The silence between us isn't new. It's heavy, loaded—thick enough to choke on.
I pace the edge of his office like a caged animal, ignoring the low thump of music bleeding down from the club below. I should've left the moment I realized this wasn't just a message meant for him. But curiosity is a cancer, and Dante Moretti has always been its sharpest edge.
He watches me from behind his desk, relaxed in posture but sharp in every detail—the cut of his suit, the way his fingers curl around his glass. There's a subtle tension in his shoulders that says he's ready to kill me if I make the wrong move.
"Who sent it?" I ask.
"That's what I want to find out," he says, standing and circling the desk. "And lucky for both of us, I have the means to do it. But answers come at a cost, Amara."
He stops inches from me. His cologne is sharp and clean. Nothing like blood, but I smell it anyway. The past coils around my ribs like wire.
"And what's the cost?" I whisper.
He smiles—not kindly. Not the smile I knew three years ago.
"You work for me."
I laugh, bitter. "Not happening."
"I'm offering you information. Protection. A way back into the world you abandoned without being gutted your first night." His voice is silk wrapped in steel. "If that's what you want, then congratulations, Valenti. You're on the payroll."
I hate how calm he sounds, like this is just another game. Like my brother isn't out there somewhere, being used as leverage.
"You're here because you're desperate enough to walk back into hell for a ghost."
I swallow hard. "Don't talk about my brother like he's—"
"Dead?" His voice cuts sharp. "You should be hoping he's not."
I move before I think, stepping forward, fists clenched. "You think I want to be here? I left this world for a reason."
He shakes his head. "No. You ran. And you stayed gone. Until someone baited you with the one thing you couldn't ignore."
His eyes find mine. Dark and unreadable. So different.
"Like I said, you're desperate enough to walk back into hell for a ghost," he says. "Let me help you survive it."
I scoff. "This isn't survival. It's extortion."
"It's business, Valenti." His voice stays silk and steel. "You want answers. I want leverage. It's a win-win."
"I don't work for anyone."
"You will if you want to stay alive."
I don't flinch, but my fingers twitch near the gun under my jacket. He sees it. Of course he does.
"I should shoot you," I murmur. "Just to remind you who I used to be."
"You don't need to remind me." His voice is quiet. "I remember everything."
That throws me—not sentimental, just cold truth.
He turns and presses a button on his desk. A hidden panel opens in the wall, revealing a screen. Grainy surveillance footage crackles to life. A woman in red lipstick and dark sunglasses hands a package to a teenage courier outside a train station.
"She delivered your box," he says. "And mine."
My pulse spikes. "You found her?"
"We found the kid. He led us to her. But she was gone before we got close."
Gone. Just like that. Slipping through our fingers like smoke.
I face him again. "Fine. I'll work with you. But on my terms."
A flicker of amusement crosses his face—not a smile. Something colder.
"I'm not your soldier," I continue. "I don't answer to your men, and I don't follow orders without reason. I'm here for one thing—my brother. That's it. And if you lie to me…"
"You'll gut me." He finishes my sentence. "You already said that."
"I meant it."
He doesn't blink. "Now that's the Amara I remember."
"Don't get nostalgic."
He steps closer than he should. The air tightens between us—thick with everything we're not saying. I feel the heat of his stare. His breath. My pulse skips—once.
I look away first.
"You start tomorrow," he says, stepping back. "You'll be moved to a safehouse. I'll assign someone I trust."
"I don't need protection."
"You do if someone's using you as bait."
A knock at the door.
"Bring the car around," he calls out.
I don't move.
He meets my eyes. "Welcome back, Valenti. Back to blood. Back to war."
I glance toward the door, then back to him.
"Let's see if your empire bleeds the same way mine did."
The night air wraps around me like a second skin—humid, thick with exhaust, buzzing with the kind of energy only a city like this breeds after midnight.
I follow Marco out of the club, keeping my pace steady even though my nerves fray. Behind us, the bass still thuds through the walls—muffled but ever-present. The pulse of Moretti's empire.
The street's quieter than I expected. Two of his men linger near a black SUV, talking low. Another smokes near the alley.
Luca gestures ahead. "We'll take the car. Tomorrow, we'll get to work. If Moretti's in a good mood."
"If?" I raise an eyebrow.
He smirks. "You'll learn."
I'm about to fire back when something across the street catches my eye.
Or rather—someone.
Leaning against the side of a nondescript van, half-shrouded in the shadows of a flickering streetlamp, is a man with arms folded and a half-bored look on his face. He's not looking at me. Not yet. He's watching the club doors like he's waiting for someone.
But I'd know him anywhere.
Rocco.
I stop walking.
Older, broader. His jaw heavier with stubble now, and the scar beneath his left eye faded, but it's him. The way he stands—casual, but always ready. Like he's still carrying a weapon somewhere under that black jacket.
The last time I saw him, there was blood on my shirt and betrayal in my mouth.
He didn't say a word then.
He doesn't say one now.
Luca glances back. "Something wrong?"
I force my eyes away. "No." My voice comes out flat. "Thought I saw someone I knew."
I don't look again. Can't.
If Rocco's here—working for Moretti—then someone already knew I was coming long before I walked through that door.
And I just stepped back into a game I thought I left behind.