Chapter two: A new body, a new life, a second chance!

Chapter 2: A new body, a new life; A second chance!

Elena’s POV

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The sound came first—sharp, repetitive, and far too loud.

Then came the pain.

A throbbing pressure pulsed at the back of my skull, like someone had buried an axe in it. I tried to move my hand, to reach for my forehead, but my limbs felt heavy. Detached. Like they didn’t belong to me.

My eyes fluttered open, painfully slow, the bright ceiling lights above blinding me for a moment. A soft hiss escaped my lips.

Where… am I?

Sterile white walls. The steady hum of machines. IV lines in my arm. Monitors blinking in rhythm with the beeping.

I was at a hospital.

Panic coiled in my gut.

I looked down at my hand.

And froze.

It looked unfamiliar, it looked like it wasn't mine.

The skin was smooth, pale, slightly scarred across the knuckles. My nails—short and clean. My hands had always been darker. Tanned from sunlight, calloused from years of training. This one looked like it belonged to a stranger.

A gasp tore from my throat. My voice—

It wasn’t mine either. It was hoarse, but not the kind of hoarse I knew. It was higher. Lighter.

"What the hell—"

The chair beside my bed creaked suddenly. I turned to see an older woman leap to her feet. Her eyes were wide, glistening with tears. She had silver hair, pulled into a tight knot, and wore a sun dress.

“Sierra…!” she breathed, covering her mouth with trembling hands. “You’re awake—oh my God, you’re awake!”

She spun and bolted out of the room before I could even speak again.

“Sierra?” I echoed, my voice barely recognizable to my own ears.

Who the hell was Sierra?

I sat up slowly, breath shallow, staring at the unfamiliar hands resting on the pristine white blanket. My fingers trembled as I touched my face. The angle of my cheekbones felt sharper. My nose, narrower. My jaw more defined.

This isn’t real. This can’t be real.

The door burst open again. The silver-haired woman returned, this time with a man in a white coat—mid-fifties, dark-rimmed glasses, and a practiced calm in his eyes. A doctor.

“Miss De Luca,” he said softly. “Don’t panic. You’ve just woken up from a long rest. Just breathe.”

Miss De Luca?

“I—” My throat tightened. “Where… where am I? What happened to me?”

The doctor approached slowly, checking the monitor beside me. “You’re in a private hospital in Catania. You’ve been here for some time. Do you know your name?”

I blinked at him. My name? Of course, I knew it.

“Elena,” I whispered. “Elena… Moretti.”

The woman inhaled sharply. The doctor frowned.

He pulled out a penlight and gently examined my eyes.

“Can you tell me the last thing you remember?” he asked gently.

I closed my eyes. The images came crashing in.

Dante’s voice.

The betrayal.

The photos.

The screaming.

Viviana’s hands.

The sky flipping above me.

The cold, hard ground rushing up to meet me.

“I was falling,” I murmured. “Someone pushed me. I—I fell.”

The room went silent.

I opened my eyes to find the woman and the doctor exchanging a loaded look.

The woman’s hands were clasped tightly together now. “Doctor,” she said quietly, “should I call sir Viktor?”

The doctor gave a tight nod. “Yes. He’ll want to be here immediately.”

Viktor?

I had no idea who that was. Or where I was. Or who the hell Sierra De Luca was.

But as I sat in that hospital bed, staring down at the stranger’s hands, one thing became terrifyingly clear—

I had died in my old life.

And woken up in someone else's.

The door opened again with a soft click.

The shift in the room was immediate—like gravity itself had thickened.

Footsteps. Slow. Controlled. Echoing with authority.

I turned my head toward the entrance, and everything inside me went still.

The man who entered moved like he was carved from stone and fire. His silver hair was slicked back, not with vanity but with a precise kind of power. His suit was dark, perfectly tailored, his shoulders square beneath the weight of invisible crowns. But it was his eyes—those cold, slit-pupiled, snake-like eyes—that turned my blood to ice.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.

He just looked at me like he’d summoned me from the grave.

Something ancient and dangerous settled in his presence. The doctor straightened immediately. Even the woman—who I now guessed was some sort of assistant or relative—lowered her gaze as if she’d just remembered her place.

I didn’t know who this man was, but I knew what he was.

He was power. And power, I’d learned, was often more terrifying than death.

The doctor cleared his throat. “Mr. De Luca, sir… I was just explaining her condition.”

De Luca. My gaze sharpened.

“She’s awake, but still disoriented,” the doctor continued, his tone noticeably more careful now. “The brain scans suggest mild retrograde amnesia, likely trauma-induced. She remembers fragments—images, sensations—but not herself. She’s confused. It’s to be expected after two years in a coma.”

Two years?

I looked between them, pulse thudding in my ears. “I’m not confused,” I said. “There’s been a mistake. My name is Elena. Elena Moretti. I—”

“You are Sierra De Luca,” the silver-haired man said, stepping forward, each word crisp and final like a blade being unsheathed. “You are my daughter.”

I couldn’t speak. For a long second, I just stared at him.

There was no kindness in his expression. Only command. Ownership.

“No…” I breathed, but even as I said it, something inside me… wavered.

He raised a single brow, like he was daring me to challenge him again.

Everything in me screamed to deny it. To cling to what I knew. My name. My life. My grief.

But my body wasn’t mine.

My voice wasn’t mine.

And the reflection in the window staring back at me wasn’t Elena Moretti.

I swallowed hard.

“I am…” The words scraped against my throat. “I am Sierra De Luca.”

His gaze flicked to the doctor, satisfied. A king claiming his long-lost heir.

And in that moment, I knew—

Whatever life I had before…

Was over.