The first one was always supposed to be him.
Gianni Strafe.
Low-level Adrano enforcer.
Former Velleti traitor.
The one who held down Nyx's arms while they… while they…
Her fingers curled tighter around the steering wheel as she watched him exit a seedy bar in Naples, laughing like he hadn't helped ruin a woman's life. Like he hadn't crushed her baby with the heel of his boot.
He wore a stupid gold chain, the kind he used to flaunt in Velleti circles. His belly was bigger now. His beard grayer. But she'd know him anywhere — the scar across his left cheek was the same one her cousin Luca had given him in a knife fight before the betrayal.
She followed him from a distance, her eyes locked on his reflection in her rearview mirror.
Gianni didn't know she was alive.
No one did.
That made her a ghost.
And ghosts didn't knock.
---
Nyx had studied him for days.
He liked to gamble at a rundown backroom den near Via di Mezzo. Drank cheap scotch. Beat women. Still drove the same black Alfa Romeo from years ago.
He was predictable — and that made him weak.
At exactly 2:14 AM, he turned into the side alley to piss. Same time every night.
Nyx was already there.
---
He stumbled past a dumpster, muttering something in slurred Italian. He didn't even notice the shadow step from behind the crates.
She moved like water. Silent. Cold.
The first strike was a serrated blade through his kidney — not deep enough to kill. Just enough to paralyze.
Gianni gasped, trying to turn, but a gloved hand grabbed him by the hair and slammed his face into the brick wall.
Twice.
Three times.
Teeth scattered onto the pavement like dice. Blood sprayed across the graffiti.
"W-Wait—!" he gurgled, trying to breathe. "Please—what—who the f—?"
She dragged him down by his neck, her boot on his back as he screamed into the concrete.
"You don't recognize me?" she whispered in his ear, voice a calm whisper laced with hell. "I recognize you."
He whimpered, shaking. "I—I was just following orders—!"
Wrong answer.
She shoved a screwdriver through his palm, pinning it to the ground.
His scream echoed through the alley like a dying animal.
"Was it an order when you laughed as my daughter screamed?"
"Was it an order when you cheered after they kicked my unborn baby out of me?"
"Was it an order, Gianni," she growled, "when you spit on my husband's corpse?"
His mouth opened — no sound came.
She pulled a photo from her coat and shoved it in front of his face.
It was Zara, her little girl, smiling in a sunflower field.
"Look at her."
Gianni sobbed. "I'm sorry—"
"Not enough."
She turned him over.
Took her time.
Each slice had purpose — the soft part of the inner thigh, the ribs, the cheek. She made him feel every single ounce of fear he had never paid for.
And then, finally, she slit his throat.
Not fast.
Slow.
She watched the light leave his eyes as blood soaked the street.
Then she stuffed the photo of Zara into his mouth and left his corpse propped up against the wall — a message painted in blood across the bricks behind him:
> "FOR THE VELLETI CHILD."
"THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING."
---
By morning, the Adrano family would know.
The ghost they failed to kill had returned.
Not to haunt.
But to slaughter.