Chapter 3: Present Day

Myra – Age 29

The dead don’t stay silent.

They linger. In your chest. In your bones. In the hollow behind your heartbeat. No matter how far you run, they wait for you — in alleys, in courtrooms, in dreams you wish you could forget.

Twelve years. That’s how long it’s been.

And still, I feel Kaden’s name burning beneath my skin like a brand I can’t wash off.

---

I adjusted the weight of my badge as I stared at myself in the precinct locker room mirror. Neat bun. No nonsense. Sharp eyeliner. Uniform, but tailored. My mouth was a straight line.

Most days, I didn’t recognize the girl I used to be — the girl who ran barefoot into a crime scene screaming her brother’s name. That girl died in that alley.

The woman who replaced her?

She doesn’t scream anymore.

She waits. She watches. She hunts.

---

“Detective Black.”

The voice was young. Nervous.

I turned to find a rookie standing just inside the doorway, gripping a file like it might bite him. Officer Reyes, if I remembered right.

“There’s a new call-out,” he said. “Shooting near the docks. One DOA. One missing. Witnesses say the shooter didn’t look like a gangbanger. Said he looked... expensive.”

I raised a brow. “Expensive?”

He nodded, swallowing. “Like a suit. Italian. Real clean.”

And just like that, something inside me snapped to attention.

---

I arrived on scene fifteen minutes later. An alley — different from the one where Kaden died, but somehow exactly the same. Blood pooled in the cracks of the concrete. Crime scene tape flapped in the breeze. A forensics team swarmed like ants around the corpse.

But my focus was already locked.

On the victim’s wrist, half-hidden under a torn sleeve, was a tattoo.

A black wolf.

Faded, but clear. Subtle. Like a message meant only for those who could read it.

And I could read it.

The Moretti Syndicate.

No one had seen that symbol in almost ten years. Not since the last time the family went underground after a massive federal sweep.

And yet — here it was. On a body in my city.

---

I crouched beside the corpse, ignoring the techs. My hand hovered over the blood-soaked ID bag. The name was unfamiliar. But the method of execution? The symbol? The precision?

This wasn’t random.

This was a calling card.

---

Hours later, I sat in my apartment, lights off, drink untouched.

Pinned to my wall — behind a row of framed commendations — was a photo only I knew was there.

It showed a blurry courtroom, years ago. In the back, barely visible, stood a man in a tailored suit. Dark hair. Stillness in his posture like danger coiled behind silk.

Raffaele Moretti.

I hadn’t seen that name in a decade. Not since the night I found it scrawled on a crime report tied to Kaden’s death.

Tonight, it appeared again — buried in a confidential update labeled “Unconfirmed Presence – Scene Two.”

---

He was back.

And if the devil had returned to my city…

Then it was time I reminded him what it means to lose everything.