The night was heavy with silence, the kind of silence that did not comfort but pressed down upon the chest until every breath felt like borrowed air. The old estate that had become Akiri's refuge creaked faintly as if remembering voices that once filled its halls. Tatami mats held the faint scent of straw and dust, their fibers rough under her bare feet. Lantern light swayed in the corner, thin and wavering, its glow stretching shadows like long, skeletal fingers across the shoji doors.
Akiri sat folded against the wall, her knees drawn close to her chest, arms wrapped tightly around them as though to hold herself together. In her right hand she clutched the locket—small, silver, etched with the faint engraving of her family's crest. The edges had pressed so deep into her palm that her skin bore red crescents. She did not loosen her grip. She could not. The locket was not just memory—it was the last pulse of her mother's presence, the only tether she had left in a world that had been set on fire.
When she closed her eyes, she heard it all again.
The crack of gunfire that ripped through the night. The screams echoing, breaking apart into fragments. Her mother's voice—sharp, urgent—pushing her toward escape. The smell of burning wood mixed with the copper sting of blood until it coated her tongue. And then the sudden, merciless silence. The silence of loss. The silence of absence.
Her chest ached as though the memory itself carried weight, pressing down until her ribs strained. She breathed shallowly, afraid that if she let the air in too deeply, grief would come flooding with it. Yet, beneath that grief, something sharp coiled. Not only sorrow. Not only longing. Something harder. Something hungrier.
Rage.
It startled her at first when she noticed it, days after the massacre. She had been raised to embody restraint, to know her place within the hierarchy of their world. Omegas were expected to be gentle, yielding, soft as water bending to the pull of tide and moon. That was the role carved for her since birth. That was what others saw when they looked at her: fragile beauty, destined for submission.
But the fire that licked through her veins was not soft. It did not yield. It screamed to claw upward, to bite back, to refuse the suffocating role the world demanded of her. She should have felt broken. She should have drowned in despair. Instead, she discovered she was sharpening.
At first, she feared it. In the reflection of the old mirror, she caught glimpses of herself that felt unfamiliar—the intensity of her gaze, the way her lips pressed into a line of command rather than hesitation, the way others instinctively faltered beneath her silence. She should not have carried such weight in her presence. Omegas were not meant to radiate authority. Yet she did. As though her very instincts had been rewired by the trauma, forcing her down a path she had never imagined.
An Omega who bore the presence of an Alpha.
She whispered the thought to herself once and recoiled, as though saying it aloud could summon punishment. But the truth lingered no matter how she tried to banish it. Something inside her was changing. And she would not resist it. She would claim it.
Because to bring ruin upon Salvatore Lucente—the man who had destroyed her world—she would need every fragment of that sharpened presence.
Her hand tightened around the locket, pulse drumming against the cold metal. She rose slowly from the tatami floor, her knees stiff, her body trembling from sitting too long in one position. She walked toward the mirror propped against the wall, the boards beneath her feet creaking softly. Her reflection stared back, pale and worn, hair unbound, cascading in dark rivers past her shoulders. Her lips were cracked from nights of little food and less sleep. Her eyes, however, were alive—too alive—burning with something that frightened her yet kept her standing.
She pulled her hair back, twisting it in her hands until the contours of her face shifted subtly. Less feminine. More androgynous. She tilted her head, studying the image, imagining how a change of clothes, a softening of posture, could tilt her appearance further.
A thought had been circling her mind for weeks, whispering itself whenever she planned her revenge. Salvatore's world was impenetrable to most. A fortress wrapped in luxury, guarded not only by men but by suspicion itself. She could not storm it. She could not claw her way in with the identity she bore.
But she could slip inside.
She could become invisible.
The mask she envisioned was not one of ferocity or Alpha dominance, but of quiet submission. An Omega male. The kind overlooked, dismissed, relegated to corners. Invisibility was not weakness—it was freedom to move unseen. If she crafted the disguise perfectly, Salvatore would never glance twice at her until it was too late.
Her pulse quickened as she leaned closer to the mirror. Could she do it? Could she erase herself so completely? Could she breathe the mannerisms of someone who had never lived her life, who had never carried her grief?
She touched her throat lightly, whispering a phrase aloud, testing the softness of tone, the humility of phrasing. "Yes, sir. I will do as you command."
The words tasted bitter, her tongue rebelling against them. But the sound was convincing. Too convincing. She spoke again, slower this time, letting the syllables wrap around her tongue until they felt natural.
If she could speak this way, if she could carry herself with lowered gaze and softened steps, she could slip past suspicion. She would become the mask. And when the time came, when she was close enough, she would strike.
But even as she traced the path of vengeance in her thoughts, another memory pierced her resolve.
The first time she had seen him—before the massacre, before blood replaced air—Salvatore's presence had filled the courtyard of her family's home. His gaze had been heavy, unflinching, and it had landed on her with a strange heat that left her skin prickling. She had lowered her eyes then, out of propriety, but she had felt it—the pull, the burn, the undeniable recognition. Something beyond hatred. Something fated.
That memory haunted her.
Even now, when she pictured his face, her chest twisted. How could she want his ruin and yet remember the intensity of his eyes? How could she sharpen a blade for him and yet feel the ghost of his presence linger like heat in her veins?
She gritted her teeth, hating herself for remembering, hating the threads of fate that bound her to the very man she should despise above all.
Her whisper broke the silence again. "He will not know me. He will never see me coming."
Her voice trembled once but steadied with repetition.
She tied a scarf around her throat, pulling the fabric snug. The gesture felt ritualistic, like binding away her past self. Each knot sealed her resolve. She turned from the mirror, crossing the small room, brushing her fingers across the wooden frame of the door as though anchoring herself to the present.
But when the night stretched too long and exhaustion pressed at her bones, she allowed herself to unravel. She lay upon the futon, staring at the cracked ceiling above, her body rigid as if afraid that relaxation itself could shatter her fragile control. Her hands fumbled at the chain around her neck until the locket slipped free, cool and weighty in her grasp.
She pressed it hard against her chest, so hard she thought the metal might pierce her skin. Tears welled, burning her eyes, spilling unchecked into her hair. Her breath stuttered, each inhale catching in her throat until sobs broke free, muffled against the pillow.
"Mother," she whispered, her voice shaking into the darkness, "I'll see this through. I'll carry your name… even if I must bury mine."
Her shoulders shook violently, every suppressed emotion pouring out. The futon absorbed her grief, her cries swallowed by the silence of the house.
The locket gleamed faintly in the moonlight filtering through the shoji screen, a tiny fragment of brightness against the endless dark. Her tears streaked the metal, staining it with salt, baptizing it in sorrow. She held on until her fingers ached, until her body finally surrendered to exhaustion.
The last thing she felt before sleep claimed her was the locket pressed against her heartbeat, as if her mother's presence was still there, faint but steady, guiding her toward a destiny she could not yet fully name.
And in the shadows of her dream, the mask she would wear waited patiently, ready to be born with the dawn.