The night air in Sicily was different now. It carried something heavier, laced with the stench of gunpowder and blood. As the household settled into a stunned silence, Leona found herself sitting on the stone ledge of the balcony, away from the hushed conversations inside. The stars above shimmered like distant memories, beautiful and cold.
She had shown them a part of her tonight. A part she had buried for years.
Not Leona Vale, the soft-hearted girl who served drinks at a bar. Not even Vesper, the phantom assassin feared in the underworld.
But something else — someone caught in between.
She didn't regret it. Not really. The child's scream had pierced something raw in her. Her body had moved on instinct, driven by rage she hadn't known she could still feel. But now, sitting alone, the aftermath was beginning to settle like dust on her skin.
Her fingers clenched the stone.
They had seen her.
Valerio had seen her.
And yet, he hadn't recoiled. If anything, he had looked at her with something she couldn't define. Was it fear? Was it awe? She couldn't tell. She wasn't sure she wanted to know.
"You did what none of us could have," Dante had whispered.
But those words didn't bring her peace.
Because for the first time in years, Vesper felt exposed.
And that terrified her.
The next morning, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her reflection was smeared with everything she was trying to outrun. The dark circles under her eyes, the bruises on her knuckles, the cold resolve behind her irises.
It was high time.
She had buried her past for too long. Hidden behind a name that was never hers. But tonight had shown her what she was capable of. What still burned inside her.
She hadn't found her real parents because she hated them.
Hated that they gave her up. Hated that they abandoned her. That they left her to fend for herself in a world that turned her into this.
Vesper.
But she needed answers now. Not because she wanted closure.
She wanted revenge.
Whoever had orchestrated her abandonment, whoever had left her on that doorstep all those years ago, didn't deserve her mercy. They deserved to bleed.
She turned away from the mirror, grabbed the burner phone she had hidden under the dresser and dialed a number she hadn't used in months.
"Shadow," she said, when the line picked up.
There was a pause.
"Vesper?"
"I need you to dig," she said. "Everything. My birth records, names, leads, faces, anything you can find."
"You're sure?"
"More than ever."
The call ended, but the fire inside her had only just begun.
Later that day, while the others lounged around in a tense but peaceful calm, Leona sat in the garden, pretending to read. Valerio found her, careful in his steps. He sat beside her, close but not too close.
"You okay?"
She didn't look up. "I don't know what I am anymore."
"You were incredible."
"I was deadly."
"Both can be true."
She finally turned to him. "Don't say that like it doesn't scare you."
Valerio met her gaze. "It should. But it doesn't."
Her chest tightened.
He didn't know it, but his words were another cut. Another reason why she couldn't stay soft. She couldn't let herself fall for him completely. Not while she was unfinished business. Not while vengeance still burned in her blood.
"I'm going to find them," she whispered. "My real parents."
Valerio stilled. "Why now?"
She looked away, eyes on the distant hills. "Because the past doesn't stay buried forever. And I'm tired of pretending I don't care."
He reached for her hand. She let him hold it for a second too long.
Then pulled away.
That night, when the villa had fallen asleep, Leona stood on the rooftop.
The wind tugged at her hair, the silence around her filled with echoes of her past.
She remembered the orphanage. The beatings. The loneliness. The nights she cried herself to sleep.
She remembered the first time she killed. How her hands had trembled. How she threw up after.
And she remembered the cold steel of the blade she now always carried.
They made her this way. Whoever her real parents were.
And it was time they paid for it.
"Let the hunt begin," she murmured.
Not as Leona.
But as Vesper.
The reckoning had begun.
The night in southern Italy was quiet—too quiet for Leona to rest. The sky above held a heavy hue of grey-blue, clouded yet illuminated slightly by the silver light of the moon. Her thoughts buzzed, louder than the cicadas outside. She had slipped away from the Moretti villa hours ago, careful not to wake anyone.
She didn't know exactly where to start, but her feet seemed to know. Her instincts had been sharper than ever since the De Luca attack. The memory of that night—blood, fire, fear, and fury—still clung to her skin. Her body moved on a mission now, her mind slowly returning to the shadow of Vesper, and her heart screaming the name of a girl abandoned: Selene.
A few contacts, subtle leads she had been quietly digging up, had told her that the old town registry held fragments—maybe not names—but traces. People remembered things, and Italy wasn't as good at erasing the past as it thought.
She now stood outside the closed, aged municipal building tucked between narrow cobblestone alleys. She'd bribed someone to keep the records room unlocked just for an hour. With a flashlight in hand, she sorted through dusty files, fingers trembling slightly. Not from fear. From uncertainty. What if she found their names? What if they were people she'd rather forget? What if… they had been close this whole time?
Her eyes scanned files, cross-checking anything from the region and time she was adopted. Then she paused. One file. It had a record of an unregistered child taken in by an orphanage that had since shut down. Birthplace: southern coast. Age matches. Markings: a scar on the right thigh. Her fingers clenched the page.
That was her.
And written faintly beneath it were initials—S. V.—the last names were smudged out. But her breath hitched. A. V. Selene Virelli?
She didn't need the whole truth. That was enough. That trace alone meant they existed. And it meant Vesper wasn't just a ghost from her pain—he was real. It made the need for revenge taste even sharper on her tongue.
Meanwhile, back at the Moretti villa, the clock had struck midnight.
Valerio stood at the edge of the hallway, arms crossed, his face grim. "She's not in her room," he muttered, glancing down toward Dante.
"You sure she didn't just sneak into the kitchen for one of her weird midnight snacks?" Dante joked, trying to ease the tension but failing miserably.
Valerio shook his head. "No. I would've known. Something feels… off."
Dante's playful demeanor faded. He leaned against the wall beside his best friend, eyes serious now. "She hasn't been the same since that night. The attack. She's quiet, but it's not the usual Leona-quiet. It's cold. Calculated."
Valerio's jaw tightened. "I know. She's shutting me out again."
"You think she's doing something… dangerous?"
"I think she's doing something alone."
Dante let out a sigh. "She's more than just Leona, Val. We both saw that. The way she moved that night, the way she fought? That wasn't instinct. That was training."
Valerio nodded slowly. "And it's not the first time she's protected us like that. It's just the first time we all saw it."
Dante glanced at his watch. "We wait another half hour. If she's not back by then, we go looking."
Valerio didn't respond, but the fire in his eyes said enough.
Leona finally stepped out of the building, the folder clutched in her hand. Her fingers were cold, despite the summer night. Her head buzzed with questions, but her face remained unreadable.
She walked slowly through the alley, letting the quiet soak into her skin. For the first time in years, she felt like the mask of Leona was slipping. And it didn't scare her.
It made her furious.
Because she had allowed people in—Dante, Valerio, even Elena—and now they could break her. Her eyes burned, and for a fleeting moment, she almost cried. Not for her past. But for the future she'd started to care about.
She hadn't even noticed the car parked at the far end of the road. A shadow leaned against it. The second she stepped closer, she stilled.
"Leona?"
It was Valerio.
Her heart jumped, then sank. Of course he would come.
"How—?"
"I tracked your phone." His voice was low, rough, and full of tension. "Where the hell have you been?"
"I had to find something," she whispered.
"You could've told me. You could've told anyone."
"I didn't want to," she replied simply. "This part of me… is mine."
Valerio exhaled slowly, walking up to her. "Then at least let me stand beside you while you face it."
She looked at him then, really looked. The fury faded from his features, replaced by worry and care.
She didn't answer right away. But the grip on the file in her hand loosened slightly.