The night smelled of blood and smoke.
Rain lashed against the blackened tiles of the mansion roof, washing crimson into the earth. The corridors blazed with firelight, the proud banners of her family's crest torn and trampled under invading boots. Screams rang like broken bells, cut short by gunfire, steel, and the whisper of blades.
In the middle of that chaos stood a woman cloaked in silver hair, her violet eyes burning with defiance. Her mother.
"Keep her safe!" her mother's voice thundered above the storm, commanding even in desperation. The queen of shadows — ruthless to her enemies, yet soft when her gaze fell upon the little girl trembling in her arms.
The child — only six years old — clutched her mother's bloodstained dress, her breath shallow, heart pounding as enemies surged into the hall.
"You will not touch her," her mother hissed. Guns flared. Enemies fell. But they kept coming, a tide of darkness sent by those who feared the power this family carried.
And in the shadows stood a tall figure. A man with cold, unreadable eyes — her father. His gaze met hers briefly, and in that fleeting moment, all she saw was steel. No warmth. No comfort. Only the weight of inevitability.
The mother fought like a goddess of war, but the blood kept flowing. One blade slipped past defenses. One gunshot tore through the storm. And her mother fell to her knees, silver hair soaking in scarlet.
"Run," her mother whispered, violet eyes locking onto the girl's. "Live… for what is yet to come."
Her father tore her from those trembling hands. The last thing she saw was her mother's smile — broken, yet still fierce — before the flames swallowed everything.
Darkness.
***************
Calista's POV
The ceiling in the orphanage was cracked again. Same damn spiderweb of lines. I stared at it, my breath still uneven from that dream. Or memory. Or whatever the hell it was.
But it wasn't just a dream. Her instincts screamed it was something more — too vivid, too sharp, too real. Every time, her mother's voice echoed like prophecy in her skull.
"Live… for what is yet to come."
I pressed a hand to my temple, her sharp tongue biting the air."Great. Happy damn birthday to me."
I hated that it clung to me. The fire. Her face. Her voice. My fists tightened against the thin blanket, and I let out a slow exhale.
Eighteen today. Finally. The number didn't make me feel older. If anything, it made me feel like the clock had just started ticking faster. Legal adult. Free to leave this cracked old orphanage and step into the world i had already carved for myself in shadows.
Hacker, fighter, unseen queen of an underworld most people couldn't even imagine. They had no idea who shared their cafeteria lines and classrooms.
But even queens woke up in squeaky orphanage beds sometimes.
I rolled out of bed, feet hitting the cold floor. And go to bathroom.
The bathroom mirror reflected a stranger. Pale skin, sharp features, lips that could cut with a smile I rarely gave. But the thing I noticed first were my eyes—violet, glowing faintly even in the dim light. Dangerous.
I slipped in the brown contacts, blinking until they settled. Then, with practiced fingers, I pulled the wig from its stand. Long, straight, dark-brown strands that turned me into just another ordinary girl.
The real me—silver, purple, and zinc threads of hair, shimmering like starlight—was tucked safely away beneath. No one could ever see that. Not here. Not now. My disguise complete. The world would see a plain orphan girl today. But beneath the mask, the blood of shadows and royalty ran hotter than fire.
But, for now the brown, dull, ordinary. Exactly what the world expected. Exactly what I wanted them to see. What the world didn't know, it couldn't kill.
I tied my hair back, washed up, and stared into the cracked mirror. Pretty. That's what people always said. I knew it. Big deal. Pretty didn't keep you alive. Pretty didn't crush the bastards who came for you in the dark.
I smirked at my reflection, muttering, "Pretty gets jealous glares. My fists get respect."
Uniform on. Shirt tucked, skirt neat. Perfect grades, perfect attendance — the model student they thought I was. If only they knew how many governments I'd hacked into before breakfast.
By the time I left the orphanage, the sky was the soft blue of early morning. Students filled the streets, laughter and chatter echoing. I slipped my hands in my pockets, blending in with the herd. Normal. Ordinary. Invisible.
A sigh escaped me as I checked the clock. If I didn't leave soon, the dorm officer would start shouting about punctuality again. Not that I cared, but I had better things to do than listen to her nag.
Grabbing my bag, I shoved a sleek, custom-modified phone into my pocket. My gateway to the world that truly belonged to me.
***************
At least until I reached the gates of my oh-so-normal high school.
"Oi, transfer trash!"
I didn't even flinch. Same voice. Same tone. Same girl. Chloe summers, self-proclaimed queen bee of Class 3-A. Perfect curls, layers of makeup thick enough to build a wall, and a personality rotten enough to make Satan roll his eyes, but her ego thought she was goddess-tier.
She blocked my path, flanked by her little minions. Always the same routine. Always the same target. Me.
I tilted my head, giving her a slow once-over. "Maya, your face looks heavier today. Is that makeup, or did you finally grow a conscience?"
Gasps erupted around us. A few students froze mid-step, already gathering like this was free entertainment.
Chloe smile twitched but composed her self and smirked, twirling a lock of her blonde hair. "What's with that dead face of yours? You think you're better than us, just because the teachers love you?"
I arched a brow. "Better? Oh no, sweetheart. Smarter, maybe. Prettier, definitely. But better? Not really. You're not even competition."
Gasps rippled through the courtyard. Her smirk faltered.
"You—" she sputtered.
I cut her off with a yawn. "If you're going to insult me, at least try harder. Right now, you're boring me more than algebra."
Laughter broke out from some of the students watching. Chloe's face turned red.
Chloe's fake smile twitched. "Still running that sharp tongue, huh? Let's see if your fists can back it up—"
She grabbed at my collar. Bad move.
I caught her wrist before she could blink, twisting it back with just enough force to make her gasp. My eyes — those boring brown lies — met hers with a smirk.
"Careful," I whispered. "If you keep reaching for me like that, people might think you're in love."
Laughter burst out around us. Maya's face turned crimson. She shoved at me with her free hand, nails flashing. I ducked, sidestepped, and swept my leg just slightly. Her perfect shoes slipped, and she went tumbling down onto the concrete.
I leaned in, my voice low, sharp. "Rule one: don't touch me. Rule two: don't ever think you can put me beneath you. I don't crawl for anyone."
A chorus of gasps, snickers, and whispers followed. The school's so-called queen bee sprawled on the ground, skirt dirtied, dignity shattered.
I crouched beside her, my voice low enough only she could hear. "You really should stop picking fights you can't win. It's bad for your health."
I stood, brushing imaginary dust from my skirt, and walked through the parted crowd like the scene was nothing but background noise. My heart? Calm. My mind? Amused.
The stares burned into my back as whispers spread — admiration, jealousy, annoyance. I could feel the girls' glares stabbing me like knives.
"Too pretty."
"Too smart."
"Too dangerous."
Let them talk. Let them choke on their envy. None of them knew the truth. None of them knew the girl who sat beside them in class was also the shadow that made grown men in the underworld beg for mercy.
I slipped into the classroom, dropping into my seat near the window. Morning sunlight spilled across my desk, warm and golden. Normal. Ordinary. Safe.
And yet… somewhere deep inside, I could feel it. That night. That fire. That voice. They weren't done with me yet.
The bell rang. Saved by the system.
***************
Classes were… as usual. Pointless, at least to me. The teachers adored me because I knew every answer, aced every test, and always made them look smarter for having me as their student. I corrected one teacher's formula mid-lesson; he thanked me like I'd saved his career.
Meanwhile, the jealous whispers continued behind me."She thinks she's so perfect.""Did you see how she humiliated Chloe?""I swear, if she wasn't so pretty—"
Pretty. Smart. Cold. That's all they saw. And it was enough. I preferred it that way.
My phone buzzed in my pocket, a vibration no one else noticed. I slipped it out beneath the desk, screen angled low.
An encrypted message. Not school-related. Underworld business.
From: Black ViperJob complete. Payment received. Do you want me to handle the next target?
A faint smile touched my lips. My empire in shadows moved without me even lifting a finger. I typed back quickly, fingers flying.
From: Me (The Queen)Leave the next one. I'll deal with it personally tonight.
I locked the phone, sliding it back into my pocket just as the teacher called on me.
"Miss Arkwright, what's the solution?"
Without even looking up, I recited the full answer, explaining each step in crisp detail. He nodded eagerly, praising me.
Another day. Another performance.
***************
Lunch was chaos.
Girls glared daggers at me from across the cafeteria. Boys stole glances, too afraid to talk. Chloe sat sulking with her wrist wrapped in a bandage, her minions whispering like angry wasps.
I ate in silence, ignoring all of them. To them, I was a mystery. To me, they were nothing.
I was already planning the night ahead. The hacking jobs I'd queued, the accounts I'd drain, the strings I'd pull in the underworld. I wasn't just going to survive this world—I was going to own it.
But fate… fate had other plans.
*****************
The final bell rang, and students poured out of classrooms like prisoners freed. I packed up my things, ignoring the buzzing energy around me. Eighteen today. Old enough to walk away from this orphanage life. Old enough to finally live the way I wanted.
My bag slung over one shoulder, I stepped outside, sunlight warming my skin. For a moment, I let myself feel it. Just the ordinary. Just the peace.
I didn't know it yet, but it would be the last ordinary day of my life.
******************
By the time the final bell rang, the day had carved itself into my nerves like shallow cuts—annoying, but not enough to kill me.
The whispers followed me out of the classroom like flies buzzing after a corpse."Who does she think she is?""Did you see how she solved that equation before the teacher even finished writing it?""She's pretending. Girls like her just want attention."
Pathetic.
I pulled my bag over my shoulder, ignoring them. My sneakers squeaked on the polished floors, each step dragging me closer to the freedom of the streets outside. The jealous stares, the fake smiles, the boys trying to steal glances—none of it mattered. None of them knew me. Not really.
The only world that knew me was the one written in shadows.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. A single vibration, subtle enough that no one else noticed. My pulse quickened. I slid my hand into the pocket, thumb brushing over the cold glass, and unlocked it with a gesture only I could perform.
The message blinked against the screen, coded in lines no ordinary person would understand:
// Transaction 8: Complete. // New directive inbound. Contact: Night Serpent. Deadline: 24h.
I smirked faintly. Even in the middle of boring high school, the underworld whispered my name.
Tucking the phone away, I stepped out into the late afternoon air. The sky was heavy, bruised clouds stretching across the horizon like wounds that never healed. The kind of sky that promised a storm.
***************
The sun was already tilting west when I reached the gates of St. Mary's Orphanage. The familiar iron bars creaked, just as they had for the past twelve years, and the scent of old stone and dust wrapped around me like a suffocating shawl. For the last time.
Today was supposed to be my clean break. Eighteen meant freedom. Eighteen meant my own apartment, my own rules, my own empire — no more cramped bunks, no more whispered prayers from the younger kids who thought God was listening, no more matron knocking on my door for curfews I never followed.
I already had the lease papers in my bag. Fake ID, hacked documents, forged credit lines, all neat and legal enough to fool any system. Cali, the orphan girl, was about to vanish. In her place would rise Calista Aurelia D'Arcanis, the name no one here even knew I carried.
My feet carried me to the orphanage—a crumbling, tired building that still reeked faintly of bleach and cheap meals. Kids' laughter filtered through the open windows. To them, I was the "older sister" they sometimes looked up to, sometimes feared. To me… this place was nothing more than a cage I'd soon leave behind.
I would move into the apartment I'd already prepared with untraceable funds, ready to build my empire. Everything was planned, every brick laid in silence.
But fate? fate was a cruel bastard with a twisted sense of humor apparently, doesn't like following my plans.
"Calista," the dorm officer called out as soon as she spotted me. Her voice wavered — like she wasn't sure if she was addressing the same girl she'd bossed around for years. "Your… your father is here."
I froze mid-step. For a heartbeat, my chest forgot how to breathe.
My father.
My lungs froze. It couldn't be.
The image that burned into my mind wasn't a kind one. Cold steel-gray eyes. A night drenched in blood. My mother's last scream. And him—watching me from the shadows, silent, untouchable. I had buried that memory under layers of sarcasm and steel, convinced it was nothing but a nightmare.
So why did the matron look like she'd just seen a ghost?
I turned, slow as a blade being unsheathed. And there he was.
Damian D'Arcanis
Tall. Impossibly tailored suit. The kind of presence that made the air thinner just by existing. His hair had streaks of silver now, but his face… sharp, unreadable, carved from the same stone as the legends whispered about the mafia underworld.
And those eyes—eyes I would never forget. The same steel-gray eyes that haunted my nights. Those eyes had been shards of ice the last time I saw them. The night everything burned. The night my mother's blood stained the ground.
Only this time… they weren't cold.
They softened — no, lit up — the second they landed on me. Like he was looking at a miracle he never thought he'd see again.
"Calista," he breathed, voice low, rough around the edges. "My daughter."
Every muscle in my body locked. The word felt foreign. Alien.
My instincts screamed to step back, to raise the walls I'd spent years building. But something inside me — something traitorous — stumbled forward.
"You—" My throat felt like sandpaper. I forced the words out sharp, laced with venom. "You remember you have a daughter?"
For a fraction of a second, guilt flickered across his features. Then it vanished, replaced by something steadier, something dangerous. "I never forgot you, Auri."
The nickname hit me like a slap. Nobody called me that. Nobody knew that name.
Before I could demand answers, his hand lifted. A gesture. Subtle, but commanding. And from behind him, a line of men in black suits stepped forward — bodyguards, polished, silent, their movements sharp as knives.
The matron looked ready to faint.
I arched a brow, masking my unease with my usual razor-edged tongue. "Subtle, aren't you? Pulling up with a full mafia cosplay squad to an orphanage. Very low profile."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile, but close. "You'll understand soon."
He extended a hand, as if he actually believed I'd take it.
I didn't. "Where are we going?"
"Home." One word. Steady. Final.
I should've laughed. Should've spat in his face and told him I already had my own plans, my own empire in the making. But when his eyes locked on mine, I couldn't move. The world tilted, the sound of distant children blurred, and for the first time in years, I felt something I hadn't since my mother's death.
Not fear. Not anger.
Belonging.
I hated it.
Ms. Lee cleared her throat awkwardly. "Your… your father has arranged everything. Your belongings will be transferred."
Of course he had.
"Fine," I muttered, pushing past him toward the black car waiting at the curb. "But I'm not calling you Dad."
The car was a monster of luxury. Black leather seats, tinted windows, the faint smell of expensive cologne lingering in the air. I sank into the seat like I belonged there — though I'd rather die than admit it.
Damian slid in beside me, silent. For a while, the only sound was the hum of the engine as the convoy of cars rolled out of the orphanage gates.
I kept my gaze fixed outside, watching the city blur past, neon signs flickering against the glass. My mind raced — with questions, with suspicions, with memories I didn't want.
Finally, he spoke. "You've grown… stronger."
I turned to him, raising a brow. "What did you expect? You abandoned me in an orphanage. Survival tends to do that to a person."
"So… what's the play here? You show up after more than a decade, snatch me from an orphanage like some long-lost fairytale, and expect me to just… what? Sit quietly while you play doting father?"
His jaw tightened, but his eyes stayed soft. "I don't expect you to understand yet. But you will. Everything will make sense, Calista."
I scoffed. "That's comforting. Right up there with trust me and it's for your own good."
For the first time, he actually smiled — a real smile, small but genuine. It unsettled me more than his cold eyes ever did.
I leaned back against the leather, crossing my legs. "Better make it quick. I don't like being kept in the dark."
He actually chuckled—a low, rumbling sound that startled me. "You really are your mother's daughter."
My throat clenched, but I said nothing.
The drive stretched on, the city thinning into sprawling estates. And then… I saw it.
The gates loomed ahead, wrought iron carved with symbols I didn't recognize but somehow felt. Ancient. Powerful. Beyond mafia. Beyond anything mortal.
As they opened, the car rolled into a world I had never seen before.
The D'Arcanis estate.
Not a house. Not even a mansion. A fortress of black stone and glass, sprawling gardens lit by silver lanterns, fountains spilling crystalline water, and guards stationed at every corner. It wasn't just wealth. It was power, etched into every inch of the place.
My place.
I didn't realize I was holding my breath until the car stopped.
Damian turned to me, his gaze steady, heavy with meaning. "Welcome home, princess."
For once, I had no sharp reply.
Because deep down, I knew — my life had just ended. And something far bigger had begun.