Chapter 3 - A weapon preparing for deployment.
“I’m leaving.”
“The hell you are.”
“They’re not coming for you, Valentino. They’re coming for me. Every minute I stay, I put you and your people at risk. The smart play is for me to disappear. Lead them away.”
“The smart play,” Valentino said, walking closer, “is for you to stop pretending you’re protecting me and admit you’re running.”
Her jaw tightened.
“I’ve been running for 3 years. I’m good at it.”
“And how’s that working out? Because from where I’m standing, they found you anyway. And the only reason you’re still breathing is because I gave you an army to hide behind.”
“I never asked for your army.”
“No. You asked for a quiet life pouring wine. How’d that work out?”
He was close now, close enough to see the exhaustion in her eyes and the weight she carried.
“You want to leave? Fine. Tell me the truth first. Tell me why you really want to run.”
Daphne’s hands clenched into fists.
“Because everyone I get close to dies. Everyone. My first handler, dead 3 months after I completed training. My spotter in Johannesburg, dead. My logistics coordinator in Prague, dead. The Syndicate doesn’t just eliminate liabilities. They eliminate connections. They burn everything you touch until you’re isolated, controllable.”
Her voice cracked.
“You think I’m dangerous? You have no idea what follows me.”
“Show me.”
“What?”
“Your scars. The ones you’re hiding. Show me.”
For a long moment, she did not move. Then, slowly, she pulled off her shirt.
Valentino had seen violence. He had inflicted it. But the map of damage across Daphne’s torso made his chest tighten. Bullet wounds. Knife scars. Burns. A particularly vicious one across her ribs that looked surgical, probably from the removal of a tracking device.
Her body was a testament to survival, measured in millimeters and luck.
“That’s what happens when you stay close to me,” she said quietly. “That’s what the Syndicate does.”
Valentino did not respond with words. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall.
His torso told its own story. The puckered scar from a Louisville Slugger with nails when he was 19. The bullet wound from a Russian Bratva hit when he was 24. The knife slash across his ribs from his own uncle during a succession dispute. Covering his left shoulder and chest was a tattoo of a phoenix rising from flames, incorporating the scars into the design.
“I got this,” he said, pointing to the phoenix, “after I killed the man who gave me these.”
He traced the oldest scars.
“I was 25. I’d just taken over the family. Half my own people wanted me dead. The feds wanted me in prison. I had a target on my back the size of Illinois.”
He stepped closer.
“You think you’re the only one who knows what it’s like to have death follow you. I’ve been living with it since I was 16. The difference is, I stopped running. I turned around and made death work for me.”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“Because you chose this life. I was drafted into mine.”
“And now you’re choosing to leave. To run again. To spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder, waiting for the day they finally catch up.”
He reached out, not touching her, but close enough that she could feel the heat.
“Or you could stay, fight, and when we win, because we will win, you’ll never have to run again.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know that 2 days ago you killed 4 trained assassins with your bare hands. I know that you’re the best operator I’ve ever seen. And I know that together we’re more dangerous than anything the Syndicate can send.”
His voice dropped.
“Demons don’t run alone, Daphne. They run together, and they burn everything in their path.”
She looked at him. Really looked at him. At the scars. At the man who had built an empire on violence and somehow still had the audacity to offer her sanctuary.
“This is insane,” she whispered.
“Probably.”
“We’ll both die.”
“Maybe. But at least we’ll die fighting instead of hiding.”
The morning sun cut through the windows, painting them both in gold and shadow, 2 people carved by violence standing in the wreckage of their choices.
Daphne reached up and touched the phoenix tattoo on his shoulder. Her fingers traced the flames.
“Demons run together,” she repeated.
“Demons run together.”
She dropped her hand, picked up her backpack, and instead of walking to the car, walked back toward the house.
Valentino followed.
Behind them, the vineyard stretched silent and still. Beneath that silence, something new was growing.
May you like
Not peace.
War.
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