The Judas

Serena:

I waited until dusk.

Not because I was afraid.

Because I wanted all three of them in the same room.

Luca was pacing in the hallway, hands shoved in his pockets, frustration clinging to him like smoke. Matteo sat in the study, sketchbook closed for once, whiskey untouched beside him. Nico leaned against the wall near the fire, unreadable, watching shadows curl like they might speak first.

I walked in with the weight of something heavier than fear.

And they looked at me like a puzzle suddenly turned into a blade.

“I want to train,” I said.

Matteo didn’t blink.

“Train for what?”

“To fight. To shoot. To survive.” I held their eyes. “Teach me how to make someone bleed before they make me vanish.”

A beat of silence.

Then Nico’s grin cracked like a match.

“Little queen’s getting sharp.”

Luca stepped forward. His expression was unreadable. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I lied. “Everything.”

I reached into my coat and pulled out the card.

Black, thick, unmarked except for the red sigil at the center—the twin serpents of the Moretti crest.

I tossed it onto the table between them.

“He gave this to me. I was instructed to come to the Twelve Gates Club. Midnight. Ask for the Black Room.”

They didn’t reach for it.

But they didn’t look surprised.

Matteo was the first to smile. Slow. Cold.

“Dante Moretti,” he said as if the name tasted like gunpowder. “The Judas of that family.”

Luca chuckled darkly. “He’s not wrong. That bastard turned on his blood before he was sixteen.”

“He’s their heir now,” I said. “He’s watching me.”

“Of course he is,” Nico murmured. “The Morettis don’t play games unless the prize is worth dying for.”

“He called me dangerous,” I said. “But he smiled like he meant it.”

Matteo’s gaze sharpened. “He’s not like us. He doesn’t believe in honor, just opportunity.”

“Good,” I said. “Then he’ll never see me coming.”

That made them pause.

Not because I was threatening.

Because I was becoming.

Luca stepped forward slowly, eyes searching mine.

“You want this?”

“No,” I whispered. “But I need it.”

Nico moved first.

He tossed a knife from the table into his hand and handed it to me.

“Then let’s start with how to make someone bleed without making a sound.”

They didn’t treat me like I was fragile.

They treated me like I was late to the game.

Matteo showed me how to hold a blade, not like a weapon but like an extension of my intent. Luca adjusted my stance and corrected my grip. Nico explained where to aim if I wanted pain and where to press if I wanted silence.

“The ribs are weak from the side,” Nico said. “But if you want someone to listen before they drop, go for the soft between the jaw and neck. Instant obedience.”

They made me practice until my hands were sore, until the knife felt natural until I didn’t flinch when Luca lunged at me and pressed me to the wall.

I moved.

Quick.

Sharp.

Almost right.

But not quite.

“You hesitated,” he growled, breath hot against my ear.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He pulled back.

“Then you’re not ready.”

“No,” Matteo said from behind him, voice like crushed glass. “She’s just learning to pick her targets.”

An hour later, I stood alone in the darkened hallway, sweat cooling on my skin.

The card still lay on the table behind me.

And I didn’t feel like prey circling predators for the first time.

I felt like something else.

A fourth edge to their triangle.

Unclaimed.

Unafraid.

Unfolding.

“He called me fire,” I whispered.

And now I believe it.

Judas or not, Dante wasn’t the only one who’d underestimated me.

The next time he saw me… I wouldn’t be the girl who listened.

I’d be the girl who burned.