Chapter 1: The Taste of Ash and Silk
The first sensation was taste.
It was a phantom flavor, coating his tongue, thick and coppery like a mouthful of pennies, yet sickeningly sweet with a hint of charred meat. It was the taste of his own blood, and of them.
The second sensation was sound. A scream, ripped from a raw throat. His own.
Luca Moretti jackknifed upright in bed, a strangled cry dying in his throat. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped animal, a frantic drumbeat of pure, undiluted terror. He gasped, sucking in air that wasn't thick with smoke and the stench of death. It was cool, filtered, and smelled faintly of lemon polish and clean linen.
Disorientation held him in a vice. His hands, trembling violently, flew to his chest, his arms, patting down solid, unmarred flesh. No gaping, bloody wounds. No teeth marks. No missing chunks of meat. The skin was smooth and whole over hard muscle.
What? How?
His eyes darted around the room, refusing to focus. Blurs of muted grey and silver slowly resolved into familiar shapes. The floor-to-ceiling windows of his penthouse suite, overlooking the glittering Han River and the Seoul skyline, very much intact. The minimalist chrome and smoked glass furniture. The abstract art on the walls that cost more than most cars.
This was his bedroom. His sanctuary. But it was a place from a lifetime ago.
A soft, sleepy murmur came from beside him. "Mmm… Luca? Bad dream?"
He flinched, his head snapping to the side. A woman with long, dark hair fanned across a pillow blinked up at him, her pretty face creased with concern. Mi-ae. A junior associate at a rival finance firm he'd seduced and brought home two nights ago. A fleeting, trivial conquest from a world that no longer existed.
The sight of her sent a fresh wave of nausea crashing over him. The phantom taste in his mouth intensified—the forced cannibalism, the atrocity. His stomach clenched. He scrambled from the bed, naked and unsteady, and stumbled into the massive en-suite bathroom. He barely made it to the marble sink before he vomited.
It was mostly bile, acidic and burning. He gripped the cool edges of the sink, his knuckles white, his body shuddering as the horrific memories played behind his eyes like a snuff film on a relentless loop.
Dae-ho's grinning, blood-smeared face. Min-jun holding him down, his knee digging into Luca's spine. Tae-seok waving a piece of meat—Soo-ah's—over a barrel fire. The sound of their laughter. The sound of his women's screams, abruptly cut short. The unbearable tearing pain as the zombies descended, and the final, soul-crushing knowledge that he had failed, that his power had been an illusion, that everything he cared for could be taken and defiled.
He dry-heaved, tears of agony and rage streaming down his face. He looked up into the mirror. A ghost stared back. A handsome man, mid-thirties, with sharp European features, a strong jaw now clenched tight, and eyes that were usually a calculating, icy blue. Now, those eyes were wide, pupils dilated with a feral terror he hadn't felt since he was a child.
But it was him. Him. Not the scarred, emaciated wreck from the wasteland. Him from… before.
He fumbled for his phone on the bathroom counter. His fingers, slick with cold sweat, struggled to unlock it. The screen blazed to life.
October 12. 4:17 AM. Saturday.
The date hit him like a physical blow. A full year. A full year before the Ragnarok Virus would be unleashed in a lab in Eastern Europe. A full year before the nukes would fly. A full year before hell would claim the Earth.
He had been given a second chance.
The paralyzing terror began to recede, burned away by a rising, all-consuming inferno of rage. It was a cold fire, settling in his bones, sharpening his senses, silencing the tremors in his hands. The grief for Soo-ah and the others was a black hole in his chest, but he walled it off. That pain was a luxury he could not afford. Not yet. It would be fuel. It would be his compass.
He looked at his reflection again. The fear was gone. Replaced by something ancient and merciless. The predator was back in its cage, and the cage was a penthouse.
A plan, vast and brutal, began to unspool in his mind with flawless, terrifying clarity. Liquidation. Acquisition. Fortification. And vengeance. A vengeance so absolute it would make the old gods weep.
He heard the soft pad of feet behind him. Mi-ae stood in the doorway, clutching a silk robe around herself. "Luca? Are you okay? You're scaring me."
He turned to face her. The raw, emotional wreck from moments before was gone. In his place was the Luca Moretti the world knew: confident, in control, magnetic. A mask of perfect calm settled over his features, though his eyes remained chips of Arctic ice.
"I'm fine," he said, his voice a low, steady rumble that betrayed nothing of the tempest within. "A bad dream. That's all."
He walked towards her, and she instinctively took a small step back, sensing a new, dangerous intensity radiating from him. He didn't stop. He cupped her face in his hand, his thumb stroking her cheek. The gesture might have seemed tender, but his grip was firm, possessive. He was reasserting control. Dominance. This body was his. This world was his. For now.
"The dream reminded me of how… fleeting time can be," he murmured, his gaze boring into hers. "How we must seize what we want."
Before she could respond, he kissed her. It wasn't a kiss of passion, but of conquest. A reclamation. He needed the visceral, physical proof of his own power, the erasure of the helplessness he had just endured. He needed to silence the screams in his head with a more immediate sensation.
He led her, half-guided, half-pulled, back to the bed. His movements were not gentle. They were purposeful, intense, almost clinical. He was mapping his own territory, reminding himself of his strength. Mi-ae, initially startled, was quickly overwhelmed by the raw, alpha magnetism he was projecting, a side of him she hadn't seen before. It was frightening and exhilarating.
For Luca, it was an exorcism. With every touch, every gasp he drew from her, he was stamping out the memory of his own weakness. He was not the victim. He was the king. This was his throne. And soon, the entire ruined world would be his kingdom.
Afterward, as she lay sleeping again, Luca stood by the window, watching the first hint of dawn paint the skyline in hues of orange and grey. The city slept, ignorant and peaceful.
He picked up his phone again. He didn't call his broker. He didn't call his banker. His first call was to a number stored under a single, anonymous letter "V."
A man answered on the second ring, his voice gravelly with sleep. "Yeah?"
"Valentin," Luca said, his voice devoid of all emotion. "It's Moretti. I need the best. The most exclusive. Two. At my penthouse by seven tonight. Make sure they are… exceptionally accommodating."
There was a pause on the other end. Valentin ran the most discreet, high-end escort service in the city, catering to men like Luca who required absolute privacy and quality. A pre-dawn call was unusual.
"Seven tonight. It will be done, Mr. Moretti."
Luca ended the call without another word. The wheels were in motion. The first step was to reforge his own spirit in the fire of indulgence. The rest—the fortune, the weapons, the war—would come next.
He had one year. And not a single second would be wasted.