THE MEMORY THAT BLEEDS

Aria sat stiffly at the war room table, her knuckles white where they gripped the edge. The entire estate buzzed with alarms now silenced, and the cold clarity of threat hung heavy in the air. Screens blinked with updated feeds. Guards were being repositioned. Blood was being mopped off the marble in some distant hallway.

But nothing, not even the presence of safety, could quiet the noise in her head.

Luciano stood beside her, one hand resting protectively on her shoulder. His other held the message they’d taken off the guard’s corpse—written in blood, on a torn page of an old book.

The words scrawled across the page were unmistakable:

She remembers what she was made for.

“What does it mean?” Aria asked finally, her voice quieter than a whisper.

No one in the room answered right away.

Isadora shifted on her feet near the screens, arms crossed tightly. Mateo leaned against the back wall, eyes dark and unreadable.

Luciano answered without looking at her. “I think he’s talking about your mother.”

Aria’s breath caught. “But I don’t remember anything. I was a child when she died. He’s wrong.”

Isadora cut in then, her voice surprisingly sharp. “Maybe he’s not. Maybe it’s buried so deep you’ve forgotten it. But Antonio’s obsessed with the past. If your mother did something… or was part of something…”

“She wasn’t,” Aria snapped. “She was a pianist. A teacher.”

Luciano’s silence said more than words ever could.

Aria turned to him slowly. “You don’t believe me.”

“I believe you,” he said softly. “But I also believe Antonio wouldn’t come after you unless you were more than just leverage.”

Aria stood, her chair screeching behind her. “So what, I’m some… forgotten pawn in a game I never agreed to play?”

“You’re not a pawn,” Luciano growled. “You’re the only reason I still care who wins.”

Silence fell like ash.

Then Mateo moved from the shadows, something clenched in his hand. He placed it gently on the table in front of Aria.

A photo.

Faded. Torn at the edges.

Aria picked it up with trembling fingers.

Her breath froze.

It was her mother.

Younger. Dressed in all black, standing beside Antonio Moretti.

And she was smiling.

A cold, practiced smile. The same smile Aria had seen on Antonio’s lips when he whispered through the vault.

Luciano leaned down beside her. “There’s more. That picture was taken during a wedding. A union between two crime families.”

Aria looked up, horror twisting her features. “Whose wedding?”

Isadora swallowed. “Yours.”

Silence.

Aria blinked. “What?”

“You were born to bind the two families,” Isadora said, her voice gentle now. “Your mother—Elena—was Antonio’s half-sister. And when she married your father, she made peace between the De Lucas and the Morettis.”

“No…” Aria backed away from the table. “No, my father wasn’t—”

Luciano’s voice cut through. “Your father is still alive, Aria. And he wasn’t just some low-level figure. He was the De Luca family’s strategist. The mind behind every major move for nearly a decade.”

Aria’s knees buckled. She collapsed into the chair again, gasping. “So all this time… I’ve been a key to something I didn’t even know existed?”

Mateo nodded grimly. “Not a key. The heir. The bloodline. If Antonio controls you, he controls the story. The history. The legend.”

“And Luciano?” she asked faintly. “What happens to him in Antonio’s story?”

Isadora didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

The implication was clear.

Luciano would die.

Aria looked up at him, tears burning the corners of her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

“I was trying to protect you from it,” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t want to give Antonio any more of your mind than he’d already stolen.”

“But now he’s in the house,” she whispered. “And he wants something I don’t even understand.”

Luciano nodded. “Which is why we need to go to the only person who does.”

Aria’s eyes flicked to him. “Who?”

Luciano glanced at Isadora.

She nodded reluctantly. “Your father.”

“But I thought he was in hiding.”

Luciano looked Aria dead in the eye. “He was. Until tonight.”

He pulled out his phone and tossed it on the table. The screen showed a single message. Timestamped five minutes ago.

She’s ready to remember. Meet me at the house where it ended.

Aria stared at the words. Her hands shook. “What house?”

Luciano’s voice was cold now. Final.

“The house where your mother died.”