The city bled.
Not in headlines.
Not in the streets where civilians walked under neon light, pretending they didn't notice the way sirens howled more often now.
No the bleeding happened where empire met shadow.
Marco Deluca stood in the center of the warehouse floor the one safehouse no one spoke about, the one even his father used to call the Vault. The air smelled of gun oil and old concrete. The walls were lined with crates of weapons, marked only by the faded stamp of a country no longer on any map.
Bodies lay on the floor, some groaning, some silent.
Not dead yet.
Marco didn't kill unless he meant to.
He didn't waste bullets.
"Again," he said.
His voice was quiet, but it cut through the room like a blade.
The man on his knees Tomaso, one of the lieutenants who had sworn loyalty years ago lifted his head. Blood streaked his mouth. Fear made his hands shake.
"Marco I swear on my mother's grave, I didn't know Luciana had
The back of Marco's hand struck him so fast the air cracked before the sound did.
"Don't say her name."
Not Luciana's.
Adora's.
The room stilled.
Enzo sat in a chair nearby, arm bandaged from the bullet Marco had put through him. He hadn't spoken since. He just watched pale, exhausted, eyes full of something that hovered between guilt and disbelief.
Marco paced slowly. Not angry. Something worse.
Cold.
Controlled.
Dead inside.
"She died because someone told Luciana where we'd be," Marco said. "Someone who had access to council schedules. Shipment routes. Safehouse rotations."
His gaze swept the room no emotion in it anymore.
"You've all been with me for years. I built this empire with my hands. With my blood. And this is how you repay me?"
Silence.
The kind of silence that fears sound.
Tomaso began to sob. "Please I have a family
Marco crouched in front of him. His voice was almost gentle.
"You think I don't know what it means to love someone?"
His throat worked a muscle trembling that he refused to let turn into grief.
"I loved her."
The men looked away, not out of disrespect but because witnessing the fall of a king should not be seen.
Marco stood.
"And because I loved her, I will burn the world bare until I find every hand that touched her fate."
He nodded once.
A signal.
Two men moved. Tomaso screamed.
Enzo flinched the first emotion he'd shown in hours.
Marco didn't watch.
He walked away before the sound stopped.
Enzo
He followed Marco outside into the rain, breath sharp in the cold.
"Marco."
Marco didn't turn.
"Marco," Enzo said again, louder.
Marco looked over his shoulder. Rain streaked his face like tears he refused to shed.
"What?"
"You can't keep doing this."
Marco stared at him a quiet, terrifying stillness.
"She's dead, Enzo," he said softly. "And I am still here."
"That doesn't mean you get to burn everything! You don't have to destroy the city to grieve!"
Marco's jaw clenched. "I am not grieving."
He stepped closer.
"I am correcting a mistake."
Enzo shook his head. "You're becoming the man your father used to be. You hated him for that."
Marco's eyes went distant the memory of a gun, a scream, a childhood stained with blood.
"That was before I understood him," Marco murmured. "Before I understood what love costs."
Enzo swallowed hard. "If she were here she would hate what you're becoming."
Marco's voice dropped to a whisper that almost broke:
"If she were here… there would be nothing to become."
He turned.
He walked away.
Enzo didn't follow.
Marco
He drove.
Not to hide. Not to think.
Thinking hurt.
The cathedral rose through the rain like a ghost old stone, dark windows, the echo of prayers long abandoned.
He walked inside.
The candles he had lit that night had burned to wax husks. The air still held the faint scent of smoke and metal. He looked at the floor at the spot where her blood had stained the marble.
His knees hit the ground before he even realized he was falling.
He pressed his hand to the stone.
It was cold.
Like her skin had been.
His chest tightened hard breath shaking.
He bit the inside of his cheek until he tasted iron.
"I'm sorry," he whispered.
The words cracked.
Not like a confession.
More like a man being undone.
"I'm sorry. I was too late. I didn't protect you. I should have been the one"
His hand trembled so violently he curled it into a fist.
"You asked me not to leave you again."
His voice broke.
"And I lost you anyway."
Lightning flashed through the stained glass.
He bowed his head.
The king knelt before no one.
But here he knelt before her ghost.