Chapter 3: I am Sierra De Luca.

Chapter 3: "I am Sierra De Luca."

Elena’s POV

The mirror didn’t lie.

That was the problem.

I stood before it barefoot, wrapped in silk, surrounded by a room that felt more like a museum than a bedroom. Everything was pristine, cold, expensive. Walls lined with ancient paintings. Dark velvet curtains drawn back to reveal a moonlit Sicilian landscape. Gilded furniture. Mahogany floors. A bed large enough to swallow me whole.

But it wasn’t the room that unsettled me.

It was the girl in the mirror.

She was beautiful—fiercely so. Long raven-black hair. Pale skin, untouched by sun. High cheekbones, sculpted like a blade. Her frame was lean, athletic, graceful in a way I never was. She looked like she belonged in power. Like she owned it.

But those weren’t my eyes.

That wasn’t my face.

Those weren’t my hands.

This body wasn’t mine.

I didn’t know how—or why—but I had awoken in someone else’s life.

Sierra De Luca. Mafia heiress.

The only daughter of Viktor De Luca—one of the most dangerous men alive.

According to the nurse who’d whispered outside my room, Sierra had been in a coma for two years after surviving an assassination attempt.

They never caught the shooter. But the bullet lodged in her shoulder had torn through her ribcage and left her half-dead.

And now… she was awake.

Except she wasn’t.

I was.

I raised a trembling hand to the mirror, brushing my fingers across my new face. I barely recognized my own gaze anymore.

Then it hit me.

The memory.

The push.

It came back like a film unraveling behind my eyelids—

Viviana’s smirk.

The balcony railing vanishing.

The cold rush of air.

Dante turning his back on me.

The sickening crash.

All the memories of my past life flooded into my head.

I gasped, stumbling back, clutching the edge of the vanity for balance.

My chest rose and fell rapidly. The pain wasn't in my bones anymore—it was deeper, molten, buried in my soul.

I had died.

Elena Moretti had died.

And the world had kept turning.

I looked around the room for a distraction. A laptop sat charging on the desk. I crossed the room, opened it with a flick of my fingers, and hit the browser.

Within seconds, the screen lit up with a homepage. News updates. Mafia gossip channels. Business headlines.

And there they were.

Dante.

Viviana.

Standing side by side at some glitzy charity gala in Milan. Her hand on his arm. His lips close to her ear. She wore the necklace he once told me reminded him of moonlight on my skin.

My heart squeezed, then twisted violently in my chest.

She’d taken everything.

And he let her.

They’d destroyed me.

And they thought I was gone.

I closed the laptop slowly, fingers curling into tight fists.

The rage came quiet at first, then surged like a tidal wave through every nerve in my body.

Let them think I’m dead.

Let them think they’ve won.

I would take back everything.

And burn them both to the ground.

I was distracted when the door creaked open behind me.

I turned quickly, startled, to see the man from the hospital—the one with silver hair and serpent’s eyes—leaning against the doorway. His presence filled the space like smoke.

He didn’t speak at first. He just stood there, one hand in his pocket, watching me like he was reading every crack in my soul.

Finally, he said, “Confused, aren’t you?”

His voice was low and smooth, lined with the edge of something dangerous.

I turned toward him, my spine straightening despite the storm still raging inside me.

My voice, though softer than before, held firm.

“Yes,” I said. “But I’m also remembering.”

His eyes flickered with something unreadable—curiosity, maybe. Or caution.

He stepped into the room, the door closing quietly behind him.

And just like that, the games had begun.

“You and I,” he said calmly, “are going to have a conversation about rebirth… and revenge.”

My heart lurched.

I turned sharply from the mirror, barely managing to whisper, “You… you…”

His gaze never wavered. “I know,” he said, cutting me off.

My knees nearly buckled. I didn’t know what I was more terrified of—that he believed me, or that he knew.

Viktor De Luca stepped further into the room, his footsteps silent on the floor, but his presence thundered through the space like a dark storm. The air around him shifted. Heavy. Authority pressed in like a weight on my chest. He moved with the ease of a man who knew he controlled the room. Every room. A king among predators.

He looked nothing like a grieving father. He was composed, calculating, and deeply lethal.

“I deemed it impossible,” he went on, his voice smooth as polished steel. “I never believed in the supernatural. In rebirth. But then… you woke up. And when the doctor said you had amnesia, I didn’t believe that either.” He paused, studying me with those unsettling eyes. “Because I saw it. The moment your eyes opened. You weren’t Sierra.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came. My throat clenched. My hands trembled at my sides.

He tilted his head. “You don’t remember her life because you never lived it. But someone else now wears her skin.”

My legs gave out, and I backed against the edge of the vanity for support. A sob threatened to crawl up my throat. But Viktor raised a hand.

“Don’t break,” he said, not unkindly. “Not yet.”

He moved to the bed and sat, unbothered, commanding. The silk cover barely shifted beneath him.

“Sit,” he said.

I obeyed without thinking, stepping slowly toward him and sinking onto the edge of the bed, a few feet away. The room suddenly felt smaller. His aura consumed the space like smoke in a sealed chamber—an invisible pressure wrapping around my ribs.

Viktor folded his hands in his lap and leaned forward slightly.

“You’re not the first soul to come back wronged,” he said. “But you may be the first to come back with an empire behind her.”

I stared at him, wide-eyed, silent.

“I did some digging,” he continued. “Not just on Sierra’s assassination attempt—but on you.” He nodded toward the desk. “Your past life. Elena Moretti. Daughter of Matteo Moretti. Wife of Dante Russo. Allegedly jumped to her death from a balcony two years ago during a private party.”

My blood ran cold.

He reached into his coat and pulled out a sleek black tablet. He tapped the screen, and within seconds, images filled it—Dante and Viviana.

The photo showed them standing arm in arm outside a luxury estate. She was smiling like she owned the world. Dante wore that same neutral face I once loved, now twisted by the lies that destroyed me.

My fingers curled into fists.

“She pushed me,” I whispered. “And he believed her over me. He abandoned me.”

The rage surged like fire behind my ribs. My breath came in short bursts. I clenched my jaw so tight it ached.

Viktor watched me quietly, as if assessing a blade he was preparing to sharpen.

“Good,” he finally said. “Hold onto that fury. It will be your sword.”

I turned to him, voice shaking. “What do you want from me?”

“I want nothing,” he said, voice like ice. “But I offer you everything.”

He stood, towering and composed, then walked to the window and looked out at the estate grounds below.

“You are Sierra De Luca now,” he said without turning back. “The sole heir to the De Luca Empire. You have the weight of my name. My fortune. My army. You have eyes and ears in every corner of Italy. You have safe houses, weapons, information networks. You have power people kill for.”

He turned back to me slowly, his voice dropping low.

“You have everything you need to destroy them.”

My heart thundered in my chest.

He crossed the room in three smooth steps and knelt in front of me, his hand resting gently—but commandingly—on mine.

“Elena Moretti may be dead,” he said. “But Sierra De Luca is about to rise. To rise from the ashes of Elena. And if revenge is what you seek…”

I met his eyes, steady and burning.

“…then vengeance is what you shall have.”

I nodded once. Fierce. Unshaken.

“I want it all,” I whispered. “Every damn piece of them.”