(Dante's POV)
The elevator climbed forty floors in silence, each ding of the passing levels hammering against my skull like a countdown to nothing. When the doors opened to my penthouse, I stepped into a tomb of steel and glass that had been my sanctuary for five years. Now it felt like a prison.
I dropped my keys on the marble counter, the sound echoing through the empty space. The city sprawled below me through floor-to-ceiling windows—millions of lights, millions of lives, all of them carrying on while mine had just collapsed into meaninglessness.
"Welcome home, Mr. Moretti," the automated system announced. "Shall I prepare your usual evening routine?"
"No." The word came out rougher than I intended. "Privacy mode. No recordings. No monitoring."
The house went dark except for the ambient lighting from the city below. In the reflection of the windows, I could see myself—still wearing the same clothes from three days ago, still carrying the weight of what I'd discovered. Or rather, what I'd failed to discover.
I walked to the bar and poured three fingers of whiskey, then drank it in one burning gulp. The alcohol did nothing to quiet the chaos in my head.
Five years. Five years of planning, training, hunting. Five years of building this empire, of honing my psychic abilities until I could read a man's deepest fears and reshape them into weapons. Five years of becoming exactly what she'd been—a killer sculpted by grief and rage.
And for what?
I grabbed the bottle again, but my hand stopped halfway to my glass. Because even now, even knowing she was innocent of everything I'd accused her of, I couldn't stop seeing her face. The way she'd looked at me in that counseling office—not with the cold calculation of an assassin, but with genuine concern. Professional compassion mixed with something else. Something that had made my carefully constructed walls tremble.
"Fuck." I set the bottle down hard enough to rattle the other glasses.
The smart thing would be to walk away. Disappear back into my life, pretend I'd never found her. Let Aria Matthews continue her quiet existence helping broken people heal, never knowing she'd once been the most dangerous weapon in Chicago's supernatural underworld.
But I couldn't. Not yet.
I moved to my office, a soundproofed room lined with monitors and surveillance equipment. The technology was state-of-the-art, a mixture of mundane electronics and supernatural enhancements that let me track anyone, anywhere in the city. For five years, I'd used it to hunt ghosts and settle scores. Now I was going to use it to watch a woman who made tea every morning at exactly 7:15 AM.
My fingers flew over the keyboard, accessing traffic cameras, security feeds, satellite imagery. Portland wasn't my city, but money and psychic persuasion opened doors everywhere. Within an hour, I had visual on her apartment building, her counseling center, the small café where she bought lunch every Tuesday and Thursday.
The first camera showed her living room—a space that looked like it belonged in a home decorating magazine. Soft colors, comfortable furniture, photos of her with Thomas Grant scattered on the mantle. No weapons. No defensive positions. The woman who'd once been able to kill three men in perfect silence now left her curtains open and her door unlocked.
I leaned back in my chair, watching her move through her evening routine. She was making dinner—something that involved a lot of chopping and stirring. Normal. Domestic. Everything the Aria I'd known could never have been.
My phone buzzed. A text from my lieutenant, Rico: Boss, you need to see this. Castellano movement in Chicago. Looks like they're mobilizing.
I ignored it. Let the families play their games. I was done with all of it.
But even as I thought it, I knew it was a lie. Because if Elena Castellano was moving, it meant she was looking for Aria. And if she found her...
I closed my eyes, feeling the familiar pressure of my psychic abilities stirring. For five years, I'd used them as weapons—reading minds, influencing thoughts, seeing glimpses of possible futures. Now they felt like a burden, a constant reminder of what I'd become.
The memory hit me without warning, as vivid as if it were happening again:
Aria's eyes in the darkness, wide with something that might have been recognition. The way she'd looked at me—not as a target to be eliminated, but as a person. The moment when she'd whispered, "Run," and I'd seen my own death in her gaze, followed by her impossible choice to let me live.
I jerked forward, my heart hammering. The phantom memory felt more real than anything that had happened in the years since. I could smell the old leather of grandfather's study, feel the weight of the shadows that had wrapped around us both. For a moment, I wasn't sure if I was twenty-three or twenty-eight, if I was hunting or being hunted.
The sensation passed, leaving me shaking. This was new. In five years of planning my revenge, I'd never experienced memories that vivid. Never felt like I was back in that room, staring into the eyes of the woman who'd changed everything.
I looked back at the monitor. Aria was washing dishes now, her movements efficient but relaxed. She was humming something—I couldn't hear it through the surveillance feed, but I could see the way her shoulders moved, the small smile on her face.
She was happy. Actually, genuinely happy in a way that seemed impossible for someone who'd been raised as a weapon. How had she managed it? How had she rebuilt herself so completely that not even a trace of the killer remained?
My phone buzzed again. This time it was my father: Dante. We need to talk. The Castellano situation has escalated. Come home.
I stared at the message for a long moment, then deleted it without responding. Marcus would want to know why I hadn't killed her. He'd want to understand why his son, his heir, had failed at the one task that mattered most to the Moretti family.
But I couldn't explain it to him because I didn't understand it myself. Standing in that counseling office, looking at the woman who'd destroyed my family, I'd felt something I hadn't experienced in five years: doubt. Not about her guilt—I knew she'd killed Giuseppe, Vincent, and Marco. But about whether the person sitting across from me was the same woman who'd done it.
The Aria I'd found was everything the Aria I'd hunted was not. Gentle where the other had been ruthless. Compassionate where the other had been cold. Healing where the other had destroyed.
But they were the same person. The same face, the same voice, the same hands that had once moved like liquid death through shadows. The same eyes that had looked at me with recognition and impossible mercy.
I pulled up another camera angle, this one showing her bedroom. She was getting ready for bed, moving through what was clearly a nightly routine. Checking the locks—an old habit that had survived the memory wipe. Closing the curtains. Setting out clothes for the next day.
As I watched, she paused at her dresser, picking up a small wooden box. She opened it, revealing what looked like letters and photographs. Her expression grew sad, distant. She pulled out a photo—from this distance, I couldn't see what it showed—and stared at it for a long moment before carefully returning it to the box.
Even from here, I could see the way her shoulders sagged. The loneliness that seemed to settle over her like a shroud. For all her apparent contentment, she was alone in a way that felt achingly familiar.
I had done this to her. Not directly—Elena Castellano had wiped her memories, turned her into a ghost of herself. But I had been the catalyst. If I'd just let her kill me that night, if I'd accepted death like I was supposed to, none of this would have happened.
The thought should have brought satisfaction. She was suffering, isolated, cut off from everything she'd once been. It was a kind of justice, wasn't it? She'd destroyed my family; now she was trapped in a life that wasn't really hers.
But watching her carefully place the box back on her dresser, seeing the way she touched the photograph like it was precious, I felt something I hadn't expected: guilt.
She turned off the lights and climbed into bed, disappearing from view. The camera showed only darkness, but I kept watching anyway. In a few hours, she'd wake up and start another day helping broken people heal. She'd make her tea, water her plant, listen to strangers' traumas with patience and compassion.
She'd be everything I'd never learned to be.
My phone rang. I glanced at the display—Rico again. This time I answered.
"What?"
"Boss, you need to get down here. We've got Castellano scouts in the city. They're asking questions about a woman, mid-twenties, might be using the name Matthews."
My blood went cold. "How many?"
"Three teams that we know of. They're being careful, but they're definitely hunting someone. And boss? One of them had a picture. Looked like our girl."
I was already moving, grabbing my jacket and keys. "Pull back our people. I don't want any contact with Castellano forces."
"Boss, if they're in our territory—"
"I said pull back." I could hear the psychic weight behind my words, the compulsion that made it impossible to disobey. "And Rico? I want surveillance on every Castellano operative in the city. I want to know where they are, what they're doing, who they're talking to. But no engagement. Not without my direct order."
"Copy that."
I hung up and headed for the elevator, my mind racing. Elena had found her. Somehow, despite five years of hiding, despite the memory wipe, despite everything, she'd tracked down her lost weapon.
The elevator descended toward the parking garage, and I found myself making a choice I'd never thought I'd make. I was going to Portland. Not to hurt Aria, not to complete my revenge, but to warn her.
Because somewhere in the last three days, watching her water her plant and help traumatized people heal, I'd realized something that changed everything:
The woman I'd spent five years hunting for revenge was already dead. The woman who'd killed my family was gone, erased as completely as if she'd never existed. In her place was someone else—someone who deserved a chance at the life she'd built.
Someone who didn't deserve to be dragged back into the darkness we'd all been born into.
The elevator doors opened, and I stepped into the garage. My reflection stared back at me from the polished surface of my car—dark eyes, sharp features, the kind of face that belonged in shadows and violence.
I looked like my father. I looked like the man who'd shaped me into a weapon, just as Elena had shaped Aria. But standing there, preparing to protect the woman who'd destroyed my family, I realized something else:
I didn't have to be him. I didn't have to be what they'd made me.
I could choose something else. Something better.
Just like she had.
The engine roared to life, and I drove toward the woman who'd saved my life twice now—once by sparing it, and once by showing me there was another way to live.
Behind me, Chicago's lights faded into the distance, along with five years of carefully constructed hatred. Ahead lay Portland, and a choice that would define who I was going to become.
The hunter was dead. Something else was taking his place.
I just hoped I wasn't too late to save us both.