(Dante's POV)
She doesn't recognize me.
I study Aria's face as she settles into her chair, notebook balanced on her lap, pen poised with professional efficiency. The sharp edges that once defined her features have softened. Gone is the predatory grace, the way she used to move like violence barely contained. This woman arranges herself with the careful consideration of someone who spends their days listening to other people's pain.
"So, Mr. Moretti," she says, and hearing my name in her voice sends ice through my veins. "What brings you to see me today?"
You killed my family. The words sit on my tongue like poison, but I swallow them down. Not yet. I need to be certain.
"Trauma," I say instead, the lie coming easily after years of practice. "Memories that won't leave me alone."
Her expression shifts to something I've never seen before—genuine compassion. The Aria Castellano I knew was capable of many things: calculated seduction, cold efficiency, strategic mercy when it served her purposes. But this soft concern, this authentic desire to help? It's foreign as sunlight in the shadow realm.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Trauma can be incredibly isolating." She leans forward slightly, and I catch a glimpse of silver at her throat. A locket. Simple, delicate, nothing like the blood-magic talismans she used to wear. "Can you tell me a bit about what you've been experiencing?"
I let my psychic abilities unfurl, just a whisper of mental pressure to test her defenses. Five years ago, touching Aria's mind was like pressing against a blade—sharp, dangerous, ready to cut. Now there's nothing. No supernatural barriers, no trained resistance. Just the ordinary mental static of a human mind focused on her work.
Impossible.
"Bad dreams," I continue, watching her face for any micro-expression that might betray recognition. "Violent ones. People dying. Sometimes I wake up feeling like I've killed someone myself."
She doesn't flinch. Doesn't show even a flicker of the guilt that should be eating her alive after what she did to my family. Instead, she nods with professional understanding.
"Survivor's guilt is very common in trauma cases. Sometimes our minds create scenarios where we were responsible, as a way of processing helplessness." Her pen moves across the page in quick, efficient strokes. "Have you experienced any actual violence, or are these intrusive thoughts related to something you witnessed?"
The clinical detachment in her voice makes my jaw clench. This has to be an act. The greatest performance of her life, playing the innocent healer while she plans her next move. I reach deeper with my abilities, pushing past the surface thoughts.
Focus on his needs. Active listening. Don't project your own experiences onto his trauma. Remember what Thomas always says about...
Thomas. The name surfaces from her thoughts like a bubble, carrying with it a wash of pure affection. Paternal love, birthday cake, worried conversations about her mysterious past. I dig deeper, searching for the lies beneath the surface.
Instead, I find five years of genuine memories. Waking up in an alley with no knowledge of who she was. Learning to walk again, to speak without the refined diction of old-money Chicago families. Night terrors about shadows and blood that she attributes to head trauma. Years of therapy, of rebuilding herself from nothing into someone who dedicates her life to helping others heal.
It's impossible. It's...
Real.
The revelation hits me like a physical blow. This isn't an elaborate deception. Aria Castellano, the shadow-walker who killed three members of my family in a single night, is gone. What sits across from me is someone entirely different, wearing her face but possessing none of her memories, none of her training, none of the darkness that shaped her into a weapon.
"Mr. Moretti?" Her voice carries concern now. "Are you all right? You look pale."
I realize I've been staring, my psychic probe deeper than it should be for casual contact. She's noticed my distraction but attributes it to trauma response, not mental invasion. The innocence of that assumption makes something twist in my chest.
"Sorry. Sometimes the memories just... overwhelm me." The words taste like truth. I have been overwhelmed, just not in the way she thinks.
"That's completely normal. Trauma isn't linear, it comes in waves." She sets down her pen and gives me her full attention. "Would it help to talk about what happened?"
The irony is suffocating. Here she sits, offering to help me process trauma, when she's the one who caused it. Except she isn't, not really, not anymore. The woman across from me has never killed anyone, never felt the rush of power that comes from taking a life, never looked into someone's eyes and chosen mercy over duty.
But I have. I've spent five years becoming everything she used to be, cold, calculating, driven by vengeance. While she learned to heal, I learned to hurt. While she found peace, I cultivated rage.
"My family," I hear myself saying. "They were killed. Murdered in their own home by someone."
Her face crumples with sympathy. "I'm so sorry. That kind of violence, especially in a safe space, can create lasting psychological wounds."
Violence. She uses the word so easily, not knowing she's describing herself. Or who she used to be.
"The person who did it," I continue, testing, always testing. "They looked right at me. Had the chance to finish the job. But they didn't."
"They spared you?"
"In that moment, yes. I've never understood why."
Aria tilts her head, considering. "Even in moments of extreme violence, our humanity breaks through. Maybe this person saw something in you that reminded them of their own conscience."
Conscience. She talks about conscience like it's something sacred, something worth protecting. The old Aria would have laughed at such naivety.
My hand finds the dagger's hilt again, fingers tracing the familiar grooves in the enchanted metal. It would be so easy. One quick movement, and five years of planning would reach their conclusion. Justice for my grandfather, my uncle, my cousin. The blood debt finally paid.
But as I watch her scribble notes about trauma responses and healing mechanisms, something in me rebels against the simplicity of it. This isn't justice, this is executing someone who didn't commit the crime.
"Mr. Moretti, I want you to know that seeking help takes tremendous courage." She looks up from her notes, and her eyes are warm, kind in a way that cuts deeper than any blade. "Whatever you've survived, whatever you're carrying, you don't have to carry it alone anymore."
The words break something inside me. For five years, I have carried it alone. The nightmares, the rage, the single-minded focus on revenge that's consumed every aspect of my life. I've isolated myself from anything resembling genuine human connection, turning myself into a weapon as surely as the Castellanos once turned her.
And here she sits, this stranger wearing my enemy's face, offering me the very thing I've denied myself in pursuit of vengeance.
"I used to know someone," I say, the confession torn from somewhere deep. "Someone who made terrible choices. Did things that can't be forgiven."
"People aren't defined by their worst moments," she replies without hesitation. "Healing is always possible, even when we can't see the path forward."
The absolute certainty in her voice undoes me. She believes it, completely and utterly. Believes that even someone like me, like her, can find redemption.
My father's voice echoes in my memory: She's a Castellano. A killer.
But looking at her now, I realize the truth Marcus can never accept. The person he wants me to kill is already gone, has been gone for five years. What remains is someone who's built a life on helping others find their way back from darkness.
Someone who could help me find my way back too.
The thought is so treacherous, so completely against everything I've been trained to believe, that it shocks me into movement. My hand slides inside my jacket, fingers closing around the dagger's grip. This is madness. Sentiment. Weakness.
She's still talking, something about processing grief in healthy ways, when I stand and move behind her chair in one fluid motion. The enchanted blade whispers against leather as I draw it, the metal humming with barely contained magic.
"I'm sorry," I breathe, bringing the edge to her throat.
For a heartbeat, I wait. Wait for her to explode into shadow, to twist away with supernatural speed, to reveal that this has all been an elaborate trap. Instead, she goes rigid with pure, human terror. A small, choked sound escapes her throat.
"Please," she whispers, and the word is so broken, so completely devoid of the deadly confidence that once defined her, that my hand begins to shake.
Footsteps thunder down the hallway, her colleagues, responding to whatever sound of distress they heard. In seconds, they'll burst through that door, and my chance will be gone.
But I'm already pulling the blade away, my body moving toward the window before my mind catches up. This isn't her. This isn't the woman who destroyed my family. This is someone else entirely, someone who doesn't deserve to pay for crimes she can't even remember committing.
The window glass explodes outward as I crash through it, three stories above the Portland streets. I land in a crouch on the fire escape, then drop to the alley below, leaving behind a terrified woman and the echo of her scream.
As I disappear into the crowd, one thought follows me like a shadow:
What the hell am I supposed to do now?