Mission: Save the Underworld Queen, or Die

Matteo's POV

The doctor let out a heavy sigh beside me.

"Mr. Linari, your last injury caused a severe intestinal infection, and this time the knife hit the exact same spot. If you don't start taking care of yourself, you're looking at colon cancer."

I stared up at the ceiling, my voice sounding like it was coming from a million miles away. "It's fine."

Once the doctor left, I heard the System sigh too.

"Mission failed. You're going to be wiped out. Do you want to restart the mission and keep trying to save the underworld queen, Daniela Falcone?"

I shook my head. "Just wipe me out."

"Understood. Wipe-out protocol initiated. You have 72 hours left."

I closed my eyes. The silence around me felt deafening.

A second later, like a man possessed, I tapped open Luca Bianchi's livestream.

He was broadcasting from the hilltop villa Daniela had bought for him.

On screen, he stood at an easel mixing paints, an oversized shirt hanging off him and a hair tie looped around his wrist.

Even with the faint red marks on his chest, his eyes were clear and bright, his smile all warmth and sunshine.

He was only two years younger than me, but he looked like he'd just stepped into the real world for the first time.

"This hair tie? It's my girlfriend's. And these marks… well, you guys know how it is. Things got a little wild last night."

He turned to look at someone off-camera, his eyes crinkling at the corners. "Didn't think I'd give away my first kiss and my first time on the same day."

A woman's voice drifted over, soft and smooth. "Didn't you leave just as many on me?"

The chat blew up.

[Luca finally locked down his goddess! We need more couple content!]

"Couple vlogs might be tough," Luca said, flashing a grin. "My girlfriend's line of work is pretty sensitive. She can't show her face."

As he spoke, a streak of red paint smeared across his sleeve, leaving a trace on the hair tie too.

Luca let out a soft gasp, and a woman's long, pale fingers reached into the frame to fix his cuff, revealing a sailboat-shaped ring on her ring finger.

"It's fine if it gets dirty," she said. "Next time I'll give you another one of mine."

His grin widened. He set down the paint, took her hand, and walked off.

Off-camera, the sounds of kissing and heavy breathing drifted through the mic, leaving the rest to the imagination.

The comments flew past, but one stood out.

[Wait—did I just hear Daniela Falcone? The underworld queen?]

Then the woman's voice cut back in, and the temperature dropped in an instant.

"I'm not her."

The stream went dead. I set my phone down and sank into a heavy sleep.

In the dream, I was cleaning when I knocked over a box of Daniela's black hair ties.

I apologized right away, but she exploded anyway, snapping that I should never touch her things.

She threw the box straight in the trash, and after that, I never saw another personal item of hers in the house.

The dream ended with Daniela's back turned to me—the same view I'd stared at for three years as she rushed off to get to Luca, leaving me behind to be tortured.

When I woke in a daze, the first thing I saw was a sailboat-shaped ring.

I looked up. Luca had changed into a plain T-shirt and jeans and was gulping chicken broth straight from a thermos.

The housekeeper stood nearby, looking deeply apologetic. "Mr. Linari, I'm so sorry. I only brought enough for one, but it turns out Mr. Bianchi loves this broth too."

"Oh, I can't believe I drank the whole thing," Luca said. "Matteo, I'm so, so sorry."