The night air in Tuscany didn’t taste the same.

It used to be cleaner—warmer, full of distant laughter, ripe grapes, and stories whispered between the old stones of my grandfather’s vineyard. But tonight, it carried only smoke and ash.

And blood.

I stood at the edge of the olive grove behind the villa, wiping the last traces of it from my knuckles. The man lying at my feet would never speak again—another name on a long list I no longer bothered to count. He hadn’t begged. That always made it easier.

"Your tie is ruined."

Matteo’s voice came from behind me, calm and bored. He tossed me a clean cloth from his car and lit a cigarette with one hand.

I looked down at the silk. Black, now streaked with red. “It’s not the first one.”

“You should stop wearing expensive things to executions.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be an execution.”

“Luca,” he said, exhaling smoke like it was a sermon, “with you, it usually is.”

I didn’t argue. I never do. That’s what makes me good at what I do. Efficient. Forgettable. A ghost in expensive suits.

But something about tonight gnawed at me.

It wasn’t the kill. He’d earned it the moment he sold intel to the Carabinieri. No—what bothered me was why I was even here.

Tuscany.

My orders were clear. Stay low in Florence. Clean up the mess. Move on. Instead, I was standing under the same stars that had watched my childhood burn, miles from the place where my mother had died and where my father had first taught me to shoot.

And that’s when I saw the light.

A flicker through the trees—warm, golden. A lantern.

A woman’s silhouette.

She was walking toward the vines, alone, basket in hand. Midnight harvest, maybe. Some families still did that, clinging to the old ways. Her steps were light, unafraid. Like she belonged here.

But she didn’t.

Not anymore.

Tuscany didn’t belong to the innocent. It belonged to men like me.

Still, I stayed. Watched her move. There was something strange in how calm she looked, how untouched she seemed by the rot that had claimed this land. I shouldn’t have looked twice. I never do.

But I did.

She reached out to pluck a fig from a tree, brushing her dark hair behind her ear. The curve of her neck caught the moonlight. Her mouth curled in a soft smile at something I couldn’t see.

Then she turned her head.

And saw me.

Time split open.

The lantern tipped in her hand. She froze—half poised to run, half caught by the shock in her eyes. I knew that expression. Fear. But also something else.

Recognition.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she said, voice quiet but steady.

Neither was she.

My pulse kicked once. “Neither are you.”

She stepped forward—just enough for me to see her clearly. Full lips. Olive skin. Eyes like winter storms.

And then it hit me.

Sofia Romano.

I hadn’t seen her in fifteen years. The last time, we were children at war—her family on one side of a blood feud, mine on the other. I remembered the funeral her father never walked away from. The day the Moretti name was carved into her hatred.

Now she stood before me, grown and untouchable and burning with a quiet fury.

“You’ve made a mess of this land, Moretti,” she said softly.

I smiled—sharp and cold. “I was born in this mess.”

A beat passed.

Then she turned her back on me and walked away.

No fear. No stammer. No plea for mercy.

And God help me—

I wanted her to look back.

The ghosts never left.

Not in Tuscany. Not in this house. And not when a Moretti stepped through the shadows like they still owned the soil beneath their feet.

I’d heard rumors—whispers in the vineyard, low murmurs at the village bar. That the Morettis were back. That blood was moving again in the pipes of an empire we all thought had gone quiet.

But I didn’t expect him.

Luca.

His name still tasted like iron. Still rang like thunder through the memories I buried a long time ago.

I hadn’t meant to be out so late. The harvest had run behind and Nonna’s hands were tired. I volunteered to finish what she couldn’t. Maybe I wanted the silence. Maybe I liked the solitude. But I hadn’t asked for a monster in a suit to appear from the dark like some ink-stained ghost from my childhood.

And yet there he was.

Luca Moretti.

Older now. Broader. The kind of man who didn’t need to speak to make you feel the weight of his presence. He didn’t flinch when I looked at him. Didn’t blink. He just stood there, like the devil had finally decided to revisit the land he helped poison.

But I didn’t run.

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

I walked.

Deliberate. Slow. Like I had every right to pass him. And when I reached the gate of the vineyard, I didn’t look back.

Not until I heard the distant engine of a car starting up—then silence again.

Gone.

Just like that.

But I knew better. Luca never just left.

He studied. Calculated. Waited.

I entered the villa through the back. The lights were still off. Nonna was asleep upstairs, probably dreaming of a time before war crept into the bones of this family. I set the basket of fruit on the counter and washed my hands, the cold water biting at my skin.

My reflection stared back from the window. Pale. Tight-lipped. A girl I didn’t always recognize.

I’d been sixteen when my father died. Gunned down in broad daylight for daring to defy the Morettis. They called it business. We called it murder. Either way, it left a wound that Tuscany never healed from.

I’d left after the funeral. Lived with cousins in Florence. Studied. Built a life. But when Nonna got sick, I returned. For a few months, I told myself. Just long enough to help.

It had been two years.

The land wouldn’t let me go.

I tried to sleep that night, but his face lingered. The way he looked at me like I was some puzzle he’d almost forgotten how to solve. I hated it. Hated him. But part of me—a dangerous, traitorous part—remembered what he used to be before he wore blood-like cologne.

The boy who saved a stray cat with a broken leg.

The boy who hid behind a vineyard wall and dared to kiss me when no one was looking.

We were children then. Before everything burned.

Now we were strangers carrying the ruins.

The next morning, I found a note pinned to our gate.

“We need to talk. Before this gets worse.”

No name. No signature. But the handwriting was his. I’d recognize that arrogant, slanted scrawl anywhere.

I crumpled it and threw it into the trash.

But I didn’t stop thinking about it.

That afternoon, I went to the old chapel. I lit a candle for my father. For my mother. For the versions of them that existed before bloodlines became battlefields. And as I turned to leave, a shadow detached itself from the wall.

He was waiting.

Luca.

In black. Always in black.

“You said we needed to talk,” I said quietly.

He nodded once. “And you came.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I came to light a candle.”

“Liar.”

I stiffened. “You still speak like a bullet.”

“And you still walk like you own the world.”

A beat passed. The silence between us stretched taut.

He stepped forward. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“My home is here.”

“It’s not safe.”

“Oh?” I crossed my arms. “Because the Morettis made it unsafe?”

Luca flinched—barely. But I saw it.

He ran a hand down his face, and for a moment, he looked tired. Human. “Things are moving, Sofia. Old names. Old debts. You don’t want to be near this.”

“Then stay away from me.”

“I can’t.”

The words were so quiet I barely heard them.

And in that instant, something in me cracked.

Not because I believed him. But because I wanted to.

And that might be the most dangerous thing of all.

I never wanted to come back to Tuscany.

The land might be beautiful—golden fields drenched in sunlight, hills that roll like whispers, a wine that could lull the devil to sleep—but beauty doesn’t erase blood. And my family had spilled more of it than the soil could ever absorb.

When Alessandro summoned me home, I didn’t ask questions. That’s how it’s always been. He decides. I obey. I’d spent the last few years in Milan, elbows-deep in the Moretti family's filth, cleaning up messes no one talked about but everyone feared. Bribing judges. Fixing fights. Disposing of problems. No trail. No witnesses. No hesitation.

But Tuscany?

This place was a graveyard dressed as a postcard.

And yet, here I was—boots back on the land where it all started.

I told myself it was temporary. That I'd handle what needed handling and vanish before the ghosts noticed I was home. But seeing her again…

That wasn’t part of the plan.

Sofia Mancini.

She should have stayed gone. Should’ve built a new life somewhere far from this poisoned place. But no. There she was, walking through the vineyard like she had every right to be there—like her father hadn’t once tried to bring our family to its knees.

And I?

I stood there like a fool. Watching. Breathing her in.

She hadn't seen me—not really. Not until she was close enough to remember. Then her eyes found mine and time-warped. All I could hear was the wind, the rustle of grape leaves, and the thudding of a sixteen-year-old heart I'd buried long ago.

She didn’t speak. Didn’t flinch.

Just walked past like she’d already buried me.

I let her.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I sat on the terrace of the Moretti estate with a glass of grappa and my thoughts—two things that never mixed well. The house was too quiet. Too sterile. Alessandro kept it like a showroom now, all stone and glass, with none of the warmth it once held. Mama would’ve hated it.

I thought of Sofia. Of the way, she held herself like armor. I remembered the way she used to laugh—loud and full before the world taught her silence. I remembered the taste of her lips behind the chapel when we were barely more than children. And I remembered how she cried at her father's funeral while I stood yards away, stone-faced, dressed in black, the son of the man who ordered the hit.

The guilt never left. I just learned how to wear it better than most.

The next morning, I left the note.

I knew she’d find it. Knew she’d read it, even if she burned it after. Sofia was always too curious for her good.

She came.

Of course, she did.

But I didn’t expect the fire in her voice. Or the way it scorched everything inside me.

Now, sitting behind the wheel of my car outside the chapel, I watched her disappear into the trees. She didn’t know it, but I’d placed two men to watch the vineyard. Quiet, discreet. Not to spy—just to keep her safe.

Because things were shifting.

Someone was stirring up the old rivalries. A name I hadn’t heard in a long time had surfaced—Volpe. Fox. The kind of man who used charm as a weapon and vengeance as a religion. We thought we’d crushed him years ago. Apparently, he’d just gone underground.

And he wasn’t coming for Alessandro. Not yet.

He was going to go after the weak points first.

The unprotected.

Sofia.

I lit a cigarette and exhaled smoke into the chilled air.

This wasn’t about love. It couldn’t be.

Love got you killed.

This was about protection. Redemption. Fixing something I hadn’t known I’d broken until I saw her eyes again.

That night, I returned to the estate and met with Alessandro in the study.

“She saw you,” he said simply, not looking up from his tablet.

“I wasn’t hiding.”

“She’s a Mancini.”

“She’s also just a girl.”

He finally looked at me. “You know that’s not true.”

I said nothing. Because he was right.

Sofia was the one mistake I could never fully wash off.

Alessandro tapped the desk. “I need you focused.”

“I am.”

“Then prove it.”

He slid a file across the polished wood. Inside were surveillance photos, locations, and names.

Volpe's people. They were moving money through Florence again. Cleaning it through art galleries, construction companies, and wine distribution—classic fronts. But now, they’d moved some of that operation closer to Siena.

Closer to her.

“He won’t touch her,” I said.

“That’s up to you,” Alessandro said coolly.

I left without another word.

In the hallway, I passed Matteo and Dante, arguing over a weapons shipment. Matteo was already irritated, probably because someone had shorted our crates. Dante was laughing like it was all a game. That was his coping mechanism—sarcasm over sense.

I didn’t stop to listen.

I have one job now.

Keep Sofia safe.

And keep myself far enough away that she’d never learn the truth.

That it wasn’t Volpe who’d given the order on her father.

It was me.