CHAPTER 48: 48

I watched the CCTV footage for what must have been the hundredth time, my eyes tracking every flicker of movement on the screen. Each replay thickened the tension, as if the shadows themselves were conspiring against me. And there it was undeniable proof. Lilly wasn’t just another viper slithering around our world,she had truly set her sights on Carmela.

The clip burned itself into my mind Carmela cornered, her voice steady despite the danger. "What do you gain from killing me?" she asked, her words like tempered steel cutting through the suffocating silence.

Lilly’s reply came with a sly smile, the kind only born of malice. "I gain nothing from your grandfather. But there’s someone willing to pay handsomely for your death."

I froze the footage. Her words echoed inside me like a shot ricocheting off walls. If old man Dean hadn’t sanctioned this, then who had the resources, the gall, and the motive to hunt Carmela under my protection?

I leaned back, dragging a hand across my face before letting my gaze drift across the room. The shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, rows upon rows of leather-bound files and brittle pages, more archive than library. Each spine carried a secret, neatly catalogued, indexed like a history of sins. My finger traced the L section until it landed on the name that had already poisoned my thoughts.

Lilly.

The dossier was cold in my hand, heavier than paper should ever feel. I had only flipped the first page when the door creaked open.

Dean stepped in. His weathered eyes flicked from the file in my hand to my face, reading me with a calmness that felt rehearsed. Without a word, he lowered himself into the chair opposite, the weight of years bending his shoulders.

"You knew Lilly and Carmela were sisters," I said. The words came out low, taut, each one sharpened by restrained fury. "And you never thought to tell me?"

For a long moment, he said nothing. The silence was thick enough to smother the room. Finally, Dean exhaled and spoke, his voice gravelly, each syllable final.

"Leave tomorrow. Go back to the State. Forget this world and stick to the one your father gave you."

My brow arched, and heat surged beneath my skin. "Excuse me?" I leaned forward, voice edged with steel. "This concerns my wife, old man."

His jaw clenched. He looked away, as though the truth was too ugly to meet my eyes. "Did you expect me to reveal that Lilly is Carmela’s cousin? That her hatred runs so deep she’d rather see Carmela buried than breathing?"

The word hit like a gunshot. Cousins? My disbelief cracked through the room. "Dalton had only one child."

Dean shut his eyes briefly, as if bracing against a ghost of the past. When he opened them, guilt lingered there, raw and unmasked.

"Dalton and I... we were friends once. Brothers, even. We married best friends, women bound to us by loyalty and history. But everything changed when the truth came out. Our wives... they weren’t just women with secrets. They were daughters of rival mafia clans. Bloodlines steeped in vendetta."

His voice faltered. Yet the confession spilled, steady as a blade slicing open an old wound. He spoke of fractured alliances, of nights when bullets replaced words, of vendettas passed down like heirlooms. Each detail painted a clearer picture; this wasn’t just hatred. It was generational. A legacy of war that had found its way into Carmela’s veins, a tragic inheritance she never asked for but could never escape

"My father’s death," I cut in, my voice sharp enough to split a stone. "You told me it was my uncles."

Dean’s face collapsed under the weight of memory. His hand trembled slightly as he rubbed his temple, like the truth itself burned his skull.

"They were complicit," he admitted, each word dragging regret behind it. "But Dalton’s son pulled the trigger. And I..." his voice cracked, "...I looked away. A pact was made. Survival over truth."

My chest tightened, the ground tilting beneath me. Heat surged in my veins until my hands clenched into fists.

"And the experiments on Carmela?" My voice dropped, low and venomous. "You knew."

The silence that followed was deafening. It pressed against my ears harder than a gunshot, harder than the footage I’d just replayed. He didn’t answer because he didn’t have to. His silence was guilt carved into flesh.

"You’d rather I run?" I let out a bitter laugh, hollow and jagged. "You who dragged me into training, broke me until I bled, built me into a weapon just so I could survive? And now you want me to forget?"

Dean’s eyes glistened, not with tears, but with something worse a pleading. A quiet desperation to be understood. But I was past mercy.

"You let my father die. You let Dalton’s sins stand. You’ve lived a coward’s life, old man."

The words cut him, though he didn’t flinch. His reply came soft, almost a whisper, a truth he’d tried to bury under decades of silence.

"Her father won’t bow to threats. If he could use his own child as bait..." His gaze finally locked with mine, steel against steel. "...do you think he’d hesitate to claim another life?"

The room seemed smaller then, suffocating, the air thick with unspoken wars. I stared at him, the man who had shaped me, lied to me, betrayed me and realized that every secret he kept wasn’t just about survival. It was about preparing me for the inevitable war I was already standing in.

"My father never stopped fighting," I shot back, voice steady with conviction. "Neither will I. If I find out you had a hand in this, you’ll lose more than my respect, you’ll make me your enemy."

The words cut the air between us, final and sharp. I didn’t wait for a response.

As I left him drowning in silence, the weight of our fractured bloodline hung heavy over me. This was just the beginning.

"Young master," the doctor bowed as I entered the room where Carmela lay. The sterile air reeked of antiseptic, yet tension thickened it still.

"How is she?" My question trembled beneath the mask of composure I forced on my face.

"I was informed about her condition. Since she has amnesia, her memories can return at any moment or bit by bit. But those are merely my hypotheses. I’d advise a brain scan, that’s the only way we can know what’s happening in there." he said with a bow before excluding himself

Her stillness in the bed struck harder than Dean’s confessions. In that moment, one truth seared into me: I’d tear apart every secret, burn down every alliance, before I let anyone take her away from me.

Her skin was warm beneath my hand as I lowered the fabric. The scar stretched pale and ugly across her back, and my chest tightened. I had always suspected. Now I had to be sure.

The surgical blade trembled in my grip. If I was wrong... No. I couldn’t afford doubt. With a sharp slice, the wound reopened, and blood welled hot and fast, soaking the sheets. The smell of iron filled the room. My fingers pressed into the cut, slick and trembling, until they touched something cold and foreign.

A grain-sized tracker. I held it up between my bloodstained fingers, rage twisting in my gut. What kind of father carved a leash into his own child?

"Nix," a voice broke through the haze. Tom stood frozen at the door, the box in hand. His eyes flicked to the tracker, then to my bloodied hands. "You..."

"She’s been tagged like an animal," I snapped, laying the device on a handkerchief. "Her father’s eyes were on her the whole time."

Tom’s jaw tightened, but his voice was calm. "Destroying it will only tip him off. And with Lilly gone, he’ll move faster. We need Carmela’s memories back before he makes his next move."

I rose, meeting his steady gaze. "The old man’s favor is gone. We’re on our own."

"Then we move in silence," Tom said simply. "It’s better that way."

His composure steadied me. But before I could reply, he reached into his coat pocket and handed me a blue envelope stamped with a crest I hadn’t seen in years.

"One of the maids said it was for Nathan," he explained.

Nathan. My name from the academy days. Only a handful of men still alive would know it. My pulse quickened. I dismissed Tom and turned back to Carmela, working quickly to clean and bind the wound I’d carved into her. She stirred faintly but did not wake.

When she was safe, I slit the envelope open. Inside, a single slip of paper.

10 am. The mall.

The message was sparse, but heavy, like a gun pressed to my temple. My hand tightened around it. Whoever sent it wasn’t just calling me out they were pulling me back into a world I had once tried to bury

I looked one last time at Carmela. Her breath was shallow, her skin pale, but she was alive. And I would keep her that way.

I slipped the note into my pocket and stepped into the corridor. The silence of the house pressed in on me, thick with secrets and unspoken threats. Every second between now and ten a.m. could decide whether I brought answers back to her or never returned at all.