The days that followed were colder than winter — not the kind of cold that stings your skin, but the kind that sinks into your bones and refuses to leave.
Amara returned to Villa Moretti long before dawn broke over the Amalfi coastline. The guards opened the gates without question, and the house grand, stoic, and hollow, welcomed her like a mausoleum. She didn't speak. Not to Enzo. Not to Chiara. Not even to the dog that always waited at the front step.
She went straight to her quarters and didn't emerge until the sun was high in the sky. When she did, it wasn't the same woman who had walked into the vineyard chapel two nights before.
Her black coat was discarded. The gun was holstered again in its drawer. And the folder — the one Luca had handed her like a confession — was placed inside her private vault, locked away beneath layers of steel and biometric codes.
She then burned the clothes she wore that night, piece by piece, in the fireplace of her study. The silk blouse. The leather gloves. Even the boots. As the flames licked at the soles, she stared until nothing remained but embers and smoke.
What remained in her heart, however, was far less easy to incinerate.
She had gotten what she wanted.
Answers.
But answers are never free.
They came at a cost not of blood, but of balance. Of certainty. Of something far more difficult to reclaim: peace.
And so, silence became her currency.
She spoke less. Smiled less. Slept less.
And those closest to her noticed.
Enzo, who had always been her shadow in both war and celebration, found himself pacing outside her study, uncertain whether to knock or walk away. He heard no music. No laughter. Just silence. The kind that whispers of storms yet to come.
"She doesn't ask questions anymore," he told Rocco one morning over espresso. "She just gives commands. Fast. Cold. Like she's… somewhere else."
Rocco, the elder of the council, lit a cigar with a grim nod. "War does that," he muttered. "It empties you. Then teaches you to lead from the shell."
But Amara wasn't empty.
She was focused.
Sharper than ever.
Every ounce of pain had been alchemized into strategy.
That same week, she summoned Chiara to her private greenhouse — the one she only entered when her mind needed clarity or her soul demanded war.
The citrus trees were blooming, sweet scent drifting through the humid air. But Amara didn't notice the beauty. She stood at the center, arms crossed, a blade of rosemary twirling between her fingers.
"No one finds out what Luca told me," she said. "Not yet. Not the council. Not even Enzo."
Chiara's brows knit, her voice cautious. "Do you still trust him?"
Amara's face didn't flinch, but her gaze narrowed — not at Chiara, but at the vines behind her, tangled like the thoughts running wild in her head.
"I trust that he's broken," she said. "And sometimes… the broken are the most dangerous."
Chiara nodded slowly, reading the undercurrent in her voice. "You're planning something."
"I'm always planning something."
Amara stepped closer to the window, her gaze falling on the glimmering city of Naples below. It looked peaceful from this height, but she knew better.
It was a city on the edge of fire.
"I want the Romano shipping line hit next," she said, voice low and deliberate. "Not destroyed. Not crippled. No explosions. I want delays. I want sabotage. I want port officials bribed, truck drivers paid off, routes misfiled. Make it bleed from the inside. Quietly. Slowly."
Chiara's lips parted slightly. "You want to rot it."
"Exactly. I want every container late. Every delivery questioned. Every partner… uncertain."
She didn't have to say the rest.
The mafia world survived on confidence. Shake that, and you didn't need bullets to win.
Chiara hesitated, just for a beat. Then asked what had been lingering in her mind since the meeting began.
"And Luca?"
Amara didn't respond right away.
Because, in truth, she didn't know.
Not fully.
Not yet.
That night, the moon sat low over the villa's marble courtyard, casting long shadows over stone paths and ivy-covered walls.
Amara sat in the garden alone, on the stone bench near the fountain. A half-full glass of wine rested beside her, untouched. Her phone was off. Her gun was on the table.
And the silence?
Louder than ever.
Enzo found her there, just past midnight. He approached quietly, hands in his coat pockets, and stopped a few feet away.
"You can talk to me, you know," he said gently.
She didn't look at him. Her eyes were on the stars, as if they held something she couldn't reach.
"Not about this," she said.
"Then… about what?"
Amara turned slowly, her eyes finding his. Her voice was calm, almost too calm but her gaze betrayed her. It was a battlefield all its own.
"About how love turns into ashes," she said. "When you realize it was grown on a lie."
Enzo didn't speak. He just sat beside her, the gravel crunching under his shoes.
"You think he lied?" he asked.
She shook her head. "No. I think he told the truth. And that's what hurts more."
He nodded, the weight of her words settling over them like dust.
"Are you still going to kill him?"
That question sat between them like a blade on the table.
Amara closed her eyes. She breathed in the cold night air. And for a moment, she felt fourteen again back when Luca first kissed her under the Sicilian moonlight, back when their families weren't soaked in blood.
She opened her eyes.
"No," she said finally. "Not yet."
Enzo waited, but she didn't explain further.
Because she didn't need to.
Killing him would've been justice.
Letting him live with what he destroyed?
That was punishment.