The rain had stopped, but the fog clung to London like a pall, wet and unmoving.
Dante walked aimlessly, his boots tapping out a melody only ghosts may dance. He wandered for hours. But however long he wandered, he could not rid himself of the feeling — that queasiness in his gut when he'd seen her. Fianna. Her name tasted bitter on his tongue. Sweet. Lethal.
By the time he staggered into a tiny café off the British Museum, the world had turned dim grey. He sat in front of the window, clutching a coffee that had long since lost its warmth. The café was warm and subdued — students immersed in books, an old man reading over the morning paper. Ordinary souls, floating in a world untainted by the kind of blood he'd spilled.
Not like him.
A freckled waitress with tired eyes and auburn curls refilled his cup, her voice gentle. "You look like you've seen a ghost, love."
Dante didn't speak. What could he say? That the ghost wasn't dead — just forbidden?
His hands fell into movement, pulling out photographs from his jacket pocket and laying them out on the table. One of a beach, sun-kissed and wild. The other, newer photo, with Giovanni — the man they accused of betraying the family. The girl in both? Fianna. Same in the eyes, older in the smile. Still oblivious.
The waitress passed by, noticing the photographs. "Beautiful girl. Your sister?
He shook his head. "No," he growled, voice sandpaper-rough. "Not my sister."
But not a stranger, either.
They were not linked together by blood, but by something more profound — history, loss, and a story that had started long before they both knew which sides they were born on.
His father's words echoed back like a curse: "Don't confuse sentiment with strategy." What if there was nothing but sentiment left? What if strategy had reduced him to less than a human being?
He crumpled the photographs, forced them into his pocket like secrets too hazardous to disclose.
Out on the streets, the fog began to thin, allowing slivers of blue sky to filter through. London stretched and yawned, waking up slowly.
Somewhere in that city, Giovanni Moretti was toasting bread. Sipping a cup of coffee. Laughing with the daughter who had no idea her life was a game of chance — and Dante was the one hanging in mid-air.
He left money on the table. The waitress smiled again. "Have a nice day!"
Beautiful days weren't for men like him, though.
He thought of the address he'd memorized for Giovanni's flat in Kensington—a quiet, respectable place, the kind where people argued over cereal brands, not vendettas. It was the next stop on his surveillance route, the place where he would decide whether to follow orders or listen to the doubts growing inside him.
He walked through the park, London unfolding around him — couples tangled in hushed tones, children fleeing off pigeons, a silver-haired man spreading crumbs to the breeze. All nice. All essential.
And he was there to take life away.
He walked toward the building — red-bricked, ivy-clad, unashamedly elegant. Across from it, he stood. Stared. And then the door opened.
Giovanni stepped outside, just as in the photograph. Older now, more tempered, with lines that had formed on his face as if carved by love and sorrow alike. There was a peace about him — the kind that came with walking away from the shadows and never once looking back.
Dante followed behind.
He stood far enough away not to be noticed, near enough to kill. It would be easy. A shot unobstructed. A breath of death.
But he didn't shoot.
He watched Giovanni smile with a newsstand vendor, shake hands with the neighbor, bend to help an older woman with her bags. Little things. Human things. Things not found in reports or family orders.
They branded Giovanni a traitor. That he betrayed his blood. But Dante saw otherwise. A man who loved rather than lusted for power. A man who hacked out a private life in a city that never shut its eyes.
And by keeping his daughter from harm, he'd given her something Dante never had — liberty.
Fianna had no notion the weight of a pistol settled upon her. She didn't scream during nightmares or wake with soggy sheets. She didn't exist within a realm of danger. She existed within a realm of flowers and books and soft mornings.
Dante had grown up in darkness. His father saw to that. Taught him. Shaped him. Honed him into something deadly.
But now… he looked across the park and saw Giovanni feeding ducks bread as if he had nothing to fear.
And for the first time, Dante wondered: What if it weren't weakness to be peaceful? What if it were strength?
The sun broke through the clouds, spilling gold everywhere. Giovanni sat down on a bench with newspaper in front of him, like a man who had come to some terms with his demons.
Dante could finish it here.
One bullet.
But he turned and left.
For in that instant, something inside of him shifted. The world was no longer black and white. It was grey. Foggy. Human.
And Dante, who had been conditioned to kill without question, had just found his first question to ask.
The photographs in his pocket still burned. Somewhere in the city, Fianna was living in blissful ignorance. Laughing perhaps. Painting. Writing in a journal.
She had no idea that she'd almost died.
And she didn't know it had saved her — not out of pity.
But because death was interested in knowing why life was so damn important.