Chapter One: Luca

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.

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