The name echoed in Valentina's mind, loaded with danger - a sweet poison, a sharp blade. She removed her hand, the cold ring against the palm. Reaper. The grim reaper. She knew the legends: Marco Salvatore, the executor of rival families, a ghost who harvested souls without remorse.
Enzo watched her, attentive. - What did you see?
"Nothing help. Yet. "But the name pulsed in your mind, an open wound.
## Scene 4 - The wake closed
The private chapel inside the mansion was a black velvet mausoleum and flickering candles, heavy air with incense and the rancid scent of death. Damian's body lay in the coffin open, the waxy and serene face, as if eternal sleep was just a break in eternal negotiations. Valentina forced himself to look at him, her eyes dry, the thrill an anchor she had learned to crack down. Not for weakness, but for survival.
The room was fervilled from muffled whispers. Luigi Baresi, Head of Security, a broad-shoulder man and scars like maps of past battles, the shot of a suspicious guard dog. "Does she come back now? After years licking the Boots of Americans?" She heard the murmur, low but clear to her sharp senses.
Then came Serena Vitale, ancient friend of childhood, now the family's financial arm of the family. Black hair stuck in a flawless coke, green eyes that still uploaded the brightness of shared secrets on summer evenings. She approached, the black dress whispering against the floor.
- Valentina. A brief, but genuine hug. "He has changed everything in recent weeks. Reformulated contracts, funds diverted to secure accounts. As if he knew that the end came.
He always knew, "murmured Valentina, his fingers tightening the ring in his pocket. "Or I thought I'd tell."
In the midst of the mumbled condolences - "Strength, Figlia", "God has" -, a vision was shaken as a wave about to break. Blurred edges of distorted faces, the smell of fresh gunpowder. She blinked hard, containing the outbreak to not fainting there, in the middle of the vultures.
A whispered comment floated to her, coming from a group of rival families, eyes attentive measuring her weakness: "Reaper is in the city ... too much coincidence."
The involuntary mention of Marco "Reaper" Salvatore intensified the pressure in his mind, such as invisible fingers tightening his skull.
## Scene 5 - The First Fracture
Valentina escaped to the mansion garden, the night closed wrapping her like a mantle. The moon was filtered through the olive leaves, casting dancing shadows on the gravel floor. The air was fresh, loaded with salt and moist ground, a momentary relief of the oppressive weight of the house. She inspired deeply, trying to anchor on the present, but the pain under the sternum exploded like a grenade.
She lost control. The real world dissolved, and the vision swallowed it.
He was before him: Marco "Reaper" Salvatore, the legendary executor of the rival family. Tall, wide shoulders under a dark-woolen coat, black eyes that looked deep-bottomed wells, the face marked by a thin scar that ran from the temple to the chin - a reminder that even grappers bleed. He held her by the pulse, not violently, but with a strange hesitation, as if the touch was a not made question.
In a version of sight, he lifted the gun, the cold pipe against his temple. The shot echoed, and her blood mixed with his on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.
In another, he pulled her to him, his lips brushing hers in a kiss that was half promise, half a curse. "You can still choose not to die like this," whispered, the warm breath against his skin.
In a third, more fractured, he was the only one in the midst of chaos - flying bullets, shouts of betrayal -, holding out the hand to save it from a summary execution. "Come with me," he said, but the blood in his hands was hers.
The visions have overlapped, inconsistent, as infinite reflecting glass shards. Something that had never happened before. Valentina gasped inside the vision, the breast burning.
The last image was solidized, clear as a blade: Marco was staring at her into the darkness, his eyes fixed on hers. "We'll see us soon."
The vision broke, and she fell to her knees on the gravel, the cold air burning the lungs. In the real world, the feeling of being observed persisted, a tingling at the nape of the neck. Behind a distant column, on the edge of the garden, a figure moved - tall, gloomy, disappearing too fast to be casual. A trick of light? Or was he already there, weaving his own wire in the broken loom of the future?
Valentina reposed slowly, her fingers clenched around her father's ring. "If the future is broken," he murmured to herself, his voice a steel wire, "Then I will rebuild him. Or I will die trying."
The night swallowed his words, but the echo of "Reaper" remained, a call she could not ignore.# Chapter 1 - Blood calls back
## Scene 1 - The Vision of Death
The hotel room was a gray limbo, illuminated only by the weak brightness of a bedside lamp and the incessant buzz of air conditioning. New York, dawn of a day Valentina did not care to nominate. She woke up choking, as if the air had been sucked from her lungs by an invisible force. Sweat stuck her thin t-shirt to the skin, and the heart hammered against the ribs, echoing the shot that still resonated in her mind.
The vision had been brutal, more vivid than usual. A bloody hand, protruding veins under pale skin, pressed a gold ring with the luciano coat of arms - the rampant wolf, ruby eyes of ruby, symbolizing the ferocity his family wore as a shield and sword. Heavy steps on a cracked marble floor. A dry, final shot, which spread like a shock wave. And then, his voice hoarse, almost a whisper: "He had no chance."
Valentina rolled out of bed, barefoot touching the rough carpet. His fingers trembled as she picks up the ritual notebook of the bedside table - a black leather bound volume, yellowed pages full of frantic scribbles, temporal branching diagrams and sketches of deaths that never reached materialize. She wrote down what she could: her hand, the ring, the shot, the phrase. But something was wrong. Her visions were like puzzles with pieces that fit perfectly; She saw the future in light lines, odds that could handle as wires of a loom. This time, everything was shattered, cut fragments that refused to form a cohesive image. Irritation rose by his throat like Bile. Why? What had changed?
She massaged the temples, trying to force an interpretation. The ring was the family, that was right. But the owner of the hand ... was not familiar. And the shooting - from whom? For whom? The possibilities revolved in your mind like a broken carousel: an external enemy, an internal betrayal, or something worse, something she still could not name.
The phone vibrated on the table, a sharp sound that cut the silence as a blade. Unknown number, Italy code. +39. Valentina's stomach turned. She answered the third touch, the husky voice of sleep and dread.
Before speaking, the foreboding came. A hot pain, like melted iron, settled under his sternum - the unmistakable sign. Blood of the Luciano family had been spilled. And she knew, at the bottom of the guts, which was hers she called back.
## Scene 2 - The News
- Valentina? The voice on the other side of the line was tense, as a stretched thread about to break. Enzo Ferretti, the Damian consigliere, the man who had been like an uncle for her on the days when the mansion still echoed laughs instead of conspiracy whispers. "Are you?"
Enzo. She sat on the edge of the bed, the notebook still open on her lap. - What happened?
Brief silence, the type that carries the weight of uninhabeling worlds. When he spoke, the tone was contained, protocol, as if recited an obituary at a business meeting.
Damiano was murdered. Two hours ago. An ambush on the road to Porto. Bullet on the nape of the neck. Clean, professional.
The floor seemed to disappear beneath Valentina's feet. It was not affection that hit her - her father had expelled her from his life before, a door beat with the coldness of a termination agreement. But his murder ... That was a fissure in the precarious balance that kept the mafia families of Sicily in a deadly dance of alliances and hatred. The luciano were the pillar; Without Damian, the Castle of Letters collapsed.
- Who? She murmured, her voice low, but sharp.
"We still do not know. But the will ... he declares you heir. Chief of the Luciano family. You come back, or all ends in blood.
Valentina laughed, a dry sound and no humor. "He did not want me around in life, Enzo. Why would I accept this now?
"Because he knew. Enzo's pause was heavy, loaded with unsaid secrets. "Only you can stop what comes now. Visions, Valentina. They always were his asset. And now, yours.
The pain under the sternum pulsed again, stronger, as a warning. A new vision tried to emerge, blurred edges of images: shadows in a alley, a face without features, the metallic smell of fresh blood. She cut her with effort, biting her lip until she felt the taste of copper. Not now. Not without control.
He closed the notebook with a snap, the sound echoing in the empty room. He took the corner suitcase, the mechanical movements, trained by the life of leakage. - I'm coming back.
## Scene 3 - Arrival at Luciano's house
Luciano mansion rose on the outskirts of Palermo as a stone tomb, his gothic towers swallowed at night. Silent too much, Valentina thought as she went down the rental car, the salty air from the Mediterranean Sea mixing the smell of jasmine withered in the gardens. Eyes followed the shadows - henchmen leaning on walls, lit cigarettes like malignant fireflies. Some have recognized it: the lavish daughter, the seer who had fled to the streets of New York instead of inheriting the empire. Others murmured, speculating if she was salvation or poison.
Enzo was waiting for her in the main entrance, his face marked by wrinkles that looked like artillery grooves, his eyes exhausted with sleepless nights. He hugged her briefly, a formal gesture, but the tremor in his hands betrayed his tiredness.
"You came quickly," he said, guiding her by the black marble lobby, where ancestral portraits looked at her eyes painted.
- Visions do not give choice. Valentina looked at everything: the opaque glow of the crystal lamps, the echo of her heels, the microexpressions on the faces of the guards - a contraction in the jaw here, a look diverted there. His ability would go beyond the visions; She via patterns, risks, tisseagers tisseables in reality fabric like veins under the skin.
In the Damian office, the air was stopped, impregnated with cigar and old leather. The mahogany table was intact, papers aligned as soldiers in training. About her, the luciano ring, lonely, like a relic of a fallen king.
Enzo stopped at the door. "He was killed in an ambush, but ... there are signs. Internal betrayal. Someone opened the door to the wolves.
Valentina approached his fingers hovering over the ring. When touching him, the world bent.
A quick view: someone's perspective running by a narrow alley, the heart racing like a failing engine. Red light of a neon reflected in blood puddles. A male figure approaching, silent steps like death. A whisper, ice cream like the wind of the Sicilian winter: "Reaper."
The name echoed in Valentina's mind, loaded with danger - a sweet poison, a sharp blade. She removed her hand, the cold ring against the palm. Reaper. The grim reaper. She knew the legends: Marco Salvatore, the executor of rival families, a ghost who harvested souls without remorse.
Enzo watched her, attentive. - What did you see?
"Nothing help. Yet. "But the name pulsed in your mind, an open wound.
## Scene 4 - The wake closed
The private chapel inside the mansion was a black velvet mausoleum and flickering candles, heavy air with incense and the rancid scent of death. Damian's body lay in the coffin open, the waxy and serene face, as if eternal sleep was just a break in eternal negotiations. Valentina forced himself to look at him, her eyes dry, the thrill an anchor she had learned to crack down. Not for weakness, but for survival.
The room was fervilled from muffled whispers. Luigi Baresi, Head of Security, a broad-shoulder man and scars like maps of past battles, the shot of a suspicious guard dog. "Does she come back now? After years licking the Boots of Americans?" She heard the murmur, low but clear to her sharp senses.
Then came Serena Vitale, ancient friend of childhood, now the family's financial arm of the family. Black hair stuck in a flawless coke, green eyes that still uploaded the brightness of shared secrets on summer evenings. She approached, the black dress whispering against the floor.
- Valentina. A brief, but genuine hug. "He has changed everything in recent weeks. Reformulated contracts, funds diverted to secure accounts. As if he knew that the end came.
He always knew, "murmured Valentina, his fingers tightening the ring in his pocket. "Or I thought I'd tell."
In the midst of the mumbled condolences - "Strength, Figlia", "God has" -, a vision was shaken as a wave about to break. Blurred edges of distorted faces, the smell of fresh gunpowder. She blinked hard, containing the outbreak to not fainting there, in the middle of the vultures.
A whispered comment floated to her, coming from a group of rival families, eyes attentive measuring her weakness: "Reaper is in the city ... too much coincidence."
The involuntary mention of Marco "Reaper" Salvatore intensified the pressure in his mind, such as invisible fingers tightening his skull.
## Scene 5 - The First Fracture
Valentina escaped to the mansion garden, the night closed wrapping her like a mantle. The moon was filtered through the olive leaves, casting dancing shadows on the gravel floor. The air was fresh, loaded with salt and moist ground, a momentary relief of the oppressive weight of the house. She inspired deeply, trying to anchor on the present, but the pain under the sternum exploded like a grenade.
She lost control. The real world dissolved, and the vision swallowed it.
He was before him: Marco "Reaper" Salvatore, the legendary executor of the rival family. Tall, wide shoulders under a dark-woolen coat, black eyes that looked deep-bottomed wells, the face marked by a thin scar that ran from the temple to the chin - a reminder that even grappers bleed. He held her by the pulse, not violently, but with a strange hesitation, as if the touch was a not made question.
In a version of sight, he lifted the gun, the cold pipe against his temple. The shot echoed, and her blood mixed with his on the floor of an abandoned warehouse.
In another, he pulled her to him, his lips brushing hers in a kiss that was half promise, half a curse. "You can still choose not to die like this," whispered, the warm breath against his skin.
In a third, more fractured, he was the only one in the midst of chaos - flying bullets, shouts of betrayal -, holding out the hand to save it from a summary execution. "Come with me," he said, but the blood in his hands was hers.
The visions have overlapped, inconsistent, as infinite reflecting glass shards. Something that had never happened before. Valentina gasped inside the vision, the breast burning.
The last image was solidized, clear as a blade: Marco was staring at her into the darkness, his eyes fixed on hers. "We'll see us soon."
The vision broke, and she fell to her knees on the gravel, the cold air burning the lungs. In the real world, the feeling of being observed persisted, a tingling at the nape of the neck. Behind a distant column, on the edge of the garden, a figure moved - tall, gloomy, disappearing too fast to be casual. A trick of light? Or was he already there, weaving his own wire in the broken loom of the future?
Valentina reposed slowly, her fingers clenched around her father's ring. "If the future is broken," he murmured to herself, his voice a steel wire, "Then I will rebuild him. Or I will die trying."
The night swallowed his words, but the echo of "Reaper" remained, a call she could not ignore.