Chapter 510 - CHAPTER 510 — Brothers at War

Midnight had settled over Blackpine Forest with such profound stillness that even the wind seemed reluctant to disturb the ancient trees, whose black branches intertwined above the clearing like the fingers of some enormous creature guarding a secret buried beneath the roots. Alessandro De Luca stood at the centre of that silence, his dark coat damp with the cold mist, one hand resting loosely beside his thigh while his gaze remained fixed upon the figure emerging between the pines. He had imagined this moment in anger, in grief, and in the sleepless hours when memory became crueler than any enemy, yet now that Alexander was finally standing before him, Alessandro felt none of those things with the certainty he had expected. What remained was something far more dangerous: the aching recognition of the brother he had once loved.