I was eating mechanically. I couldn’t taste the food, and it didn’t feel like I was filling my stomach. After forcing the meal down, I looked around and saw the guards still where they were supposed to be. Everyone acted like I was a ghost. Ignored like I always was.

I sighed and left my untouched plate. It was time to suck up my emotions and get a hold of myself. I decided to look around the mansion. I hoped to find something that would help me in my quest for revenge. Something about Valerio.

I thought I had been clever at that table. I thought I’d shown him strength. But when he leaned in and warned me, it wasn’t a game to him. It was a promise.

When I finally stood, my legs felt weak. The doors creaked open and the same guards were waiting. They didn’t ask if I was done, they didn’t even look at me.

It was better for me.

I made to go to my room, just to trick the guards like I was going to my room but after I had gone a little farther, I took the other hallway side leading to a place I didn't know.

The hallway stretched long and empty. A row of doors lined the corridor, each one shut, heavy, and silent. Not a single sound leaked through. No laughter. No whispers. Not even footsteps.

My chest tightened the farther I went. The air was heavier up here, almost like it pressed against my skin. Whoever designed this place didn’t build a home, they built a warning.

I walked till I heard muffled voices and a scream unmistakably. Curiosity got the most of me as I inched closer. Luckily, the door wasn't closely tight so I was able to peep through.

The cell stank of sweat and iron because it basically looked like a cell. I kept my hands pressed to the wall, pretending I wasn’t there,

Then there he was…Valerio Moretti. Black coat, black eyes. Death dressed like a king.

A man was tied to the chair..big,, broad-shouldered once, but now broken. His shirt was torn, skin covered in bruises. They shoved him into the chair across the room, chains clinking as they locked his wrists down.

Valerio moved slow. Always slow. Like he had all the time in the world to hurt you. He circled the man once, silent, then stopped behind him.

“Parli?” he asked softly, almost sweet. Do you speak?”

The sound of flesh hitting flesh cracked through the basement. My stomach twisted. Valerio’s fist connected with the man’s jaw so hard his head snapped sideways. The man slumped forward, coughing, blood dripping from his mouth onto the concrete floor. His hands were tied behind his back, rope cutting into raw skin. Valerio stood over him, tall and calm, as though this wasn’t violence, it was routine.

He wiped his knuckles with a white handkerchief, almost bored. “Tradimento,” he muttered, low, sharp. “Betrayal.” He crouched down, tilting the man man’s chin up with two fingers, forcing him to look at him. The man’s eyes were swollen, one already closing, but Valerio smiled like it amused him.

“You sold me to the cops,” he said, voice steady, quiet enough to chill the room. The prisoner’s lips trembled, blood bubbling at the corner.

“I….I swear, it wasn’t me…”

The back of Valerio’s hand cracked across his face before the sentence finished. The sound echoed off the cement walls, sharp as a gunshot.

“Non mentire a me,” Valerio hissed, voice cutting like a knife. Don’t lie to me.

The man whimpered, head hanging, spitting blood onto the floor. Valerio straightened, slow, deliberate, and rolled his sleeves back to his elbows. His forearms were scarred, veins thick, the arms of a man who had broken too many bones to count.

“Betrayal,” he said again, louder this time, so the word hung in the basement like smoke. He reached for the pistol resting on the table beside him, spun it once in his hand, then crouched again so the barrel pressed right under the man’s jaw.

The prisoner froze, shaking so hard the chair rattled.

Valerio’s voice dropped to a whisper. “You know what happens to traitors in my world? They don’t just die. They disappear. Even God forgets their names.”

The man sobbed, eyes wild with terror.

The man grunted, fighting against the chains.

Valerio slammed his face down on the table with a crack. Blood smeared across the wood. He leaned close, whispering in Italian like poison

“Non sei niente. Nessuno. Io decido quando respiri.”

(You are nothing. Nobody. I decide when you breathe.)

Valerio straightened, eyes gleaming like he’d just been offered dessert. He grabbed a knife from the table, held it up so the light caught the blade, and pressed it to the man’s cheek. Not deep just enough to make him bleed. Slowly, he dragged it down, savoring the sound of flesh tearing.

I wanted to look away. My body begged me to, but my eyes were locked on Valerio. The way he moved, the way he owned the room. Ruthless. Terrifying. Like violence itself had a body, and it was his.

From the shadows where I hid, my chest tightened, breath caught in my throat. I wanted to look away but couldn’t. Every nerve in my body screamed that I should run yet I stayed, frozen, watching the devil at work.

Then Valerio paused. His head turned slightly, sharp as if he’d heard something.

His eyes shifted to the darkness where I crouched. My heart stopped.

“Esci” he called out, voice steady “Out,” he said, voice flat.

I froze. Maybe if I didn’t move

“I said out.”

His gaze pinned me like a knife.

My legs carried me before my mind could. I stepped from the shadows, hands trembling, throat dry. Valerio’s men didn’t even look surprised. Like they had known I was there all along.

Valerio’s smile sharpened. He pointed to the bloodied prisoner. “Come closer. Come, come”

I hesitated, but his gaze hardened. I forced my feet to move, one step, then another, until I was only a few paces from the chair. The smell of iron hit me hard.

Valerio leaned back against the table, arms crossed, knife still in his grip. “Tell me,” he said softly. “What do you do with a man who betrays you?”

The question froze me.

I glanced at the prisoner. His swollen eye. His split lip. His chest rising ragged. He was someone’s son. Maybe someone’s father. And Valerio wanted me to decide if his life was worth keeping.

Mercy. That was what I should say. That was what my father would have said. But mercy meant weakness here. And weakness was death.

Cruelty. That was what Valerio respected. That was what my vow for revenge had whispered in my ear for weeks. But if I said it, if I played his game, i’d be stepping into a darkness I wasn’t sure I’d crawl out of.

My lips parted, but nothing came out.

Valerio tilted his head, eyes never leaving me. “Well?”

The prisoner coughed, blood spraying his chest. His voice was hoarse, broken. “Don’t answer, Ragazza. Don’t give him what he wants.”

Valerio’s hand shot out and gripped the prisoner’s throat, squeezing just enough to make him choke. He didn’t look at the man, he kept his eyes locked on me.

“I’m waiting.”

My heart thundered. This was no game. If I stayed silent, Valerio would make me answer. If I gave the wrong one, he’d make me regret it.

I swallowed, my voice shaking.