The next forty-eight hours passed like a storm beneath still water—quiet on the surface, but everything beneath was shifting, ready to erupt.
Marco barely slept. I knew because I barely did either. Every night, I heard the muted rhythm of his footsteps in the hall, the low murmur of phone calls made in languages I didn't recognize, and once, the distinct metallic click of a gun being loaded. The villa was no longer a home—it was a fortress waiting to be tested.
By the third day, the air itself felt taut. Leonardo's men had multiplied. Their faces were unfamiliar, but their movements were synchronized—machines made of muscle and silence. Every shadow seemed to belong to them. Every sound had meaning.
I found Marco in the study that morning, standing by the large map spread across the table. Naples was circled in red. Lines branched out like veins—routes, ports, safehouses. It was a network of a man who had once ruled something far bigger than I'd ever wanted to understand.
"You're really going," I said quietly.
He didn't look up. "I told you. This doesn't end until I end it."
"You mean Ferri."
He nodded once, the movement slow and controlled. "He won't stop. He's waited years for me to disappear. I gave him silence, and he mistook it for death."
I leaned against the doorframe, my chest tight. "Then let him keep believing that."
He finally looked up, and I wished he hadn't. His eyes were all steel and ghosts. "I can't. Men like Ferri don't believe in ghosts. They hunt them."
The weight of that truth settled over us like fog.
Leonardo entered then, a file in his hand. "The convoy is ready. We can move before nightfall."
Marco didn't hesitate. "No. Not tonight."
Leonardo frowned. "We lose the advantage if—"
"I said not tonight," Marco repeated, his voice sharp enough to cut through the air. Then softer, to himself, "Not while she's still here."
Leonardo's gaze flicked to me briefly, then back to Marco. "Understood." He left without another word.
When the door shut, Marco turned to me. "You're leaving."
My stomach dropped. "What?"
"You'll go with Leonardo's men to Capri. There's a villa there—isolated, secure. You'll stay until this is over."
"Until you decide it's over, you mean."
He crossed the room in two strides, his presence filling the space between us. "Isabella—"
"No," I snapped, surprising both of us. "You don't get to send me away like a secret you need to hide. Not after everything."
He exhaled slowly, his hand brushing his jaw. "If you stay, you'll die. Ferri won't just come for me—he'll come for what he thinks I care about."
The words hit harder than I expected. What he thinks I care about.
"And what do you care about, Marco?" I asked, quieter now.
His jaw tightened. He didn't answer. But his silence said enough.
For the rest of the day, we moved around each other like two ghosts trapped in the same house. I packed a small bag, not because I agreed, but because part of me knew resistance wouldn't stop what was coming.
Night fell heavy and cold. The wind picked up, howling against the cliffs, rattling the shutters like an omen. I found Marco outside again, on the terrace where this all began. He was smoking—a habit I'd never seen him return to until that night. The glow of the cigarette ember cut through the darkness like a heartbeat.
"Tell me something," I said quietly, stepping beside him. "Before you go."
He didn't turn. "What?"
"Why, Ferri? Why now?"
He was silent for a long time before he spoke. "Because once, I took everything from him. His territory. His money. His men."
"And now he wants revenge."
Marco shook his head. "No. He wants to prove that the past doesn't stay buried." He turned then, his gaze on me. "He's wrong."
Something inside me ached. "You really think you can stop him?"
He gave a faint, humorless smile. "I don't need to stop him. I just need to remind him why he buried me in the first place."
Lightning flashed far over the sea, illuminating the horizon. The storm that had been threatening all day was finally coming.
He stubbed out the cigarette, and before I could speak again, he reached out and touched my face. Just a brush of his fingers, gentle, reverent. "When this ends," he said, his voice low, "you'll have your life back."
"I don't want a life without you in it," I whispered.
His expression faltered, just for a heartbeat. Then he leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. "Then pray I come back."
By dawn, he was gone.
The villa was silent again, stripped of movement, stripped of warmth. Only the faint scent of his cologne lingered in the halls. Outside, the sea roared against the cliffs, wild and merciless.
Leonardo found me hours later, standing by the window. "We need to leave," he said quietly.
I nodded, but my eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, where the storm had already swallowed the sky.
Because deep down, I knew Marco wasn't just walking into a war. He was walking back into the part of himself he had tried so hard to leave behind.
And this time, I wasn't sure he'd survive it.