Michelle turned her face, looking away from John as if each additional second destroyed him from within. Her steps were mechanical, automatic, dragging her away from him while the world around her began to fade.
And then the ringing came.
A sharp buzzing that pierced her eardrums, blocking out the gunfire, the screams, the chaos. Everything disappeared beneath that single, relentless sound resonating inside her skull like a broken bell.
The pavement beneath her feet dissolved.
The images arrived like an avalanche.
⸻
Flashback – Twelve years ago
A six-year-old girl held a pistol with both hands. Her hands trembled. The weapon was too heavy for her.
Damián Corvelli knelt beside her, a firm hand on her shoulder.
"Look at the target, Michelle," he said in a deep but paternal voice. "Not at the man. At the target. It's just a bullseye that needs to be eliminated."
In front of them, a man tied to a chair sobbed, with a bag over his head. The bag rose and fell with each desperate breath.
"I can't, Dad…" the girl whispered, tears running down her cheeks. "I can't…"
"Yes you can," Damián responded, without emotion. "Because you're my daughter. And my daughter is not weak."
His fingers covered hers on the trigger.
And squeezed.
BANG!
The man fell backward, motionless.
The girl sobbed, the weapon falling from her trembling hands.
Damián lifted her from the ground, embraced her.
"Good job, my child. Good job."
⸻
Flashback – Eight years ago
Michelle was ten years old. She no longer trembled.
She walked through an abandoned warehouse with a Beretta in hand. Three men lay dead behind her. One more waited at the back, hiding behind some crates.
She found him in seconds.
Raised the weapon.
Shot.
Without hesitating. Without feeling anything.
Alfred watched from the shadows, expression inscrutable.
⸻
Flashback – Three years ago
Michelle was fifteen years old.
She entered a luxury hotel in Milan. Tight black dress, high heels, perfect makeup. She looked like an adult woman.
She went up to room 804.
The man inside smiled at her, believing she was a high-class escort.
Five minutes later, she left the hotel with a calm stride.
Behind her, the man lay on the bed with a clean hole in his forehead.
The Ghost had been born.
⸻
Present
And then the last image came.
The woman with black hair. Kneeling. Wounded. Unarmed.
Michelle raising the weapon.
Three shots. Precise. Lethal.
The woman falling.
John shouting something that wasn't heard.
And Michelle's gaze—cold, empty, mechanical—as she pulled the trigger.
⸻
The ringing stopped.
Michelle returned to the present with a choked gasp.
The world refocused: the smoke, the screams, the smell of gunpowder. But it was no longer the same world.
Because now she saw it clearly.
I'm a killer.
I always have been.
Since I was six. Since Dad taught me to kill without feeling.
I'm Michelle Corvelli. The Ghost. A monster's daughter.
A mafia king's spoiled child.
But then another voice spoke inside her.
A different voice. Softer. More ancient.
No.
That's not all you are.
You're Elena de Trastámara.
The Dancer. The honorable warrior.
The woman who loved with devotion. Who fought for justice, not caprice.
The woman who swore to wait for him in another life.
The two voices collided inside her mind like tectonic plates.
Michelle screamed: "I shot because I wanted to! Because I was jealous! Because I'm a capricious killer who murders whenever she feels like it!"
Elena responded: "No. You shot because you were hurt. Because pain blinded you. Because you forgot who you really were."
Michelle: "And who am I? The noble princess? The warrior with honor? That's a lie! Those are just memories of someone who no longer exists!"
Elena: "I exist. I'm here. I've always been here. Fighting against what Damián did to you."
Michelle: "No! You're the delusion! I'm real! Michelle is real!"
Elena: "Then explain to me why you protected John from Hernán. Explain to me why your heart beats like this when you see him. Explain to me why it hurts so much to have disappointed him."
Michelle felt her mind shatter.
Who am I?
Am I the killer who shoots without mercy?
Or am I the woman who loves with her soul?
Can I be both?
Or must I choose?
And then another question came, more terrifying than all the previous ones:
How will John see me now?
How can he love me after what I did?
How can he forgive me if I can't forgive myself?
Tears began to flow, silent, burning.
But Michelle didn't feel them.
Because her mind had collapsed.
⸻
John watched her from a distance, horror engraved in every line of his face.
He saw how Michelle remained motionless, gaze lost in emptiness. He saw tears running down her cheeks without her blinking. He saw the way her body barely trembled, as if about to crumble.
My God… what did I do to her?
But before he could move, something changed.
El Roro saw her.
The Veracruz Cartel leader turned his head and his eyes fixed on Michelle. He saw her lost in her thoughts, vulnerable, unprotected.
A macabre smile spread across his face, revealing gold teeth.
"There's the bitch!" he shouted, raising his gold pistol.
John felt panic explode in his chest.
"MICHELLE!"
He tried to run toward her, hand shooting toward his Beretta's holster.
Empty.
No.
I left it inside the house.
His steps were clumsy, slow, the world still spinning from the explosion's effects. His ears rang. His legs didn't respond as they should.
El Roro aimed.
And fired.
⸻
BANG!
The bullet entered just above Michelle's pectoralis major, a few centimeters below the clavicle. The impact was brutal. The projectile pierced skin, muscle, and lodged between the deltoids and trapezius.
Michelle jerked backward from the blow's force.
But she didn't fall.
Her gaze remained lost, empty, as if she hadn't even registered the pain.
John screamed something unintelligible, trying to run faster.
El Roro laughed.
"This bitch doesn't even feel pain!"
And he fired again.
BANG!
The second bullet struck almost in the same area, barely centimeters below the first. Blood began to flow, dark, soaking the fabric of her clothes.
Michelle brought a trembling hand to the wound, covering it with her fingers. Blood filtered between her fingers, hot, sticky.
But she still didn't fall.
Her eyes remained fixed on nothing, as if her body were present but her mind had fled to some distant place where pain couldn't reach her.
⸻
On the other side of the battlefield, Natalia ran toward Mia.
The agent lay sprawled on the pavement, with three bullet holes in her chest.
Natalia dropped to her knees, hands trembling violently.
"No, no, no!" she whispered, pressing two fingers against Mia's neck.
She waited a second that felt eternal.
And then she felt it.
A pulse. Weak. Irregular. But there.
"Hold on!" she shouted, voice broken. "Hold on, please! Don't die!"
Her hands moved desperately, opening Mia's jacket to assess the wounds.
And then she saw the bulletproof vest under the blouse.
The bullets had struck directly on the kevlar. They hadn't fully penetrated, but the impact's force had fractured ribs, partially collapsed a lung.
Mia barely opened her eyes a crack, gaze clouded with pain.
"Isabella…" she whispered, voice so low Natalia barely heard her. "My… daughter…"
Natalia blinked, confused.
"What? What are you talking about?"
But Mia had lost consciousness again.
⸻
John observed both situations simultaneously.
To his left, Michelle standing with two bullets in her shoulder, bleeding, gaze lost.
To his right, Mia lying on the ground, dying, with Natalia desperately trying to keep her alive.
His mind couldn't process both things.
I can't save them both.
If I go for Michelle, Mia dies.
If I go for Mia, Michelle…
But before he could finish the thought, El Roro turned the weapon toward him.
"And now you, Albatross son of a bitch!"
The gold pistol aimed directly at John's chest.
John froze.
Unarmed. Dizzy. Vulnerable.
I'm going to die.
Michelle saw the scene.
And something inside her broke differently.
The mental collapse stopped. The voices in her head silenced.
Because John—her Jon, the man she had waited for centuries—was about to die.
And that was something no version of her, neither Michelle nor Elena, could allow.
Fear pierced her like lightning.
No.
Not again.
I can't lose him again.
She tried to move, but her legs didn't respond. The shock from the bullet wounds, combined with the mental collapse, kept her nailed to the ground.
She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out.
El Roro smiled.
And then, through the smoke and shouting, a figure emerged that seemed to float over the pavement.
⸻
Alfred Moreau appeared like a shadow made flesh.
The FN SCAR rested in his hands like an extension of his body. Each shot was precise, surgical, lethal. No waste. No doubt.
The Veracruz Cartel sicarios fell one after another.
One man tried to turn to shoot him. Alfred eliminated him before he could complete the movement.
Another tried to seek cover. The burst reached him before he took two steps.
The chaos around Alfred seemed to obey his passage, as if death itself bowed before his presence.
El Roro turned toward him, eyes wide open.
"Who the fuck…?"
Alfred didn't respond.
He raised the SCAR.
And fired.
The bullet struck El Roro's gold pistol, ripping it from his hands with a brutal blow that broke two fingers.
The capo screamed, falling to his knees.
Alfred advanced with measured steps, weapon still raised, eyes cold as ice.
He stopped before El Roro.
He looked at him from above, with an expression that was neither hatred nor pleasure. Just… finality.
"This is for hurting my child," he said, voice so low only El Roro could hear it.
And he pulled the trigger.
⸻
Silence fell over the street like snow on a cemetery.
The sicarios who remained alive fled, dragging El Roro toward the trucks, leaving trails of blood on the pavement.
Alfred lowered the weapon slowly.
He turned his head toward Michelle.
She still stood, hands covered in her own blood, gaze still lost.
Alfred walked toward her with firm steps, without haste.
When he reached her side, he gently took her by the shoulders.
"My child," he said, voice that was half reproach, half tenderness. "What have you done?"
Michelle blinked.
And then, finally, she fell.
Alfred caught her before she hit the ground, holding her against his chest as if she were a small child.
"I've got you," he whispered. "I'll always have you."
⸻
John ran toward them, heart shattered.
He dropped to his knees beside Michelle, hands trembling.
"Michelle…" he whispered, voice broken. "Please… please, don't…"
Alfred looked at him with eyes that contained centuries of knowledge.
"Take her to the car," he said. "Now."
John nodded, tears running down his face.
He lifted her in his arms, feeling how her blood soaked his clothes.
And while he ran toward the black sedan, he could only repeat one word:
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry…"
But Michelle didn't hear him.
Because her mind was in another place.
On a battlefield centuries ago.
With Jon holding her hand as they both died.
And the promise he had made:
"I'll find you in another life."
But what if you find me… and I'm no longer worthy of being found?