Matteo stepped back into the room.
The hum of machines greeted him—steady, indifferent.
Felix lay still, pale beneath the glow of soft hospital lights.
Tubes trailed from his arms, the steady beep of the monitor the only sign of life in a body that once held so much fire.
Matteo closed the door quietly behind him. It clicked shut like the final note of a requiem.
He moved closer, slower now, as if the space between them had grown sacred.
There was something reverent in the way his footsteps softened, his frame folding into the chair beside the bed like a man surrendering to a confessional booth.
He didn't speak—not yet.
Instead, he let the silence say it all.
The guilt. The fear. The unspoken apologies that had collected like ash behind his teeth.
Felix's lashes still curved gently against his cheek.
His lips, parted just slightly, no longer wore that soft, effortless smile Matteo had grown used to—and taken for granted.
The color had drained from his face, leaving behind a haunting kind of stillness, like a statue carved out of something too fragile to last.
A memory flickered.
Felix standing by the mirror, adjusting Matteo's crooked tie before a major meeting. "You always rush this part," he had murmured, brushing Matteo's hand aside with a light touch and that usual mix of fondness and exasperation.
Another one.
Felix's arms around him at the sink, warm breath grazing his neck, the casual weight of a man who knew how to love without needing to be asked.
"I missed you."
And Matteo—God help him—hadn't even looked up from his phone.
Now, those memories felt like knives under his ribs.
Small, precise incisions that bled regret with every beat of the heart monitor.
His hand hovered over Felix's, fingers twitching from restraint, before finally resting gently over his wrist.
"I never let you touch my world," he said quietly, voice cracked and raw. "But you did anyway."
His thumb traced slow circles across Felix's knuckles.
"You reached for me as if I was worth it—waiting in the dark, knocking on doors I never opened."
He leaned forward, forehead nearly brushing Felix's hand, his breath trembling between whispered confessions.
"I should've said thank you. I should've said stay. I should've let you in."
His voice dropped lower, into something only the machines and Felix's unconscious breath could hear.
"But I'm saying it now… stay. Wake up. And I swear—on my name, on everything I owe you—I'll make this right."
The monitor beeped steadily. Unmoved.
The Fox's name scraped at the back of his mind.
He'd been a ghost in Matteo's city for too long… but ghosts could bleed.
He sat back slowly, blinking fast, pain tightening his jaw as he stood.
One last glance.
Then, barely a whisper: "I'll come back with justice… or not at all."
And with that, he turned and left—his shadow pulling long across the floor, vanishing behind the soft click of the door.
The glass doors slid open with a hiss as Matteo stepped out of the hospital.
The night air met him like a slap—cool, sharp, biting against the warmth of sterile corridors and lingering antiseptic.
But Matteo didn't flinch.
His coat flared with the wind, boots hitting the pavement in even, deliberate strides, Like a man stepping into the sights of his own gun.
Two black cars rolled up just then, engines low and purring like predators waiting for a signal.
Doors opened in sync, and his men spilled out—sharp suits, darker eyes, trained silence.
They didn't need instructions.
They felt it in the way Matteo carried himself—that something sacred had been broken.
He stopped at the curb, the cold painting his breath silver.
His jaw was locked, gaze cutting through them like wire.
He lifted two fingers.
Four men stepped forward instantly, no hesitation.
"You don't leave this hospital," he said, voice low but iron-clad. "Breathe when he breathes. Shoot at the shadow."
They nodded in unison. One of them—Lorenzo—stepped forward slightly. "We'll rotate shifts every three hours. I'll call in two more to reinforce the perimeter."
Matteo's nod was curt, his eyes unreadable.
The four peeled off and moved toward the hospital entrance without another word, forming a silent wall around the glass doors before fading into position like phantoms.
Matteo turned to the rest of the group.
He didn't ask if they were ready.
He didn't need to.
Their eyes had already hardened.
The stillness in their posture wasn't fear—it was anticipation.
Vengeance stirred quietly in their blood, waiting for orders.
"Let's move," he said, already heading for the car.
Doors slammed. Engines revved.
Matteo slipped into the back seat, his expression unreadable.
One of his men glanced at him through the mirror.
"Where to, Don?"
Matteo stared out the window, past the glass, past the lights, past the city that no longer felt like home.
"To the last place he was seen. I want everything. Prints. Cameras. Faces. And if the Fox left a shadow behind—I want it."
The cars peeled off into the night, tail lights vanishing into the dark like blood-red warnings.
The hunt had begun.
They sped through the city, tires slicing through damp pavement, cutting through the night with ruthless direction.
Inside, silence.
Matteo sat like stone—elbows on knees, hands clasped as if praying for the kind of justice no court could deliver.
His eyes flicked across the window, watching the city move without him.
In the passenger seat, Luca—a whiz with tech, too young to remember the old wars but sharp enough to fear the new ones—kept scanning his tablet. A map blinked on-screen. Surveillance footage rolled. Lines of data poured in like blood through a vein.
Then he stilled.
"Don," he said.
The driver slowed without being told.
The car rolled to a stop beneath a dying streetlight.
Matteo didn't look up. "Where?"
Luca turned the tablet. "He's gone. Crossed the ocean. Landed in Milan an hour ago."
A beat of silence followed.
Marco, in the driver's seat, turned slightly. "Do we follow?"
Matteo didn't answer at first.
His gaze dropped to his palm—still red where he'd gripped Felix too tight, as if holding on could bring him back.
Then, finally:
"No. Turn back. We go home."
The car pulled away again, melting into the night.
No one questioned him.
The hunt wasn't over.
It was only just beginning.
But Matteo knew—before you kill a ghost, you have to become one.
And the war he was about to start? Would begin in silence.