The boat groaned like it didn't want to dock.
Kael Virelli stood at the edge of the rusting deck, arms crossed, coat clinging to his frame like smoke. Cold salt air curled around his neck. It wasn't welcome. It smelled like rusted steel, rot, and the kind of damp that soaked into bone. The kind of damp that reminded him of the prison.
The chains around the other men clinked softly. No one stood near him.
Even in shackles, even after five years gone, people knew better.
Kael wasn't dangerous because of the things he said or did.
He was dangerous because he didn't say much at all.
The guards watched him like they thought maybe they'd made a mistake — maybe they'd let out the wrong one. But his paperwork was clean. He wasn't on parole. He wasn't being watched.
He was being released.
Or, more accurately: unleashed.
As the gangplank dropped and the harbor came into view, Kael didn't move right away. He stared at the skyline first — Mortano, the city of iron and fire, rain and blood. It looked the same. Industrial skeletons, smoke stacks like broken teeth, neon signs flickering half-dead in the drizzle. Cars crawled like rats through the sloped streets. The distant thump of bass echoed from some club that hadn't existed five years ago.
But beneath the familiar grime, something had changed.
It wasn't just rotting anymore.
It was unraveling.
Like a curse had taken root.
The man who came to pick him up was dressed in charcoal gray and drove a black Benz with smoked windows. He said nothing when Kael slid into the back seat. Just nodded once and pulled away from the docks.
The ride was silent, but Kael could feel the city pressing in. Billboards dripped with blood-red perfume ads. Half of downtown looked abandoned. Some of the old family symbols were gone — painted over. Others were crossed out with red spray paint or marked with strange sigils.
He lit a cigarette and leaned back.
They'd tried to kill him in that ocean prison more times than he could count. Not just the inmates — the guards, the system, the sea itself. The Deep Cages were built to erase people like him.
He survived.
But he didn't come back untouched.
A lot of things got buried at sea. Names. Memories. Men.
But not Kael. Kael came back heavier. With new scars. With silence that could slice glass. With a need for answers that had fermented into something sharper.
And under it all, there was a whisper of something old. Something that hadn't died with the Virelli bloodline.
Something with teeth.
The driver dropped him at the top of a narrow hill in the city's northern ward — an old Virelli safehouse. Brick. Windowless. Quiet.
Kael walked up the steps like a man walking into his own mausoleum.
The door opened before he knocked. A boy stood there — eighteen, maybe nineteen, skin tight over bone and too-large eyes. His hand twitched like he didn't know whether to offer it or hide it.
"Boss," he croaked.
Kael stared at him.
"I'm not your boss," he said.
Then he stepped past him and into the dark.
Inside, the air was stale with secrets. Dust and gun oil. A scent he'd missed.
Or maybe just remembered wrong.
He dropped the duffel bag on the table and unzipped it. Inside were two pistols, several stacked folders, and a folded cloth bundle wrapped in black velvet. He left the bundle untouched for now.
Instead, he reached for the top folder. Opened it.
Faces. Names. Maps. Scrawled notes. Some circled. Some scratched out. All connected.
But at the bottom of the file was one photo — old, charred at the corners.
She looked almost exactly the same.
Aria.
She was thinner now. Paler. Something wild in her eyes that hadn't been there before. But the violet stayed. Eyes like bruises the world never let heal.
Kael's jaw flexed.
"Where is she?" he asked the boy, voice low.
The kid jumped, swallowed.
"No one knows for sure. They say she doesn't stay anywhere longer than a night. Some say she's not even real."
Kael didn't answer.
Because he knew better.
Five years ago, Aria had betrayed them all.
She'd turned on the bloodlines — not just the Virellis, but the DeLorenzos, the Mikhailovs, the Tans. The core families who'd ruled Mortano for generations.
She'd sold names. Poisoned networks. Burned safehouses to the ground. And then — she vanished.
Some said she died. Others said she was being kept by a cult outside the city, half-witch, half-goddess. Some said she was working for an enemy syndicate from overseas.
But the bodies kept turning up.
Burned.
Marked.
Cursed.
Kael looked down at the photo again.
Aria hadn't betrayed them for power.
She'd done it for revenge.
And whatever it was they'd done to her — whatever it was they hadn't seen coming — it hadn't died with her name.
It lived on. In fire. In blood. In silence.
Kael tapped the edge of the photo once, then twice.
Then he opened the black velvet bundle.
Inside: a dagger.
Old. Bone-handled. Carved with runes that shouldn't exist. Still stained.
Still warm.
…
Kael hadn't planned to come back.
Not to the city.
Not to Dario.
And sure as hell not to the ghosts.
But some debts don't stay buried. Especially when they're paid in blood.
He stood at the kitchen sink of the safehouse, watching dirty rain smear the small window like someone was dragging a corpse across the glass. He hadn't slept since stepping off the prison boat. His bones still felt like seawater. Like rusted iron. Like the memory of a man he used to be.
He looked at his reflection in the glass. Half-there. Scarred. Eyed like a stray dog.
Five years ago, his face had been smooth, full of hunger and youth and swagger.
Now?
He looked like someone who didn't believe in survival — just punishment.
Behind him, the kid—Luca, that was his name—cleared his throat awkwardly.
"Word is, Dario's got the entire west side now. He moved fast while you were inside. Took back the docks from the Mikhalovs. Leveled the Strega's old den. Rebuilt the casino."
Kael didn't turn.
He didn't have to.
The name Dario did enough damage on its own.
Dario Malvone.
He wasn't a king. He didn't want a throne.
He was the crown itself—polished, cold, and sharp enough to slice flesh. Always had been. Even when they were kids. Even when they were something like lovers, though neither of them ever said it out loud.
Kael had always burned.
Dario? He sank. Deep. Quiet. Like a blade under ribs.
And now he owned Mortano.
Or what was left of it.
Kael finally turned around and fixed Luca with a stare that made the boy shrink back a step.
"Does he know I'm out?" he asked.
Luca hesitated. Then nodded.
"He's… expecting you."
Kael's brow lifted, just a little.
"Expecting me?"
"He said when you were ready, you'd come to him. Like he knew."
Kael gave a humorless laugh. It sounded like gravel grinding through glass.
"Of course he knew."
He waited until the kid left before unpacking the rest of the bag.
A burner phone. A flash drive. A key wrapped in black string.
And at the bottom — another file.
This one marked with a red wax seal, unbroken.
The symbol on it wasn't one Kael had seen before — but he could feel it pressing against the air, like it wanted to be opened. Like it had teeth behind it.
He ignored it for now.
Instead, he pulled out a small, water-warped notebook.
Inside, his own handwriting. Scrawled during the worst nights in the Deep Cages. Barely legible. Mad, maybe.
But real.
Page after page of nightmares that felt too sharp to be dreams.
Whispers about Aria.
About the witch.
About a curse that was never supposed to survive the old war.
And about Dario—how he'd lied to them both.
*FLASHBACK – 6 YEARS AGO
Kael. Aria. Dario.
Seventeen, eighteen. Young, cruel, full of fire.
Back before everything burned.
They sat on the rooftop of the Saint Elmo Casino, legs dangling over the edge, the city glowing below like a disease. Dario held a cigarette between his lips, letting Aria light it. She leaned close, her violet eyes catching the flame like they were made of it.
Kael watched her too long.
Dario noticed.
He always noticed.
"Jealous?" he asked, voice a dare wrapped in velvet.
Kael smiled with teeth.
"Of you? Or her?"
Dario didn't smile.
Aria did.
"I think we're all jealous of something," she said.
That night, the three of them made a pact. Blood drawn on glass. No more lies. No more betrayals. They were the future. The ones who'd rise from the bones of old men and make this city theirs.
They were family.
Until they weren't.
PRESENT – MORTANO, NIGHT
Elsewhere in the city, a man was dying.
He didn't know it yet. He thought he was drunk. Sitting in the back of his private club, letting a girl dance on his lap while he barked orders to his men over music.
But something in the air shifted. He looked up.
And Aria was already there.
Not the girl from the rooftop.
The thing she'd become.
Black coat. Pale skin. A crescent of runes glowing faintly along her collarbone. Eyes hollow and violet-bright.
She didn't speak.
She just reached out.
The man's heart exploded in his chest like it had been set off with a detonator. No mark. No blood. Just a body crumpling inward like it wanted to die before it could scream.
She stepped over him and walked into the dark.
A new symbol burned itself into the wood of the table.
The same one on the wax seal in Kael's bag.
…
Kael didn't tell anyone he was going.
Didn't call ahead. Didn't check in with any lieutenants or runners or allies who might've still remembered his name. He just put on his coat, tucked the bone-handled dagger inside, and walked straight into the lion's den.
The Vanta Club.
Once a neutral zone. Now owned by Dario Malvone and soaked in every kind of sin. Red lights lined the arched hallway, velvet walls muffling the sounds of business and pleasure. Men in suits carried silver briefcases. Women in leather whispered into the ears of men too powerful to die in clean ways.
But when Kael stepped through the door, the room slowed like it recognized him.
Some of them stood. Some just stared.
A few dropped their drinks.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to.
He walked past tables, through lounges and backrooms, like he owned the blood in the walls.
Because once, he did.
The door to Dario's private suite was unguarded.
Kael opened it without knocking.
Inside: low jazz, dim firelight, the scent of vetiver and whiskey.
And Dario.
Leaning against a bar in a white shirt, sleeves rolled, neck open. Dark hair swept back, a cigarette burning in one hand.
He looked older.
Sharper.
Like a statue someone forgot to finish carving — too beautiful to be human, too brutal to be safe.
He didn't look surprised.
"You took your time," he said.
Kael stepped in, shut the door behind him.
"They tried to drown me."
Dario's smile was slow. Sad, almost.
"They always do."
For a moment, neither moved.
Then Dario crossed the space between them and pulled Kael into a rough embrace — not soft, not warm. Like he was checking if Kael was still flesh. Still real.
Kael didn't return it. Not fully. But he didn't pull away, either.
He could feel Dario's heartbeat. Calm. Controlled.
His hand stayed a second too long on Kael's waist.
"You still smell like smoke," Dario murmured near his ear.
Kael stepped back.
"You still smell like lies."
Dario's eyes flashed.
But he didn't argue.
"I thought you were dead," Dario said, pouring two glasses of something expensive.
"You're the one who sent me in."
"No," Dario said. "I'm the one who didn't pull you out."
Kael took the drink. Didn't sip it.
"She's back," he said.
Dario's face didn't change. Not visibly. But the ice in his glass cracked like a spine.
"You're sure?"
"She's killing again."
"She was always going to kill again."
"She's using the old language now."
That got Dario's attention.
He turned.
"The witch's language?"
Kael nodded once.
"She left a symbol."
He slid the photo across the table. Dario looked down. He didn't touch it.
Then, quiet: "Do you know her name yet?"
Kael's voice dropped to a rasp.
"Salvara."
The word tasted like ash. Like something forbidden. Ancient. The witch who'd cursed the bloodlines before the city even had a name. A myth, a warning. A punishment.
And now, a weapon.
"She's not just killing," Kael added. "She's binding them."
"Binding who?"
"The bloodline heirs. One by one. Heart to soul. Bone to blood. She's building something."
Dario's eyes darkened.
"How many?"
Kael lit a cigarette.
"Six dead. Three bound. Two missing."
"And us?"
Kael met his gaze.
"I think we're last."
The silence between them was thick.
They hadn't said what they were to each other, even now. But the city had always whispered it. Through alleys. In backroom deals. In the way Dario never touched anyone else. In the way Kael never stayed gone until now.
"You still love her?" Dario asked suddenly.
Kael blinked.
"I don't know if I ever did."
"But you chose her."
"I chose wrong."
Dario stepped close again.
"Then choose right this time."
Their kiss wasn't tender.
It was war.
Mouths colliding like rival empires. Teeth, breath, hands pulling like they needed proof they were still alive. Kael pushed him back against the bar. Dario let him. Bit his lip. Took it like he'd been waiting five years to bleed for it.
When they broke apart, both breathing hard, Dario spoke first.
"You came back for vengeance."
"I came back to survive."
"You won't."
Kael smiled.
"I know."
But neither of them spoke what mattered most:
That they'd both betrayed her.
And now she wasn't just coming for them.
She was coming for the throne they'd built from her bones.
~~~
She dreamed in teeth.
Every night, Aria watched them die again.
Her father. Her brother. Her first love.
Slaughtered one by one, not by the city, but by the men they trusted.
By Kael.
By Dario.
By the Virelli name that promised loyalty and delivered knives.
She woke in the dark, tangled in sheets soaked with sweat and whispers. The room around her was silent, but not empty. Shadows moved in the corners like they had weight. The candles at her altar burned blue, never red.
And on her chest, the sigil pulsed.
Drawn in blood. Etched with a blade. The mark of Salvara.
Not a symbol. Not a tattoo. A living curse, given to her by the last true witch of Mortano.
A gift.
A sentence.
A power that now ran bone-deep.
Aria rose without sound.
Her bare feet hit the cold stone floor of the sanctuary she had built—part mansion, part crypt, part war room. Books bound in human skin. Spell jars filled with teeth and fingernails. Maps of the city inked in dried blood, names crossed out in charcoal.
Above the altar, a mural: her family, painted in oil and ash. Their faces serene. Their bodies fractured. A black crown dripping from her brother's broken skull.
This was not a house.
This was a promise.
In the center of the room, the witch waited.
Salvara.
She never sat. She never blinked. Her skin was the color of rot and her eyes were like holes burned in cloth. She had no shadow. No scent. Only voice.
"You dream of him again."
Aria didn't respond.
"You still love him."
"No."
"Then why does your heart try to dig its way out of your chest?"
Aria turned her back to the witch. Walked to the altar.
Lit another candle with a shaking hand.
"I don't love Kael."
"You did once."
"I don't now."
Salvara smiled — or at least made the shape of a smile.
"Good. Because he'll die either way."
Aria's fingers trembled, but she didn't drop the match.
"They were supposed to drown him," she whispered. "The cages were supposed to break his spine."
"Men like Kael don't drown," said Salvara. "They just learn to hold their breath longer than everyone else."
Aria closed her eyes.
It was true. Even broken, Kael would claw his way out. And Dario — Dario was worse. Elegant, cruel, the kind of man who made betrayal look like art.
She had loved them both. And they had gutted her world.
Now she would gut theirs.
Salvara stepped forward, her voice echoing low and metallic.
"It's time."
Aria opened her eyes.
"Time for what?"
"The final binding."
She stiffened.
"I'm not ready."
Salvara grinned.
"You were ready the moment your soul screamed itself apart."
A bell rang in the distance.
Not a sound, but a feeling. A call of blood. It vibrated through Aria's ribs, made her knees weak. The air around them changed. Grew thick.
The walls of the sanctuary whispered.
A name.
Kael.
Aria reached for the blade on the altar — the same one her father used to cut truth from liars.
She slit her palm clean.
Blood hit the bowl with a hiss.
The witch began to chant in the old tongue — not words, but wounds shaped into sound.
Aria repeated them, every syllable like swallowing coals.
The blood boiled.
Smoke rose.
In the bowl, the surface shimmered — and then cleared.
Kael's face appeared.
Not a photograph. Not a memory.
Live. Breathing. Right now.
He was standing in Dario's room.
They were touching.
Their hands. Their mouths.
Their scars.
Her heart cracked in her chest.
"You see now," Salvara said.
"They still choose each other."
"They always did."
"And yet," the witch whispered, "they're yours. By curse. By bond. By the oath they broke."
Aria's eyes glowed violet.
"I'll rip them apart."
The witch smiled wider.
"No, my sweet. You'll let them rip themselves."
Outside, thunder cracked like a warning.
The curse had fully awakened.
The war wasn't coming.
It had already begun.
⁓⁓⁓
Dario hated looking at him.
Not because Kael had changed.
But because he hadn't.
Same scars. Same silence. Same eyes like midnight bleeding down marble steps.
Kael stood in the middle of Dario's penthouse office, dripping rain onto velvet carpet, cigarette hanging from his lips like he wanted to start a fire with it.
"You're late," Dario said, not looking up from the map on the table.
Kael exhaled smoke. "You're still alive. That's early, for this city."
Dario's hand twitched. Not at the insult — at the sound of his voice. Like gravel grinding beneath silk.
He looked up.
Kael didn't flinch. Never did. But there was something beneath his stillness tonight. A crack. A pull. A burn that hadn't cooled.
They hadn't seen each other in five years.
And five years ago, Dario had ordered Kael's execution.
"I heard she's alive," Kael said.
Dario didn't answer.
"You knew, didn't you?"
Still nothing.
Kael stepped closer. The cigarette died between his fingers.
"You knew she survived the fire. That she was the one killing the families. And you didn't tell me."
"I didn't think it mattered."
"Everything fucking matters," Kael growled, voice low, furious, intimate.
"You're the one who told me loyalty was just a pretty word for a leash," Dario said softly.
Kael's jaw ticked.
Neither moved. Neither blinked. But the air between them crackled.
Then Kael did something stupid.
He stepped closer.
Dario didn't stop him.
Kael reached out, fingers brushing Dario's collarbone — the scar still there, the one Kael had kissed a thousand times before he was sent to drown.
"You should've buried me deeper," Kael said, voice raw.
"I tried," Dario said. "But I missed you too much."
Kael's mouth found his. Violent. Desperate.
Their teeth knocked.
Their hands tangled.
Five years of rage and regret uncoiled between their mouths.
When they broke apart, Kael's voice was colder than winter steel.
"She's going to burn this city down."
"I know."
"She's going to kill us both."
Dario stared at him. "Then let's make sure she bleeds first."
They set the trap that night.
A meeting.
An offering.
One of the minor bloodlines — the Castellis — had asked for protection.
They'd get none.
The point wasn't to protect them.
The point was to bait her.
To lure Aria out from the dark.
But Aria was already two steps ahead.
The Castelli estate burned before Kael and Dario even arrived.
By the time their car screeched to a halt, flames were chewing through brick and bone. Bodies littered the courtyard — guards, lieutenants, family.
All dead.
Except one.
She was waiting in the garden.
A Castelli cousin, barely nineteen.
Her dress was soaked in blood. Her mouth was sewn shut. Her eyes glowed violet.
She held out a letter.
Kael took it.
Unfolded it.
Read it once.
Twice.
Then smiled. A bitter, broken thing.
Dario read over his shoulder.
The note was written in Aria's hand.
"You used to kiss me like I was holy.
Now you kiss each other like you forgot.
But I remember everything.
And I forgive nothing.
Loyalty is a knife.
You chose where to cut."
— A
Kael crumpled the paper.
Blood dripped from the girl's mouth.
She wasn't breathing anymore.
She never had been.
Dario stared at the flames.
"We're not in control of this."
Kael nodded.
"Not anymore."
Above them, lightning split the sky.
Below them, something stirred — ancient, hungry, forgotten.
The curse was moving.
And the city of Mortano was already bleeding