The Judas

Serena

I waited until dusk.

Not because I was afraid.

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

There’s power in choosing your moment. In knowing when to walk into the fire—not to survive it, but to become it. That’s what I’d learned lately. Pain is a kind of teacher. Silence, too.

But I was done being quiet.

Luca paced the hallway, his jaw clenched, frustration rolling off him in waves. Hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders tight, like he’d already decided he didn’t want to hear what I had to say.

Matteo sat in the study, sketchbook closed for once, his fingers twitching where they rested on his knee. The man couldn’t stand stillness for long. A glass of whiskey sat beside him, untouched, the amber catching firelight. He hadn’t sipped it once. That, more than anything, told me he was already bracing for something.

Nico was the quietest. Leaning against the wall beside the fireplace, arms crossed over his chest, expression unreadable. He watched the shadows dance like he expected them to say something first. He was always the hardest to read—knife-sharp in the moments that mattered and maddeningly still the rest of the time.

I stepped into the room like I belonged there.

Not as their project. Not as their problem.

But as something they’d helped build without realizing it.

They looked up.

And they didn’t see the same girl anymore.

They looked at me like a puzzle suddenly turned into a blade.

“I want to train,” I said, voice flat. Measured. No hint of hesitation.

Matteo didn’t blink. “Train for what?”

“To fight. To shoot. To survive.” I looked at each of them in turn, daring them to stop me. “Teach me how to make someone bleed before they make me vanish.”

A beat of silence.

Luca stopped pacing. His hand gripped the doorframe, knuckles white. His eyes locked on mine with a question buried beneath the fury.

Nico’s grin cracked like a match. Crooked. Dangerous. Proud.

“Little queen’s getting sharp.”

“Too sharp,” Luca muttered.

He stepped forward. Slow. Controlled. His voice was quieter now, lower. “What happened?”

“Nothing,” I said.

Then softer. “Everything.”

I reached into the inside pocket of my coat and pulled it out.

The card.

Thick, heavy, jet-black. Unmarked except for the sigil in the center—twin serpents coiled around a dagger, rendered in blood-red ink. The Moretti crest. Beautiful in the way a curse might be.

I set it on 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.”

No one reached for it.

But I saw the flicker of recognition in all three of them.

Luca’s jaw flexed. Matteo leaned forward, elbows on knees. Nico finally moved from the wall.

“He,” Matteo said slowly, voice like glass dragging over concrete, “would be Dante Moretti.”

He said the name like it tasted wrong.

“Dante,” Luca echoed, and for once, he sounded amused. Bitterly so. “That bastard turned on his blood before he was sixteen. Traded his cousin to the Bratva to get his name on the heir list.”

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

“Of course he is,” Nico murmured. “The Morettis don’t make moves unless the prize is worth bleeding for.”

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

Matteo’s expression turned cold. “He doesn’t believe in honor. Just opportunity.”

“Good,” I replied, my voice steady. “Then he’ll never see me coming.”

That made them pause.

Not because I was threatening.

Because I was becoming something none of us, not even me, had expected.

The girl they thought they had to protect was gone.

And I wasn’t asking permission to replace her.

Luca looked at me for a long moment, eyes searching for something—doubt, fear, regret. I kept mine steady.

“You want this?” he asked finally.

“No,” I whispered. “But I need it.”

It was the truth.

And needing it… that meant I was already gone. Already changed.

Nico moved first. Without a word, he picked up the knife from the coffee table. He twirled it once through his fingers before offering it to me, hilt-first.

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

They didn’t treat me like I was glass.

They didn’t coddle me. Didn’t patronize.

They treated me like I was late to the game and trying to catch up.

Matteo stepped in close, his hands warm as he adjusted my grip. “Not like that,” he said. “Hold it like it belongs to you. Like it wants blood as much as you do.”

Luca circled behind me, hands bracketing my waist. “Your stance is too soft. You’ll lose your balance before you land a hit. Ground yourself. Feet shoulder-width.”

Nico pointed to the pressure points on his own neck. “Here. Right between the jaw and throat. Not enough to kill unless you push hard. But it gets attention.”

I practiced until my fingers ached.

Until the blade felt more like a part of my body than a tool.

Until my heartbeat matched the rhythm of Luca’s feints and Matteo’s corrections.

They pushed me.

Hard.

Luca lunged again, this time faster, knocking me into the wall.

I gasped, more out of surprise than pain, but I didn’t drop the knife.

I twisted.

Almost right.

But not quite.

“You hesitated,” he growled, lips inches from my ear.

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He pulled back like I’d slapped him.

“Then you’re not ready.”

“No,” Matteo said behind him, his voice low and rasping. She’s just learning to pick her targets.”

Nico tossed me a second blade. “You’ll need a backup. Everyone always forgets the second one.”

Matteo caught my wrist and guided my hand to tuck the new knife beneath my belt. “Close enough to reach, hidden enough to matter.”

Sweat dripped down my spine, my breathing fast and shallow, but I didn’t complain. I didn’t stop.

Because for the first time in my life, I wasn’t afraid of the girl I was becoming.

I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t.

I could feel the shift when they finally stepped back, letting me breathe.

They weren’t looking at me like someone they needed to guard anymore.

They were looking at me like someone who might bleed for them. Kill for them.

Or walk away and never look back.

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

The card still lay on the table behind me.

Untouched. Waiting.

I stared at it.

And I didn’t feel like prey circling predators anymore.

I felt like something else.

A fourth edge to their triangle.

Unclaimed.

Unafraid.

Unfolding.

I touched the scar on my shoulder—one they hadn’t seen yet, hidden beneath fabric and silence—and smiled.

“He called me fire,” I whispered.

And now I believe it.

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

He thought I was a pawn to push into place.

But the next time he saw me?

I wouldn’t be the girl whom he pushed and manipulated.

I’d be the girl who burned the whole damn board to ashes.