ELENA
I should have taken the main road. It would have added ten minutes to my walk home. Ten safe, boring minutes under streetlights and traffic noise. Instead, I chose the alley.
The air was damp, heavy with the smell of rain and something metallic I couldn't quite place. My heels clicked against concrete, too loud in the silence. I told myself I was being dramatic. It was just a shortcut.
So when the first gunshot split the night, my body reacted before my mind did. I flinched so hard my bag slipped down my arm.
For a second, I told myself it was a car backfiring. This city was good at disguising violence as something ordinary. I stood frozen at the mouth of the alley, heart racing, trying to convince myself to keep walking. I had taken this shortcut a hundred times after my shift at the café.
Then I heard a muffled cry. My steps faltered.
At first, I thought it was a cat. Or maybe a couple arguing. I should have kept walking. I know that now but curiosity is a dangerous thing.
I turned my head slightly and saw a man on his knees. Another man stood over him. The one standing was calm. Too calm. His suit was dark, perfectly tailored, like he'd stepped out of a boardroom instead of into a crime scene. One hand gripped the kneeling man's collar. The other held a gun.
My heart stopped. The kneeling man was begging but the man in the suit wasn't listening. The second gunshot echoed so loudly my ears rang.
I gasped.
It wasn't loud enough to compete with the ringing in my head, but it was loud enough for him to hear. The man in the suit turned and looked straight at me.
I've never believed in evil having a face until that moment. His eyes weren't wild. They weren't angry. They were focused on me.
We stared at each other across the narrow stretch of alley, the body slumped between us. My legs finally remembered how to move.
I stepped back.
He stepped forward. Slowly.
Like I wasn't a witness.
Like I was something he'd been expecting.
"Run!" my brain screamed but my body refused.
As he moved closer, something inside my chest tightened in a way that didn't feel like fear alone. It felt… familiar.
No.
That was impossible.
I had never seen this man in my life.
He stopped just a few feet away from me. Close enough that I could see the faint scar cutting across his eyebrow. Close enough to smell something clean and sharp, expensive cologne mixed with gunpowder.
He studied my face like he was memorizing it. Like he already knew it.
His jaw tightened and then he said it.
"Elena."
My stomach dropped.
My name.
It is not a question. Neither did he hesitate. He said it with certainty.
I swallowed. "How do you know my name?"
His expression shifted, not surprise, not confusion. Something deeper. Something almost… broken.
He reached out slowly.
I should have slapped his hand away but i didn't.
His fingers brushed a strand of hair from my face. The touch wasn't rough. It was a ghost of a touch, like I was something fragile.
"You're alive," he murmured.
Alive?
"What are you talking about?" My voice came out smaller than I intended.
His eyes searched mine desperately and whatever he was looking for— He didn't find it.
The shift was instant and the softness vanished. The air grew colder.
"You don't remember," he said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
My pulse pounded in my ears. "Remember what?"
His hand dropped from my face. For a second, something dangerous flickered in his eyes. Not anger.
Possession.
Before I could react, strong arms wrapped around me from behind.
I screamed and a hand covered my mouth. The last thing I saw before everything went dark was him stepping closer again.
He was watching me. Not panicked, not rushed with the same certainty. As if this was always how tonight was going to end. And just before unconsciousness swallowed me whole I heard him whisper,
"I finally found you."
ALESSANDRO
I knew that face. Even before she stepped into the light, I knew.
For years, I've imagined this moment in a thousand different ways. I imagined finding a grave. I imagined finding a body. I imagined finding nothing at all. I never imagined finding her alive.
The man at my feet stopped moving. He no longer mattered, she did.
Elena.
She looked smaller than I remembered. Softer. Frightened. She didn't react the way she used to. No stubborn lift of her chin. No fire in her eyes. Just fear.
Fear of me.
That hurt more than the years without her.
I searched her face desperately, waiting for recognition. Waiting for anger. Waiting for anything that proved she remembered. Nothing.
I stepped closer before I could stop myself.
"Elena." My voice almost failed me.
I've said that name in empty rooms. In the dark. Tonight, it felt foreign.
"How do you know my name?" She asked.
The emptiness in her eyes told me everything. She doesn't remember. The world didn't end the day I lost her. It ended now. She was here and she was gone at the same time.
My father stole her from me once. I won't let the world take her again. When my men moved, I didn't stop them. She tried to pull away out of fear. I should have let her run but I didn't.
"Careful," I said quietly.
She had already been broken once. I would not let anyone break her again.
Except me.