"Marcus! What the HELL?!" Sophia jolted awake. Her eyes flew open in horror. The kind artist was curled on the cold ground, shielding his head, while Marcus, transformed into a berserker, rained brutal kicks and punches down on him.
"He dared to touch you!" Marcus's voice was a guttural snarl, distorted by possessive rage. He raised his heavy boot, poised to stomp down on the young man's long, paint-stained fingers – the hands that had dared to sketch his Sophia deserved to be crushed!
"STOP IT!" Sophia shrieked, throwing herself at Marcus, shoving him back with desperate strength. She dropped to her knees beside the artist. His face was a ruin – swollen, bruised, smeared with dirt and blood leaking from his nose and split lip. Guilt and horror choked her voice. "I'm so sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"I-it's... okay..." The young man forced his swollen eyes open. Through the pain and the blood, he somehow managed a faint, lopsided version of his warm smile. His voice was raspy but gentle. "He... misunderstood..."
Sophia stared, stunned. Violence in the Syndicate meant one thing: swift, brutal retaliation. Blood for blood. Darkness for darkness. It was the only law she knew. Yet here this man was, beaten savagely for no reason, and instead of hatred or plans for revenge... he offered her comfort? That blinding, unexpected light in the midst of such ugliness struck her like a physical blow, cracking the foundations of her shadowed world.
Six months had passed since that twilight by the lake.
"Anthony, you've met him, right?" Sophia leaned against her brother in his study, her face glowing with a happiness Anthony hadn't seen in years. Gone was the girl; here was a woman in love. "I love him, Anthony. So much. After you, he's... everything." Her voice was soft, filled with the sweet ache of first love. "You know what I remember most? That day Marcus... how badly he was hurt... and he smiled at me. Like sunlight breaking through storm clouds."
"Yeah," Anthony sighed, a complex mix of resignation and deep affection in his voice. "One damn smile, and he stole my little princess." His girl had grown up. The artist was nobody in their world – no power, no connections. But Sophia saw something true in him. A purity, a resilience. He could give her the one thing Anthony, trapped in his crown of thorns, never could: a life free of guns and betrayal, filled with simple peace and fierce, uncomplicated love. He would let her go. For her happiness.
Lost in the bittersweet moment, neither heard the heavy oak door click shut. Outside, Marcus Rossi stood like a statue carved from obsidian. His face was a terrifying blank, but his eyes... they burned with a cold, consuming fire. Sophia was his. His to guard, his to possess. That parasite with his sketchpad? He wouldn't steal her. No one took what belonged to Marcus Rossi.
The first frail snowflakes of winter dusted Arkham.
Sophia clutched the tickets to Zurich in the airport's VIP lounge, her heart a buoyant balloon of hope. Anthony had arranged everything. Today, she flew towards her future, towards him, leaving the city's shadows behind. The thought of leaving Anthony was a deep ache, but she knew her happiness was his ultimate peace.
The sudden, shrill scream of her phone shattered the calm. ANTHONY flashed on the screen. Ice water flooded Sophia's veins. Her fingers went numb. The tickets – those fragile slips of paper holding her dreams – fluttered from her grasp like dying leaves.
"H-hello? Anthony?" Her voice was a terrified whisper.
The words that came through the phone weren't words; they were shards of glass shredding her world. All color drained from Sophia's face. She shot to her feet, a raw, animal sound tearing from her throat as she bolted from the lounge. Scalding tears streamed down her cheeks, freezing in the icy air. "No... NO! He can't be dead! NOT ANTHONY—!"
Two weeks later.
A lavish, joyless spectacle unfolded at the Emerald Syndicate headquarters. A "wedding." Marcus Rossi, the once-loyal shadow, stood before the assembled capos and underbosses. His expression was unreadable granite. On his finger, where a wedding band should have been, gleamed the heavy, intricate Emerald Syndicate signet ring. He wasn't just claiming Sophia as his unwilling "bride"; he was claiming the throne. The mantle of Godfather settled onto his broad, unforgiving shoulders.
At that exact moment, high above the frozen city, a Swiss International Air flight pierced the thick, leaden clouds, climbing towards Zurich.
Outside the terminal, the wind howled like a banshee. Caught in its furious grasp were fragments of paper – cherished sketches torn to shreds. They swirled in the vortex of snow for a heartbeart: glimpses of a girl's radiant smile, the curve of her cheek, the light in her eyes – captured forever in charcoal. Then the wind snatched them away, scattering the fragile remnants of Sophia Rizzo's stolen happiness across the desolate, snow-covered tarmac. The girl's smile in those charcoal lines looked impossibly alive for a moment before the blizzard swallowed them whole. Gone.