry, breaking. "The way you talk, the way you make me ache... you ruin me, Luca Morano."
He bent, sucking her breast into his mouth, devouring as if he could taste the very essence of her. His tongue circled her nipple until it stood hard, aching, begging. His hand slid down, parting her thighs.
"So wet already," he murmured against her skin. "Your body’s begging for me."
Then, with one smooth thrust, he buried himself inside her tight, dripping core.
Alessia cried out, her nails sinking into his back.
The mountain could have split apart and the river swallowed them, but all she felt was him... stroking, filling, claiming, Harder, slower, deeper, faster.
He f*cked her like she was the only world that mattered, whispering filth in her ear, making her shiver with every dirty promise.
She writhed, riding his rhythm, meeting him thrust for thrust until sweat beaded their skin.
Their moans mingled with the river’s roar below, a symphony of lust and love.
Again and again they came undone, collapsing only to rise into another wave. He sucked, stroked, claimed, whispered, until the sky paled with dawn.
At last, naked and spent, they lay tangled together. Luca kissed her hair. "You milked me dry again, my little angel."
"And you broke me sweetly," Alessia murmured, falling into sleep against his chest.
******
Back in the Morano mansion, silence ruled the halls. The family’s great walls, usually echoing with voices, were now haunted only by the patrol of guards and the whisper of wind across marble floors.
But silence never stayed long in a house built on secrets.
The Morano mansion at night was a place that seemed to breathe secrets.
Every marble tile, every carved archway, every shadow cast against the gold-lined walls carried whispers of things never said aloud.
To outsiders, it was an empire built on blood, loyalty, and fear; but to those within, it was also a peaceful safe haven.
Lauren knew this better than anyone.
He wasn’t Morano by blood, not by name, but by circumstance. He had managed what few ever could he had been welcomed into the lion’s den. Or at least, that’s what they thought. What Luca Morano and the rest didn’t see was the faint curl of a smile at the edge of Lauren’s mouth every time their backs turned, every time he was left in the silence of his borrowed room.
The boy was young, too young for the depth of shadows in his eyes, but he was not naïve.
He had been born into duplicity, raised in the language of deceit, and carved into sharpness by a mother who never once let him forget the family he truly belonged to. And so, when the mansion fell quiet that night, when footsteps had ceased to echo through the halls and even the guards had retired into their posted shadows, Lauren finally acted.
*****
He sat on the edge of the bed, motionless for a moment, listening.
The silence in the Morano estate was deceptive, thick and heavy, but alive.
The kind of silence that could be broken at any second by the sound of boots on polished marble or a gun’s safety clicking open.
Lauren’s fingers twitched on his lap, and his chest rose slowly as he drew in a deep breath.
From beneath the mattress, he pulled out the object he had kept hidden since his arrival.
A small, beaten-down phone, no larger than the palm of his hand.
It’s casing was cracked, its buttons worn, and to anyone else it would have seemed nothing but junk.
But to Lauren, it was his lifeline the invisible string tethering him to the world outside these gilded walls, the only weapon sharper than a blade.
The screen flickered weakly when he pressed the power button, casting a dim, ghostly glow over his face.
He typed swiftly, his thumb moving with practiced precision.
This was not the kind of phone one used for idle chatter. No one outside his bloodline knew it existed. It was meant for one thing and one thing only... Communication that could never be traced.
The signal connected.
He pressed the phone to his ear, and his lips parted.
"Hello mother."... He said