He replayed her name like a secret prayer.
"Eliana."
He had said it aloud the moment he stepped out of that hotel room just once, like a question to the gods. But now, it pulsed in his blood like a vow.
He hadn't realized how much it had anchored him until the investigator called back.
"We might have found her."
The message was clipped. No names over the phone. But Kai knew.
His pulse roared in his ears as he stood in front of the building. A modest art studio tucked into a quieter stretch of Milan's old quarter. The paint-chipped walls. The window that spilled late light onto a street that barely slept.
He didn't go inside.
He couldn't.
Not yet.
She didn't know he was looking. Didn't know he remembered. And something deep in him knew… this couldn't just be a reunion. It had to be right.
It had to matter.
And besides,
Someone else had found her first.
She sensed it first in the street.
A car idling too long across from her studio. The faint scent of cigarette smoke that didn't belong to anyone she knew. A flicker of movement in her periphery when she pulled the blinds.
She wasn't paranoid.
She was watched.
The feeling made her skin itch, her breath shallow. At first, she thought maybe… maybe it was Kai. That some impossible part of him had remembered and come looking for her.
But the look in the driver's eyes when she caught them in her mirror wasn't recognition.
It was calculation.
Surveillance.
Her heart hammered, and for the first time, the danger felt real.
This wasn't heartbreak anymore.
It was threat.
The photos on the investigator's tablet made his hands clench.
Grainy stills of Eliana at her window.
Another of her walking home, clutching her bag to her chest.
And one more clearly not taken by his team of her standing too close to someone in a hoodie. Anonymous. Watching.
"We're not the only ones interested in her," the investigator murmured. "Someone else has eyes on her. And it's not the press."
Kai's jaw locked.
He knew what this meant.
Someone was tying off loose ends.
She hadn't just witnessed the attack in the club.
She was part of what saved him.
That made her a liability.
His throat tightened with guilt. She had protected him. Comforted him. Given herself to him.
And he'd left her.
Unarmed. Alone.
Now the threat circled her, and he'd never hated himself more.
"Keep her safe," he said, voice low. "At any cost."
"And you?" the investigator asked.
Kai's stare burned cold.
"I'm going to find out who did this."
She didn't sleep that night.
The silence of her apartment felt wrong. Thicker. Tighter. Like it knew something she didn't.
She double-checked the locks.
Triple-checked her curtains.
Tried to call her aunt,no answer.
She sat on the floor beside her couch, knees hugged to her chest, staring into the dark like it might reveal answers. The headlines about Kai still dominated every feed. She tried not to look, but her fingers betrayed her. He looked sharper now. More hunted. Like something was unraveling.
Had he remembered?
Did he want to?
And even if he did… what then?
The men who attacked him hadn't just been random. She was sure of it now. Something bigger moved in the background. And somehow, she'd stepped too close to the truth.
She wasn't invisible anymore.
The woman with icy eyes watched the screen flicker.
Another image. Eliana walking. Alone.
A small smile played at the corner of her mouth.
"He's looking for her," said the man across from her.
"Let him," she replied. "Let him walk straight into the fire."
"You sure the girl's not a threat?"
A pause.
"She's more than that."
She closed the laptop with a quiet snap.
"She's his memory. And memories can ruin everything."
That night, he stood outside her building again.
He didn't know what he was waiting for.
Maybe the right moment.
Maybe the sound of her voice through a window, just to confirm she was okay.
Maybe… the courage to face what he'd broken.
But the moment never came.
And when the black car pulled up across the street,engine purring, windows dark,Kai's fists clenched.
He didn't wait.
He stepped off the curb.
Straight into the path of fate.