Chapter 12 – Dario
The rain’s done, but everything’s still wet. Pavement slick with neon reflection, steam curling off sewer grates like the whole block’s exhaling a secret it doesn’t want to keep. I lean back into the alley wall, coat collar up, hood low, fingers curled around the hilt of a blade I’ve carried since Massimo died.
I watch the side door of the club.
Ignazio Hale steps out like he owns the night. Casual, hands in his pockets, the tail of his dark coat fluttering in the wet wind. He doesn’t see me. He’s reaching for a cigarette when I move.
Two steps and I’ve got him pinned.
My forearm presses into his throat before he finishes his first curse. I shove him into the graffiti-tagged brick, blade at his neck. His body tenses—but he doesn’t fight. Doesn’t even flinch.
That tells me everything.
“Don’t scream,” I say.
He doesn’t. Just stares at me with those cop eyes. Cold, controlled. The kind that’s done this before, maybe on the other side of the badge.
“I figured you’d come eventually,” he mutters.
“Not for a chat.”
The blade kisses his throat. Thin trickle of blood, just enough to make him blink. His pulse jumps under the steel. That’s better.
“You want to talk about why a florist became a target?” I ask.
“She wasn’t a target,” he says. Voice even. “Not at first.”
I press in harder. “Then tell me why she was there.”
“She was bait. Unwitting. She handled a drop that wasn’t meant for her. Your people slipped, Caldera routed intel through her shop.”
“You used her.”
“No,” he snaps, and for the first time his voice cracks. “She was a variable. We tracked the drop—figured if someone came to retrieve it, we’d have our opening. She was never the target. We just needed eyes.”
“Don’t lie to me.” My hand shifts the blade’s angle. “You got close. You knew her.”
He breathes through his teeth. “Yeah. I did.”
“And you didn’t warn her?”
“She wasn’t supposed to be in it. I kept the mess off her as long as I could. But when the dock incident happened, I couldn’t cover anymore. Corradino made a move.”
I slam him harder into the bricks. “You let her walk blind into that dock.”
“I tried to pull her off the grid!” Ignazio hisses. “She wouldn’t listen. She doesn’t trust me anymore.”
“She shouldn’t.”
He glares at me. “And she trusts you? You’re a killer, Valtieri. She’s safer with me.”
“She was never safe with you.”
A long pause. The city hums around us—bass thudding through brick walls, distant car horns, the whisper of wet tires down the street. My blade doesn’t move.
“You’ve been watching her,” I say.
He doesn’t answer.
“For how long?”
“…Three months.”
“You’ve been watching her. Letting her think she was free. Untouched.” I step back just enough to look him in the eye. “She wasn’t a florist to you. She was a file.”
“She was more than that,” he says, barely above a whisper.
And I see it—the guilt. Not performative. Real. Doesn’t make me feel better.
“You fed her to wolves. She just didn’t know she was bleeding.”
Ignazio drops his head against the wall. Rainwater trickles down the side of his face, or maybe he’s sweating now.
“She was giving us everything. By existing. By standing in that shop every day. By handing flowers to killers and not knowing they were killers.”
“You used her ignorance.”
He nods.
I press the blade to his throat again. This time harder. “Give me one reason not to open your throat right here.”
“Because if I die,” he croaks, “she becomes the next target.”
I go still.
He keeps talking. “There’s a file. She’s connected now. Caldera, the docks, the tech—you. If I vanish, they’ll bury it. Bury her. Make her disappear like she never existed.”
I pull back half an inch. Just enough to think.
My thumb slides off the edge of the blade. “You’re not lying.”
“I wish I was.”
I let go of his throat. He gasps, clutching the wall, coughing hard. I turn away so I don’t kill him while his back is turned. My fingers twitch. My chest still burns. I don’t feel better. I feel worse.
“She’s not yours to protect,” he rasps behind me.
I glance back.
“Well, that doesn’t mean I can’t kill for her,” I say, voice low. “You walk for now. But if I smell Caldera on your boots again, I won’t just press steel to your neck.”
He stares at me, still bent over. “That a threat?”
“No.” I sheath the knife. “It’s a fact.”
I step out of the alley without another word, the rain soaking back through the shoulders of my coat.
Behind me, I hear him whisper, “She’ll hate you too, eventually.”
I don’t answer.
Because maybe he’s right. And maybe that’s the only part that doesn’t scare me.
What scares me is that she might not.
I could’ve killed him. Should’ve.
The night wraps around me as I walk. Wet asphalt reflects the faded reds and blues of the club signs, broken in places by cracks in the pavement. Every step echoes.
I light a cigarette with hands still twitching from restraint. The blade is back in my pocket. My blood’s still on fire.
I think about what Ignazio said. About how they used her without ever saying her name aloud. A ghost, moved on a board by players who thought they were gods.
She’s the one I’d end kings for.
I find the streetlamp outside the busted garage and lean against the wall. Smoke rolls past my lips and disappears into the drizzle.
She’s probably inside, curled under the blanket. I think about her hands on me. The way she pulled me closer, like she wanted to bury herself in skin, not escape it. No apologies. No shame.
It wasn’t about forgetting. It was about remembering—what it feels like to be chosen. To be touched and meant for it.
She chose me.
And now, whether she says it or not, she trusts me to do right by her.
Not with words. With restraint.
I stay out in the rain until the cigarette’s soaked.
Then I go inside.
She’s sitting on the edge of the cot, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. The locket—burnt and scraped—is cradled in her palms like it’s still beating.
She doesn’t look up when I step in.
“I didn’t do it,” I say.
She looks at me then.
“No blood?” she asks, voice rough.
I shake my head. “Not tonight.”
She studies me. Not with suspicion. Not even with relief.
With understanding.
She nods once. “Good.”
I take the chair across from her. My coat drips water onto the floor.
“He said it wasn’t meant to happen that way,” I tell her.
“Liar,” she says.
I nod. “Yeah. But even liars bleed truth when they’re scared.”
I tell her the rest.
How Ignazio let her be watched. How her shop became a waypoint without her knowing it. How her flowers turned to signals. How the badge on his chest didn’t keep him from offering her up to men like Corradino—only wrapped it in clean excuses.
She doesn’t cry.
She listens.
Then she says, “He’s not part of this anymore. He doesn’t get to be.”
I don’t argue.
Because she’s right.
I move to the kitchen. Pour us both a drink.
Whiskey for me. Water for her.
When I come back, she hasn’t moved.
“Do you hate me for it?” I ask. “For letting him walk?”
Her eyes flick to mine.
“No,” she says.
I wait.
“I hate that you had to decide.”
I nod. I can live with that.
I sit beside her. Our knees touch. She doesn’t pull away.