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4: GHOST IN HER FACE

Penulis: Francesca Chow
last update Terakhir Diperbarui: 2025-06-23 03:03:46

“ She had Giulia eyes but she didn’t know what they’d seen”

The rain hadn’t stopped, but Amy barely noticed.

She sat in the back of the black car, the leather interior cool against her spine. The window fogged slowly as she stared out at the passing streets of the Lower West Side half empty, half rotting. The city never slept, but some parts of it knew how to go quiet.

Ellie Marchetti, Eliano. That name shouldn’t have shaken her but it had deeply, quietly like a match dropped in gasoline. Amy didn’t move she didn’t blink, she only let the girl’s name echo through her until it turned into something worse. Giulia, the car pulled up in front of her brownstone. Her driver opened the door, but Amy didn’t get out right away she waited until she was the last person in the car with her thoughts. That girl, that girl didn’t even know the name she carried she didn’t know the history sewn into her bones. She was Marchetti blood, yes but she had Giulia’s eyes, Giulia’s stillness, Giulia’s fire. Amy closed her eyes, leaned back, and for the first time in years she let the past creep in.

Ten Years Ago, 1939.

The last night, they were sitting in Amy’s bedroom back when the apartment was smaller, less cold, when she still thought love could survive in New York. Giulia sat by the window, legs tucked up under her, hair wet from the rain they’d just danced through. The radio played soft in the background— Billie Holiday, something about heartbreak, always.

“My father’s sending me away,” Giulia whispered. Amy looked up from her desk, Again? This time for good. Some estate upstate, he said it’s time I started

preparing for a real life. A husband. A future. Amy stood, He can’t do that.

He can, He is.

Giulia’s voice cracked on the last word, and Amy hated that she couldn’t fix it, hated that she wasn’t born powerful enough to burn the entire Marchetti name to the ground.

She crossed the room, knelt in front of hercupped her face. Then come with me, Amywhispered, where would we go? Somewhere that doesn’t know our names, somewhere quiet. Giulia laughed; sad, but soft. You and me on the run? What would we eat? Each other, Amy smirked. Giulia rolled her eyes, Amy… But the moment hung there longer than it should have.

Do you love me? Amy asked, suddenly.

Giulia’s lips parted and then she kissed her hard, desperate, full of something that already tasted like goodbye. Amy held her so tightly that night, like if she let go even a little, the whole world would collapse. She didn’t know it already had because three weeks later, Giulia was gone, no note, no goodbye, no explanation just whispers: pregnant, shipped off, a disgrace. Her name was never spoken in full sentences again.

Amy tried not to remember that night but now seeing Ellie? She couldn’t forget it back in the present Amy opened her eyes, rain streaked down the car window, blurring the city lights into something soft and sad.

The girl was back and not just in the streets she was back in Amy’s chest, curling under her ribs like a spark ready to burn Giulia’s eyes, maybe she didn’t know for sure not yet.

But she knew one thing:

That girl was going to unravel her.

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  • VELVET GUN   33: THE SILENT NIGHT RITUAL

    She watches her, fingers brushing through her curls. Heart thudding.The storm outside had eased to a gentle hush — the kind that made the night feel like it was holding its breath. Amy hadn’t slept, she lay on her back, one arm tucked around Ellie, the otherresting on her chest. The whiskey she’d abandoned hours ago still burned in her throat. The silence in the room wasn’t awkward — it was sacred like something fragile had been cracked open between them and now neither dared to breathetoo loud in case it shattered.Ellie stirred against her, no words just a small, broken breath. Amy turned her head, You awake?Ellie nodded slightly.They lay there for a while longer. Ellie spoke, “I didn’t just panic,” she whispered. “Not really. I mean… I did.But it’s been coming for days, weeks maybe.”Amy said nothing. She just listened.Ellie kept going.“Ever since the attack… I can’t get the sound of the gunshot out of my head, my own voice screaming, your body going limp. That blood on yo

  • VELVET GUN   32: LET THE WORLD BURN

    “They hold each other like war survivors like girls who have lost everything and found home in the ashes.”The house was dead quiet not the peaceful kind of quiet that settles after a long day, no. This one pressed on Amy’s ears like a coffin lid, heavy, final.She sat on the edge of her bed, hands clasped, cigarette burning low between her fingers and the smoke curling like a noose above her head. Sleep wouldn’t come, not after the night she’d had, not after staring down death itself and living to talk about it — barely if Ellie hadn’t been there… If Ellie hadn’t known how to shoot… If Ellie hadn’t pulled that trigger… They would’ve bagged her body and dragged it out the back door like any other casualty and the city would’ve moved on. Amy’s jaw clenched, the cigarette burned out in her hand. She hadn’t even tasted it, she stood slowly, walked to the cabinet and opened the liquor drawer with stiff fingers. Whiskey, the good kind, aged, burned on the way down but soothed something dee

  • VELVET GUN   TRIGGERED BLOOD

    “Monsters… monsters were not born to be monsters, society made them this way” Ellie didn’t sleep, she just lay there body curled but her eyes wide open in the darkness, the silence in the room was deceptive—too still like the world had held its breath to see what she’d become. She used to cry, every single night she’d cry because Nonna yelled at her or Amy wouldn’t look at her the way she wanted. She’d cry because she felt trapped. Caged but not anymore, now she just watched. Everything made sense in the most brutal, unforgiving way. The woman she thought was her sister—Gulia—was her mother. The man she’d once called uncle, Gulia’s husband, was her father. She’d been born of betrayal, raised in secrecy. Her life had been scripted like a cruel opera and Amy, Amy had known and she hadn’t told her. She thought it would break her, that she’d fall to pieces, that she’d need to be held, comforted but that softness had burned away the moment her father had looked her in the eye and said,

  • VELVET GUN   30: THE BLOOD YOU WERE BORN INTO

    “The house behind her that goddamned fortress of silence and whispers had swallowed the rest of the world.”The dinner was more of a performance. A table was set in the courtyard, under a string of hanging bulbs that flickered like stars. The night air smelled of wine, cigar smoke, and war. Giulia’s husband—tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a clean but worn suit—sat at the far end. His eyes burned into Ellie.“I’m not here to cause a scene,” he said. “I came to take my daughter home.”Ellie blinked. “Your... daughter?” The man nodded. “You.”Giulia gasped. The table fell into stunned silence.“You were told that,” he said gently, pointing to Giulia . “She’s not your sister, She’s your mother.”Ellie’s eyes widened. Her lips trembled. “You’re lying.”“Ask Amy,” he said. “She’s always known.” Ellie turned sharply. “Is it true?”Amy’s expression was unreadable.“You knew?” Ellie whispered. “You knew this whole time?”Amy looked away. “I wanted to tell you.”“But you didn’t,” Ellie snap

  • VELVET GUN   29: YOURS ALWAYS

    “There’s something about love that even hatred can not fathom” The dress they brought Ellie wasn’t just a dress.It was a message. Ivory silk with a corseted waist and a neckline that kissed her collarbone, the kind of gown no servant should ever wear, the kind of gown that whispered of forgotten royalty and old, buried promises. Two female guards stood outside her door, eyes averted but backs too straight to ignore what they were delivering. Ellie dressed in silence, spine rigid, pulse crawling up her throat; no jewelry, no perfume just her skin, raw and unhidden. Dinner was held in the east hall — the one with tall stained- glass windows and a table long enough to bury secrets on. Amy sat at the far end, black velvet, her hair up in loose curls, the shadows loving her more than light ever could. She didn’t speak when Ellie entered but her eyes tracked her like a wound.The guards closed the door behind Ellie. Silverware clinked, somewhere a clock ticked but the only thing Ellie cou

  • VELVET GUN   28: THE HOUSE OF FINN DOESN’T FORGIVE

    “Being scared of losing one but treating that one in a way they’ll lose themselves”woke before the lights came on. Not from sleep, but from stillness — the kind of numb exhaustion that came when your body gave up but your mind kept spinning and all you could do was lay in the dark and try to remember who you were before you became someone else’s price.The door clicked open at 6:00 a.m. sharp again but this time Amy wasn’t alone.Two women in black suits stepped into the room first silent, efficient. They didn’t speak to Ellie just moved around her like she was an object not a person. One laid out clothing on the bed — plain, dark but tailored. The other set down a tray of food and a glass of water then turned to Amy, who finally stepped inside. Amy looked at her the way a general might look at a soldier she didn’t want to send to war.“You eat,” she said, low and firm. “Then we begin again.”Ellie sat up, back straight, hands folded in her lap. “Do I get to know what we’re training

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