The girl in the mirror was not Isla Caruso.
Her reflection blinked back—eyes sharper, skin smoother made of reconstructed bone and shadowed makeup. A thin scar ran along her jaw, the only mark left from the night her world had burned.
She touched it — not because she was pained, but to know for herself that it was real. That she was real. At least what was left of her.
"Elena De Luca," she murmured, feeling the name roll off her tongue. It didn't sting anymore. Not like it had months ago.
The Mediterranean sun blazed through the open shutters of the Corsican villa, illuminating the whitewashed walls with light. It was too bright, too clean, for the darkness inside her.
A knock rapped on the door, firm and familiar.
"Come in," she said.
Dario walked in, in a crisp shirt and a tension he had not been able to let go of for months. His arm, which was still healing following the bullet he received during their escape, was wrapped under his jacket. He looked older now. Grayer around the temples. Quieter in his steps.
He looked her face over with a frown. "You're healing well. They did a good job."
Isla — Elena — gave a wry smile. "Good enough to disappear."
He walked over to the vanity and picked up the forged ID card sitting beside her brush. Elena De Luca. Age twenty-seven. No known affiliations. No ties to Rome. Just a whisper on paper.
"You're nearly there," he said.
"Almost?"
"You've already learned French and Russian. Arabic, too. Your accents are clean. They are buying your name from the networks. You have enough phony identities to disappear ten times." He met her eyes directly now. "But you still hesitate."
"I don't hesitate," she replied, sharply.
"When you look at yourself you do." You still want Isla to be there."
Elena looked back at the mirror. "She's gone."
Dario nodded, not saying anything. Not for a moment.
"She was good," he said finally. "Too good. Trusted the wrong people. Loved too easily."
Elena didn't answer. She didn't need to. The silence that lay between them was thick enough to swallow words whole.
He set a slender folder on the table near her. "New contacts. You'll be flying under Giulia Vescari for the Istanbul deal. After that, Amsterdam. You are doing what we planned."
"And Matteo?" she asked, not looking up.
Dario's face darkened. "He believes you're dead. Same as the world."
"That's not what I asked."
Dario paused, then took out his phone. He tapped a few times and rotated the screen toward her.
It was a videoiteixeira from an underground surveillance feed. Matteo, in a warehouse in Sicily, speaking to a man whose name she didn't know. Angry. Grief-hardened. Desperate.
"He's searching for the truth," Dario said. "But he's probing in the wrong venues."
Elena stared at the screen. Her pulse was steady. Unchanged. She didn't flinch. Didn't cry.
That's when she said, "He'll never find it."
"Not unless you want him to."
Her fingers curled over the lip of the table. "The man I grew to love died the night my family did. The one that survived … wears his ring."
Dario exhaled slowly. "You know, there are layers on layers on layers. More lies."
"And I'll unravel them all," she said. "Until nothing remains but bone and ash."
In the ensuing months, Elena vanished into the underworld.
Her Corsican hideaway was followed by the slums of Istanbul, then the drug dens of Tangier, and finally, the high-rises of Dubai, where men in silk suits negotiated favors worth millions without a name on the ledger. She learned to read silence, to pass for an accent, to hide in the open.
There were lessons in subterfuge, in ciphers, in armaments. Luka, a Croatian hacker, showed her how to disappear from digital maps. Katya, a Russian smuggler, showed her how to wield a blade without mercy. An old friend of her father's from Naples had introduced her to blood markets — favors, debts, vendettas, bought and sold like stock.
She never let them too close. Never explained who she'd been.
Only Dario remained.
Sometimes, he would visit. Every few weeks, always unannounced. Sometimes with new intel. Sometimes with silence. But always with eyes aware of who she'd been before.
They shared meals in silence. Sat beneath docks in chilly skies. It was the closest she got to feeling real.
"Do you ever regret it?" she asked him once, across a plate of roasted sardines in Lisbon.
"Regret what?"
"Saving me."
He stared at her for a long time. "Every day."
She laughed then. A brittle sound.
"And still you return."
"Because I know the war in front of us," he said. "And the woman at the front needs a steady hand beside her."
She met his eyes. "Then stay steady."
On the one-year anniversary of the fire, Elena stood against the cliffs of Bonifacio, wind lacerating her coat. The sea below roared as if it were alive.
Dario stepped next to her, offering a flash drive.
"What's this?"
"Your first assignment. As Elena De Luca."
She had it, the cold plastic light in her hand. "Target?"
He smiled grimly. "Not yet. For now, you are meeting a broker in Milan. Quiet contact. "Moving Romano family assets through offshore fronts."
Her breath caught. "Romano?"
"Not Matteo. One of his uncles. Stefano Romano. Old-school, but sloppy."
Her pulse quickened. "Does Matteo know?"
"He's focused elsewhere. Stefano has gone rogue, and that makes him vulnerable."
Elena looked out at the waves. For a brief moment, the ghost of Isla slumbered beneath her skin.
She shut her eyes and spoke to the wind, "Let her rest."
Dario turned to leave.
But she spoke again.
"Does he still wear it?"
He stopped. "What?"
"The ring," she said. "The one I gave him."
Dario didn't respond immediately. Then, quietly, "Every day."
Elena didn't look back. "Good. It will hurt harder when I take it out of the hand.
Far away, in a cluttered Roman study, Matteo Romano clutched the emerald ring between his fingers and stared into the rain.
A knock came at the door.
"Come in," he said.
Alessandro intervened, carrying a file.
"We found something."
Matteo turned. "What?"
Alessandro hesitated. "A woman. New name. Elena De Luca. Just surfaced in Milan. Her aliases check out. But her timing … it's just too good."
Matteo's voice was ice. "You think it's her?"
"I believe it's someone who's been trained to go dark."
Matteo was standing, as a tempest brewed in his eyes.
"Then we bring her in."