The villa is a warzone.

Smoke curls through broken windows. Gunpowder bites the back of my throat. Guests lie scattered across marble — some screaming, some frozen like statues. White roses that once lined the aisle are soaked in blood. Petals cling to crimson like some cruel art.

I throw myself over Isabella, pressing her down. “Stay low! Keep your head down!” I shout. My voice is raw from smoke and panic.

My mind is a machine, scanning. Where did they come from? Who? How did they know? But all I can see is my father — Vittorio — falling to the floor, his chest riddled with bullets.

“Adrian, we need to go! Now!” Luca hisses at my side, gun up, eyes hard as flint.

I shake my head. “Not without him.”

“Your father’s gone!” Luca snaps. “We can’t save him. Move!”

The words hit harder than a bullet. Panic crawls under my skin. No. Not him. I can’t—

Vittorio’s last breath is a broken whisper. His eyes find me, wide and urgent. “Someone… close.” He tries to say more, then he’s still.

They fired again, but the shots fade into something else — a loop of those two words. Someone close.

Isabella’s voice cuts through the ringing in my ears. “Adrian, we need to get out.”

Her fear is raw, honest. Her hand claws at my sleeve. I feel the impulse to shield her harder than anything. I clutch her to me. “Not yet. Not until—”

“Please,” she pleads, voice breaking. “We’ll find safety. You can’t do anything here.”

She’s right. As much as my gut screams otherwise, I force myself up and drag her behind a smashed table for cover. My suit is wet. Blood—maybe hers, maybe mine—I honestly don’t know. My hands won’t stop trembling.

The shooters are clean, professional. Each shot is precise. No panic. No mistakes. This was planned.

“Who would do this?” I mutter.

“Someone close,” Luca says under his breath. “Think, Adrian. Whoever did this knows how to hurt you.”

Rage flares, sharp and hot. “They’ll pay,” I say. The words taste like iron. “Every last one of them.”

Isabella presses against me. Her breathing is shallow. I want to promise her safety and mean it.

Then the gunfire stops as suddenly as it began. The silence left behind is louder than any shot: low cries, the wet slap of falling bodies, a ceiling fan spinning slow in the smoke.

I push up, knees weak, and go to where my father fell. He’s pale and still. The room tilts and I force myself not to scream — there will be time for that. For now, control.

“Luca,” I say, hoarse. “Get the survivors out. Protect them.”

He moves. He herds the living toward the exits like trained hands guiding livestock. I stay with Isabella because she clings to me and because I still think she needs me.

By the time the police arrive the attackers are gone — like ghosts. No footprints leading away, no trace. Professionals. Vanished in the smoke.

A cop glances at the bodies, then at me. Even he whispers the word everyone knows: Moretti. Fear is there in his eyes. Even the law knows not to test us.

I close my fist until the knuckles scream. “They killed my father,” I say. “They think they can get away with it.”

“They won’t,” Luca says beside me. Stone. Resolve. “Not if we find them first.”

I turn to Isabella. She’s pale, trembling, red-eyed. I brush a hand through her hair. She flinches — a small, almost hidden thing — but she doesn’t pull away.

Something flickers in her eyes. I tell myself it’s grief. What else could it be? She loved him — or at least I’d believed she did.

Tonight, the villa is never going to be the same. The survivors move like ghosts through the halls, avoiding the dried stains on the marble. Guards double-check doors. No one gets in or out without permission.

I sit alone in the study later, the noise of the world muffled outside. The roses lie ruined on the floor, petals stuck to blood like some sick memory. My father’s last whisper circles my brain: someone close.

That phrase lives beneath my skin now. It’s a cold constant.

I press my hands to my face. With Vittorio gone, the boy I used to be is dead. The man who believed in honor and easy loyalty died there with him.

All that’s left is a hollow, hot thing.

“They killed my father,” I tell the empty room. “Now they’ll taste hell.”

Isabella comes in quietly. Her steps are cautious on the marble. Her eyes are red but bright. She sits close and leans against me like a small, fragile thing. I let her. Her presence steadies me — a dangerous, beautiful anchor.

Outside, the villa creaks; the night breathes; the guards whisper. Tomorrow will be funeral and whispers, condolences and watching eyes. Tonight, it is only us and the silence.

I hold her tighter and stare at the ruined roses. The anger in me tastes sweeter than grief.

If this was meant to break me, it failed.

Tomorrow, they’ll come with words and hands and apologies. They’ll speak of honor and loss. But tonight? Tonight I make a vow.

Vengeance isn’t a prayer. It’s a plan.

I tighten my hold on Isabella and whisper it like a benediction, not for her ears but for my own.

“Now they’ll taste hell.”