It's safe to say we've been on the road for over two hours now, well past the perimeter of the land I'm trying to acquire.
And still, the driver presses forward.
The farther we go, the clearer it becomes: this place was never meant to be found.
The road deteriorates with every mile, first gravel, then dirt, and finally a winding trail choked by overgrown branches and twisted roots. Trees loom thick and tall on either side, forming a canopy so dense it feels like we're being swallowed whole by the forest. Whatever lies ahead was deliberately hidden, buried under layers of silence, distance, and fear.
Sebastian shifts beside me in the passenger seat, restless. "This doesn't feel like a business estate," he mutters.
"No," I say, watching the shadows crawl across the windshield. "It doesn't."
This isn't just remote. It's concealed.
And no one goes to such lengths unless they have something, or someone to hide.
Dario De Luca has refused every meeting, blocked every negotiation. But you can't keep secrets from me forever. Not with my reach. Not with my resources.
Eventually, everyone folds.
We round one last bend, and the path opens into a clearing. Ahead stands a rusted iron gate, tall, grim, and patched together with scrap metal and steel mesh. It's makeshift, but imposing. A guardhouse sits off to the left, little more than a shack with a satellite dish and two men watching us approach, each cradling a shotgun.
Sebastian mutters, "Charming."
One of them walks toward the lead car in our convoy, exchanges a few words with my driver, then makes his way to me. He doesn't knock. Just waits, posture stiff, expression flat.
I roll down the window.
"You're trespassing," he says, tone clipped.
"I'm here to see Dario De Luca."
His eyebrows twitch slightly. "You have an appointment?"
"No."
"Then you need to leave."
"Tell him it's Caspian Rossini," I reply, cool and firm. "He'll change his mind."
Recognition flickers in his eyes. There it is the name has weight.
He says nothing, just nods and walks off, speaking into a radio as he disappears behind the gate.
The delay gives me time to study the surroundings. Cameras are nailed to trees, covering every angle. A few people move inside the compound, but even from here, I can tell something's off. No one's talking. No one lingers. Movements are fast, practiced, robotic.
Controlled.
I glance at Sebastian.
"This isn't a residence," he says. "It's a facility."
I nod. "And not the legal kind."
Minutes pass before the gate groans open. We're waved inside.
The compound is sprawling. Low buildings, too symmetrical, too sterile. They've tried to dress it up, painted walls, window boxes, fake charm, but beneath the surface, it's a machine. There's a rhythm to how people move. Groups of women are escorted by men with clipboards. Delivery trucks are being unloaded in silence. Every corner is watched.
Not just guarded, monitored.
I recognize the signs.
This isn't a community or a retreat.
It's a processing center.
No barbed wire. No sirens. But the security is airtight. Everyone here plays a part, some willing, some clearly not.
Sebastian leans forward, watching a man input a code into a keypad before unlocking a reinforced door. "This is a front," he mutters.
I nod. "Trafficking. Has to be."
We pass what looks like a dormitory, curtains drawn tight, air conditioners humming despite the mild weather. Another group of girls walks by with heads bowed, escorted by a man speaking into a phone.
No one makes eye contact.
The silence is oppressive.
This isn't survival.
It's submission.
And if this is what De Luca has built behind those legal facades, then I've just stepped into something far uglier than a land dispute.
My fists clench in my lap as we turn down another road flanked by vines, rows of grapevines that seem carefully pruned, but there's something off about them. It's all for show. The grapes are cover.
The convoy wound slowly through the estate, a mix of matte-black SUVs and tinted sedans kicking up light dust along the narrow, tree-lined path. I watched the landscape pass by—vines crawling up the walls of aging buildings, stone paths laid with surgical symmetry. Everything was too controlled. Too clean for somewhere trying so hard to stay hidden.
A car was approaching from the opposite direction.
It wasn't one of Dario's security trucks.
It was sleek, black, with narrow tinted windows that gleamed beneath the lowering sun.
It slid out from curved driveway. My eyes narrowed as I leaned forward slightly, curious.
The car was high-end, quiet, unmarked, not standard transport.
It drew towards ours just as we reached a turn, and that's when I saw her.
She looked nothing like the people we'd passed so far. There was something about her presence, unbothered, commanding, almost regal.
She wasn't hurried, wasn't afraid.
Her hair, dark as ink, framed her face in soft waves that caught the light. Her skin glowed like honey against the pale blue of her dress, and her eyes, God, her eyes, were like twin flames of ice.
Piercing, striking.
Blue, like summer lightning.
She was stunning.
Not in the polished, predictable way I was used to seeing in my circles. No. She was something else entirely.
Earthy and fierce, like the storm before the downpour. Her lips, full and slightly parted, curved in a distracted pout, like she was lost in thought.
Then her gaze lifted.
And found mine.
For a moment, just a heartbeat, we were locked there, trapped in some strange current neither of us could escape.
Her eyes widened slightly, almost like she felt it too.
That pull.
That impossible knowing.
Then it was over.
She looked away.
Just a few seconds.
Long enough to burn her into memory.
Then the moment shattered. Her car rolled past, fading into a cloud of dust behind us.
But her eyes stayed with me.
"She's not one of the guards," I muttered.
Sebastian turned his head. "What?"
"The girl in that car. She's not security. Not staff."
He looked ahead, unimpressed. "Probably just one of De Luca's mistresses. Or a visiting daughter of some European snake."
"No," I said. "She doesn't belong to this place. But she's tied to it."
And if I knew anything about the way Dario De Luca operated, anyone tied to his world either had power…
Or was in danger.
I kept my eyes on the black car until it disappeared through another gate up the hill.
Whoever she was, she wasn't just a face in passing.
She was the reason my pulse wouldn't settle.
And I needed to know why.
We drive for ten more minutes, then pull to a stop in front of a white mansion, the largest building on the property, surrounded by another reinforced gate and four guards stationed at the front. Likely De Luca's base of operations.
Sleek on the outside. Rot at its core.
The guards don't bother to search us. They're expecting me now.
We're ushered through the gate and into the main house.
Inside, the contrast is jarring. The floors are polished marble, the walls decorated with gold-framed art and antique mirrors. The illusion of power. Prestige. Class.
But nothing can mask the stench of fear outside.
The man who greets us in the foyer is sharply dressed, but there's an edge to his movements, too rehearsed, too formal. Another puppet on De Luca's string.
"Mr. Rossini," he says with a smile that doesn't touch his eyes. "Right this way."
He leads us down a hallway that smells faintly of cigar smoke and disinfectant. Every turn we take, another camera watches.
Eventually, he opens a tall set of double doors and gestures us inside.
Dario De Luca is already waiting, seated behind a massive oak desk that dominates the room. He doesn't rise. He barely even smiles.
"Caspian," he says, his voice smooth, controlled. "To what do I owe the visit?"
"You know why I'm here," I reply, stepping in. "The land. The stalled sale. The roadblocks."
He spreads his hands innocently. "Ah. Business."
"You're not running a business out there," I say, voice low. "You're running a pipeline."
A flicker of amusement crosses his face. "Those are dangerous accusations."
"They're not accusations," I reply. "They're observations. And I don't need to see much more to know exactly what this is."
Sebastian stands silent behind me, tense.
Dario leans back. "You've come a long way to make threats."
"I don't make threats," I say, stepping forward. "I make offers. Once."
His jaw tightens, ever so slightly.
"I don't know what you've got on the director he has refused to sell me the land at the beginning of the road... after some... persuasion, the director let slip the real reason. He claims the proximity to your residence here makes the sale problematic. Which, frankly, is absurd. The land is not even close. Make him sell the land, sign the deed.
I'll walk away, and no one hears a word about what I saw today."
"And if I don't?"
"Then I bring eyes here," I say. "Government. Journalists. NGOs. And I don't stop until this entire operation collapses."
He smiles again, but there's no humor in it now. "You think I haven't buried worse men than you?"
I step closer.
"And you think I've built an empire on fear alone? You're hiding behind men with guns and girls with no voice. That's not power, Dario. That's cowardice."
For a moment, the room holds its breath.
Then Dario chuckles, leans forward, and places his hands on the desk.
"You think you've won something today?"
I meet his gaze. "Not yet."
"But you will."
"I always do."
He studies me for a long time, then finally nods towards the door "Show Mr. Rossini out."
Sebastian and I are escorted back through the mansion, through the gate, past the cold faces of guards and the hollow silence of the compound. But now, I've seen what I needed to see.
This isn't about land anymore.
This is about leverage.
And soon, this entire place will burn.