Darkness surged in, heavy and absolute. Her last sensation was the rattle of metal as the car
settled at the bottom, grave-sealed.
She did not feel her heart stop. Only the sudden absence, a silence so complete it felt like being
unmade.
Then, somewhere in that endless black, a flicker.
Not light. Not sound. A different kind of awareness.
She floated, emancipated from pain and memory. Time had no shape. There was only the
strange, disorienting understanding that she still existed. Fragments of thought drifted past her
like ash in water. Names. Faces. The shape of a ring glinting under a cuff. The hum of
fluorescent lights in a hospital she had once interviewed in. A voice saying, "You are going to
get yourself killed," with fond exasperation.
She tried to reach for something solid. There was nothing.
Then a tug.
It started as a pressure at the edges of her awareness, like a current finding a stray piece of debris
and dragging it toward a drain. She resisted without knowing how. Panic flared again, a stubborn
human reflex. She did not know what waited on the other side of that pull, but the sensation of
being claimed without consent revolted her.
The tug grew stronger.
She felt the shape of something distant and enormous. A mind. A body. A life of power and
violence. The scent of cologne and gun oil. The weight of rings on fingers that had signed too
many untraceable orders.
No.
The silent refusal echoed through the void, thinner than breath.
The force did not care.
It closed around her and dragged her toward itself. She felt herself unravelling, smeared along
some invisible surface. Ghost nerves flared with phantom pain. Fractured impressions slammed
into her, the warm press of a mouth against her throat in a room that smelt of whisky and leather.
None of it was hers.
The void snapped.
Cold air surged into lungs that did not belong to her. Elara convulsed, choking on nothing. Light
stabbed her eyes, far too bright, a blinding assault. Her heart hammered against ribs that felt
heavier and broader. Her skin prickled, every nerve ending screaming awake.
She gasped, and the sound that tore from her throat was lower than it should have been. Rougher.
Male.
She froze.
An unfamiliar ceiling hovered above her, high and ornate, plaster mouldings curling in intricate
patterns along the edges. A chandelier scattered amber light across the room. The air smelt of
expensive cigarettes, aged wood, and something darker that tried to hide under cologne.
Pressure constricted her chest. Thick fabric. A dress shirt. A tie, loosened but still knotted. A
jacket heavy with the weight of something metal in the inner pocket.
Her hands twitched at her sides.
They were not her hands.
Large. Strong. Veins ridged along the backs, skin olive-toned and scarred. A silver ring encircled
one finger, engraved with an emblem she recognised from a dozen police reports and black-and
white crime scene photos.
Moretti.
Her mouth went dry. Her own breathing sounded too loud in the stillness. Each inhale dragged
against a throat unused to her. A pulse throbbed at the base of her skull, pounding in time with a
deeper, slower heart than the one that had failed her in the river.
"Calm," she ordered herself, clinging to habit. Assess. Observe. Do not panic until you
understand.
Her gaze flicked around the room.
She lay on a leather couch, dark and worn in a way that spoke of obscene cost and frequent use.
Across from her, floor-to-ceiling windows framed the night cityscape, rain sliding in languid
lines down the glass. The skyline was familiar in outline but glittered from a vantage point she
had never afforded: high above, in a tower that looked down on everyone else.
Beside the windows, a bar gleamed with crystal decanters and cut crystal glasses. One glass sat
on the low table in front of her, half-full of something amber. Lip marks on the rim. A smear of
red that might have been lipstick or blood.
Her pulse sped.
A reflection caught her eye.
In the dark glass of the nearest window, a man sat slumped on a couch. Broad shoulders. The
black shirt loosened at the neck. Dark hair cut with ruthless precision. His head tilted back,
exposing a strong throat shadowed with stubble. His face looked carved from something
expensive and merciless: straight nose, sharp jaw, mouth slightly parted as if he had just taken a
breath he regretted.
His eyes were open and fixed on the ceiling, pupils blown wide.
Those eyes shifted.
She jerked. The reflection moved at the same time. Her movement. His.
Disbelief cracked through the paralysis. Slowly, as if in a dream, she lifted one hand. The man in
the glass did the same, fingers trailing through the air. The ring on his finger caught the soft
light.
"No," she whispered.
The sound rolled out of his mouth. Deep. Italian vowels curled under an English consonant. A
voice that could coax or command, depending on its mood.
Her.
Him.
Something inside her reeled. She scrambled upright, the couch leather sighing under her weight.
Dizziness washed through her as blood rushed to a brain that was not hers. Memories lurked at
the edges of her mind like wolves, just out of sight.
Lucien Moretti.
The name hit her with the force of a car crash.
She had read it in reports. Heard it spoken in hushed tones in precinct hallways where cops
pretended not to care. Heir to the Moretti crime family. A man whose temper turned minor
slights into funerals.
She was inside him.
Her stomach lurched. She pressed a hand against it, fingers digging into firm muscle under the
shirt. A sick, dizzy laugh bubbled up and died in his throat. Of all the bodies in all the world, fate
had chosen this one.
There was no logical structure that could hold this. She had drowned. She had died. Yet here she
was, wearing the skin of the man whose empire likely tied into the very trafficking networks she
had tried to expose.