Smoke and Mirrors

Serena

The world narrowed to a single point: the screen that no longer glowed. Static still buzzed faintly in my ears, like ghost breath, but the room was silent. Too silent.

Not even the dead man moaned.

I stared at Giovanni Morani’s lifeless face, my pulse a drumbeat beneath my skin. He had been someone’s son. Maybe someone’s father. And now, just a message.

A warning.

A trap.

Matteo was already in motion. "Luca, get the fake signature burning now. Nico, I want eyes on the nearest Moretti drone routes. We leak just enough heat to make it real, but not enough to tip our hand."

"On it," they said in unison.

I stayed still.

Because movement meant commitment. Movement meant war.

"You okay?" Luca asked quietly, brushing a curl from my face. His fingertips were gentle. His eyes weren’t. Not tonight.

I couldn’t lie to him. Not here.

"No."

A pause. "Good. That means you still feel. That means he hasn’t won."

I blinked. Swallowed hard. I didn’t want to feel. Not anymore. Not with my mother’s blood a possibility on someone else's hands. Not when I could already taste revenge like ash on my tongue.

Luca backed away, giving me space to fall apart or pull myself together.

I chose the second.

Matteo had pulled the server's power, shutting down the remaining feeds. “If he left us this much,” he said, “then Dante’s playing the long game. That means your mother isn’t a hostage—she’s leverage. A coin he hasn’t spent yet.”

My hand curled into a fist. “Then we’ll make him bankrupt.”

Nico’s voice cut through the tension. “Drone route intercepted. They’re already watching. They're buying it.”

Luca tossed me a small, silver disc. “Tracker with a heat signature, matched to your vitals. Strap it to the decoy. We'll send the dummy car out at sunrise.”

“And me?” I asked.

“You,” Matteo said, stepping forward, “get to disappear.”

He pulled off his jacket and wrapped it around my shoulders. “We’ve stashed a clean vehicle two blocks west. It’s stocked with burner phones, unregistered weapons, and a list of safe houses. You’ll take Route Echo.”

Route Echo.

It was the ghost road. A trail we’d planned years ago, when things were just whispers and threats and the occasional gunfight. Not war. Not like this.

“I’m not leaving you behind,” I said.

“You’re not,” Luca replied. “We’ll be ten minutes behind you the whole time. But you need to go in looking like prey.”

Nico smirked, reloading his weapon. “Just don’t make it too convincing, baby girl. They might forget who you are.”

I raised an eyebrow. “They’d have to be blind, dumb, and suicidal.”

He winked. “Still hot when you’re murderous.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

Two hours later.

The streets outside the city were empty, veins drained of life. Asphalt glistened under sodium light. I drove without headlights, following the map etched into memory, not paper.

The car was black. Tinted. Modified with bulletproof windows and a false trunk. It didn’t roar—it purred, like it knew the predator inside.

I wore black, too.

Tactical pants. A ribbed tank. Hair braided tight against my skull, like a warrior preparing for war.

The gun at my side wasn’t standard issue. It had belonged to my father.

He’d died believing my mother was innocent.

And now—now I didn’t know what she was. Victim. Traitor. Martyr. Ghost.

But I’d find out.

And I’d make every man who touched her bleed.

The burner phone buzzed once.

A text from Luca.

Satellite link steady. Tracker working. They bought it.

Time to make them choke on it.

I tucked the phone away, exhaling a breath that turned to frost against the cracked window.

Then another message buzzed in.

Unknown Number:

You’re early, Serena.

I froze.

No one should have this number. Not even my brothers.

Another ping.

But not unexpected.

My knuckles whitened on the wheel.

We’ll be seeing each other soon. Wear something red. It suits you.

No signature. No trace.

Just Dante.

Goddamn Dante.

I didn’t respond.

Instead, I reached into the glove box and pulled out a sharp, curved blade—a gift from Nico on my last birthday.

Engraved on the hilt was a phrase in Latin:

Vulnerant omnes, ultima necat.

(All wounds hurt, but the last one kills.)

I’d make sure he felt every one.

Back in the city.

Luca watched the decoy vehicle on the screen, a drone’s-eye view casting it in black-and-white. The heat signature was working. The Moretti satellite had pinged it twice.

“They’re on it,” he said. “Took the bait.”

Nico leaned on the console, chewing the cap off a water bottle. “You really think he’s gonna let her walk in there alive?”

“No,” Matteo said. “But we’re not going to let her walk in alone.”

His gaze turned lethal.

“We end this.”

“Tonight?” Nico asked.

“No,” Matteo said. “Tonight, we bleed them. Tomorrow, we burn them. But the end?” He smiled, slow and cold.

“That’s hers.”

Serena

The coordinates led to a place that shouldn’t exist.

Underground.

No signposts.

Just a tunnel in the woods, half-swallowed by moss and age. A gate waited at the end. Steel. Reinforced. New.

A keypad blinked beside it.

I pressed my palm to the scanner.

The red light turned green.

It shouldn’t have worked.

But he was expecting me.

The gate opened with a groan.

Beyond: a hallway lit by flickering bulbs. A single camera above the door. Watching.

I stepped inside.

My footfalls echoed.

The door slammed shut behind me.

Locked.

Trapped.

Exactly where he wanted me.

But what he didn’t know—what none of them knew—was what I’d brought with me.

And who was already on the way.

Because the thing about traps?

They work both ways.

And I’d been waiting my whole life to become the weapon.