27. Pietro
Pietro
Arestless day for both of us. Sleep does not come easy for her, but she finally drifts off like a baby.
She’s breathing softly when I leave.
Not peacefully. Her brow twitches in her dreams, and she murmurs words I can’t quite catch. But she doesn’t stir when I pull the door shut and lock it behind me.
Good.
I don’t want to see the look in her eyes when she realizes what I’ve done.
My contact meets me just after midnight, on the edge of a crumbling airstrip outside Port Cresca. She’s ex-MI6, now freelance, with a voice like gravel and no love for the Crown.
But she’s cooperative.
“You sure you want to do this, Cucinotta?” she asks. “Your girl’s already in deep.”
“That’s why,” I say.
She studies me. “You’re in love with her.”
“No,” I lie. “She’s an operative in trouble.”
She hands over a flash drive. “Arcadia isn’t a person. It’s a place. Off-grid. Private island. Charter access only. Officially? Doesn’t exist.”
I frown. “What happens there?”
“Reprogramming,” she says. “Failsafe conditioning. If she was trained, Arcadia is where they finished the job.”
“And if she wasn’t finished?”
She looks me in the eye. “Then they are planning to finish it.”
I return to the safehouse at dawn.
Valaria’s awake. Barefoot. Pacing.
Her phone in one hand, the file in the other.
“You left,” she says. No question. Just accusation.
I nod. “I had to.”
“For what?”
I pull the drive from my pocket and set it on the table.
“Arcadia,” I say. “It’s real.”
I watch her as she picks it up—like it might bite her.
“You went behind my back,” she says quietly.
“I did.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m not willing to lose you to a ghost.”
“And what if I wanted to go on my own terms?”
I meet her eyes.
“Then I would’ve gone with you. But you weren’t ready to chase it yet. I was.”
Her jaw flexes.
She hates this.
But she understands.
She plugs in the drive.
Maps. Images. Logs. Codes.
Coordinates burned into a private satellite record.
We both stare at it.
Then she looks at me, voice steady but hollow.
“So, what now?”
I exhale.
“Now we get a boat.”
She blinks. “You’re serious?”
“You want answers,” I say. “They’re out there. And I’ll go with you. Or behind you. Or in front of you. But I won’t let you go alone.”
A long pause.
Then she whispers, “You broke my trust again tonight.”
I nod. “I know.”
“But I think you did it to save me.”
“I did.”
“Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.”
And I mean it.
But even as she nods and turns back to the screen?—
I know this next chapter won’t just test our strength.
It’ll test our love.
Because Arcadia doesn’t just hold the key to Valaria’s past.
It might hold the command to turn her into something I can’t save her from.