The rain had stopped by dawn, but the world still carried its scent—wet earth, salt, and sorrow. The cliffs were quiet now, emptied of thunder, as if the sea itself mourned what had happened. Marco stood where Matteo had fallen, his coat heavy with water and guilt.
Luca's men had taken Matteo's body before sunrise. No ceremony, no words—just a quiet, tense removal, like handling a curse that might still bite. But Marco hadn't moved. He couldn't.
Behind him, Isabella approached carefully. Her boots crunched against the gravel, but she didn't speak until she was beside him.
"You haven't slept."
"I don't deserve to," Marco said, voice rough from hours of silence.
She looked at him, her eyes soft but steady. "He was your brother."
Marco's jaw tightened. "Was." Then, after a pause, "But he wasn't wrong, Isabella. Not about everything."
"What do you mean?"
He finally turned to face her. His eyes were bloodshot, the blue dulled to storm-gray. "The night of the fire—what we were told, what I believed—it wasn't the truth."
Isabella frowned. "You said your father died that night. That Matteo started it."
Marco gave a bitter laugh. "That's what everyone thought. It's what I was meant to think."
Lightning had struck the old DeLuca estate years ago, but that wasn't what had burned it down. Marco remembered the smoke, the screams, the flames swallowing their past. He remembered dragging his father out—half-dead, coughing blood—and Matteo's silhouette vanishing through the fire.
But now, memories twisted.
He could still hear Matteo's last words: You should've let me stay dead.
And beneath them—something else Matteo had said, a fragment almost lost in the storm: He took everything. Our father, our home, my name…
Marco turned toward the edge of the cliff, the wind tugging at his hair. "My father lied to me. About Matteo. About what happened that night."
"Lied?" Isabella asked quietly.
Marco nodded. "Matteo didn't kill him. He tried to expose him."
She took a step closer. "Expose him for what?"
"For the blood trade," Marco said. The words tasted like rust. "My father was selling the family's security contracts to criminal syndicates. Weapons, drugs—whatever they wanted moved through the ports. Matteo found out. He confronted him the night of the fire."
Isabella's breath hitched. "And your father blamed him."
"He did worse than that." Marco's voice broke slightly. "He ordered the house to burn—to make it look like Matteo died in a fit of rage. He told everyone Matteo had gone mad, that he'd betrayed us. And I believed him."
The confession hung between them, fragile and terrible.
Isabella shook her head slowly. "So Matteo survived…"
"Barely. My father's men pulled him out and buried him in one of their black sites—kept him locked away for years, using him for whatever leverage they needed. By the time he escaped, the world thought he was a ghost."
The realization hit her like a cold wave. "And when he came back—"
"He wanted justice," Marco finished. "Only, he didn't know Father was already dead. So he came for me instead."
The silence that followed was suffocating. The sea crashed below, restless and relentless, but up here it felt like time had stopped.
Isabella reached for Marco's hand. He didn't pull away. "He didn't just want revenge," she said softly. "He wanted someone to believe him."
Marco's throat tightened. "And I never did."
For a long time, they stood there, two survivors bound by a ruin older than either of them could fix.
Finally, Isabella spoke again. "There's something else, isn't there? Something he was still hiding."
Marco hesitated. "Before he died, Matteo said he was 'buried alive.' That wasn't just a metaphor. He was part of something deeper—something that didn't die with our father."
"What kind of something?"
"The Syndicate," Marco said. "The same group my father dealt with. Matteo worked for them after he escaped. I think he was trying to destroy them from the inside."
"Or lead them," Isabella murmured.
Marco looked at her sharply. "What are you saying?"
She met his gaze. "That maybe Matteo wasn't here just to kill you. Maybe he was here to warn you."
Marco frowned, a flicker of unease cutting through the fog of guilt. "Warn me about what?"
Before she could answer, a sound drifted up the cliff path—engines. Multiple.
Luca's voice echoed from below, urgent. "Marco! You need to see this!"
They exchanged a look and hurried down the path. The convoy of black SUVs had stopped near the old road. Luca stood beside one, his face pale. He held a small, sealed envelope in a plastic sleeve. "This was found in Matteo's jacket," he said.
Marco took it carefully. His name was written across the front—his full name, Marco Antonio DeLuca, in Matteo's unmistakable handwriting.
His fingers trembled as he broke the seal. Inside was a single note, written in haste but steady enough to read:
"You were never the enemy. The fire wasn't the end—it was the beginning. Father's sins live on through those he served. If you want to end this, follow the coordinates. Burn what's left before they burn her. — M."
Isabella's heart dropped. "Burn her?"
Marco looked up slowly. "He means you."
The sound of the sea grew louder, more violent, as if the ocean itself reacted to the words.
Luca cursed under his breath. "So whoever Matteo was fighting—they're still out there."
Marco folded the letter, slipping it into his coat. His voice was calm, but the storm had returned behind his eyes. "Then we finish what he started."
Isabella's hand brushed his arm. "You're sure about this?"
He met her gaze. "I have to be. Matteo spent his life paying for my blindness. I won't let his death be for nothing."
The wind picked up again, carrying the last trace of salt and smoke from the sea. Somewhere out there, beneath the gray horizon, waited the truth Matteo had died for.
And Marco knew this time, there would be no ghosts to save him. Only fire.
The cliffs loomed behind them, their shadows long and jagged in the light of the rising sun—no longer teeth, but tombstones.
The past had been buried once.
Now, it was digging its way back up.