Evening – Belloni Estate, Guest Room, Italy
Under the soft light of the chandelier, a half-eaten plate of pasta sat cooling beside a roasted meat dish.
A wine bottle stood half-empty.
Even the sauce clinging to the silver fork seemed to rest in silence.
Celeste pushed aside her glass, her lips pressed tightly.
She slowly lifted her gaze.
"…I'm being held here, aren't I?"
Luca set down his knife and curved his mouth into a lazy smirk.
"Mm… you could say that."
He rolled the wine glass between his fingers.
"If you're not planning to fully join our side, then yes—this is what it is."
Celeste narrowed her eyes.
Luca continued.
"Try to see it positively. Uncomfortable? Is it that your loyal little lapdogs aren't here?"
He laughed lightly and raised his glass.
"I'm surprisingly good at what I do. Pleasure, distraction—whatever you need. I can provide it. No strings attached."
Celeste exhaled slowly.
"Then I'll become a nun. Starting tonight."
That made Luca laugh—truly.
He set the glass down and laced his fingers, eyes fixed on her.
"God, you saying that? Makes you even more appealing."
He tilted his head.
"Strange, isn't it? I'm starting to see you in a new light. A very… interesting light."
In his gaze, playfulness shimmered.
But beneath it—something sharper.
A glint of cruelty that didn't flinch.
"…Well then,"
he said smoothly,
"shall we pick up where we left off? That little conversation from earlier. About our previous lives."
Celeste gave a quiet nod.
Silence briefly stretched between them, and then Luca began to speak—slowly, threading old memories into words.
Celeste listened.
At first.
But then… the images he described began to play in her mind—not as abstract visions, but with startling clarity.
Sweat broke across her brow.
As if her body were responding to a fever she hadn't yet acknowledged.
And then—the battlefield returned.
Sand-streaked villages, burning buildings, children crying.
A soldier cradling a child, shielding them with his own body.
And behind that soldier—a gun raised.
A man's hand.
A face.
Luca.
It all came flooding back.
The humiliation, the filth of his voice.
The way he smiled at her as she fell.
Through dust and blood, her last image of him burned into her dying gaze.
Bang.
Celeste collapsed.
In that past life—she lay in a pool of blood, breath faltering, life slipping quietly from her chest.
Heat surged in her lungs.
Her throat closed.
The rising tide of nausea and rage clenched in her gut, coiled like a snake.
He killed me. He killed me—and my own brother too.
But before she could speak—
BANG.
The door slammed open.
One of Luca's men stumbled in, clutching a bloodied arm—his face pale, soaked with sweat.
"…They've… breached…"
He never finished the sentence.
He collapsed onto the floor.
Blood spread fast, pooling like ink beneath his body.
Luca didn't hesitate for a single second.
In one fluid motion, he rose from his chair, pulled a pistol from his back pocket, disengaged the safety, and bolted out the door.
"Shit."
His movements were precise.
His face—devoid of emotion.
Celeste remained where she was, unmoving.
Her lips tightly sealed, her breath measured.
Then—she walked toward the corpse.
She knelt beside the fallen man—silent, steady.
Her hand moved to his belt, fingers curling around the grip of a sidearm.
The steel was cold, slick with blood at the edge.
But her fingers didn't tremble.
She pulled back the slide.
Click.
Chambered. Ready.
Her gaze flicked to the spare suppressor clipped beneath his vest strap.
With practiced fingers, she unscrewed the barrel cap and slid the suppressor on.
The threads aligned perfectly.
A quiet twist.
A soft final turn.
The silence that followed was colder than before.
She exhaled once. Deeply.
And then she rose—not as a prisoner, but as something awakened.
Her breath deepened.
She looked up.
And something in her eyes had changed.
Completely.
In that moment—she came back to life.
Not as she was.
But as the one who remembered.
The battlefield, the gunfire, the betrayal.
And now—a fight where killing was the only way to survive.