Chapter Nineteen
Luis
By the time training rolls around, I'm more than ready to leave the classroom behind.
People reveal far more about themselves during training than they ever do sitting behind a desk. Strengths, weaknesses, tempers and fears eventually surface, whether someone wants them to or not.
I head straight for the changing rooms before the bell has fully finished ringing, already pulling my shirt over my head as I walk inside. The air is thick with heat and sweat, the usual mixture of voices bouncing off the walls.
Matteo and Luca are already by the lockers, halfway changed and leaning back as though they have nowhere better to be.
At first glance, they look identical, but only until you actually pay attention.
Matteo's face is sharper, his eyes constantly moving, never switching off, while Luca seems more relaxed, his hair messier and his expression suggesting that nothing deserves urgency.
Leonardo is nearby, leaning against the metal lockers with his arms crossed. His chestnut hair is slightly damp, and his expression is unreadable as usual. He doesn't talk much.
Across the room, Tristan Lambert stands with his shoulders against the wall, looking relaxed in a way that isn't real. His ash-blond hair falls loosely over his forehead, but his eyes are constantly moving, taking in everything around him.
Nathaniel Gray stands slightly apart from everyone else, as though he prefers the distance. His black hair is perfectly in place, his posture straight and still. Too still. He doesn't waste movement, and he doesn't waste words.
I step further into the room, grab a clean shirt from my bag and pull it on. Ink stretches across my arms, tattoos layered over old scars. The others aren't much different. None of us are clean anymore.
Matteo looks over first, a smirk already forming.
“You look like shit.”
I don't look at him, simply adjusting my sleeve.
“You always say that.”
“Because it's always true.”
Luca snorts quietly as he pushes himself away from the lockers.
“He's not wrong. You get this look like you're about to kill someone.”
“Good to know,” I mutter.
Leonardo shifts slightly, glancing between us.
“At least he looks like he's doing something.”
Tristan lets out a quiet breath that might be a laugh.
“You all train like you're preparing for war.”
Nathaniel answers before anyone else can.
“We are.”
No one argues because there's nothing to argue about.
Matteo pushes away from the lockers and heads for the door. “Come on. Let's get this over with.”
We leave the changing rooms together, our usual formation falling into place without anyone needing to say where they're going. The corridors are louder now, voices bouncing off the walls, but the noise fades the closer we get to the training grounds.
That's the only place that matters at this time of day.
Matteo walks beside me, matching my pace exactly. Luca and Leonardo are a few steps ahead, while Tristan and Nathaniel trail behind. No one talks much. No one ever really does before training.
Then Matteo breaks the silence.
“Stay away from her.”
I don't need to ask who he means. He's been saying it all day. From the moment school started, he's made it clear that I am supposed to stay away from Sabrina Moretti.
The name doesn't mean much to me in the way it clearly does to everyone else. The Moretti family found their daughter after seventeen years. She was taken, disappeared, and now she's back.
She's here. Same school. Same system.
Apparently, that means I'm supposed to avoid her.
I glance at Matteo.
“You've said that already.”
“And I'll keep saying it.”
There's no hesitation in his voice. No humour. Just certainty.
I look ahead again, my expression unchanged.
“You planning on giving me a reason, or am I supposed to follow instructions blindly?”
Matteo exhales slowly, like he's choosing his words carefully.
“You'll find out soon.”
That's it. No explanation. No detail. Just enough to make it clear that whatever he knows, he isn't willing to tell me yet.
I don't respond immediately, but the thought is already there because none of this makes sense. Matteo knows exactly where my attention is. It has never been on random girls, never something that shifts depending on who happens to walk into a room.
There's only ever been one.
And he was there the first time I saw her in New York.
It was in a convenience store that smelled like cheap food and stale air. I hadn't been paying attention to anything until I saw her sitting there, eating noodles as though the rest of the world didn't exist.
Matteo noticed before I said anything. He followed my line of sight, looked back at me once, then grabbed my arm and dragged me inside like he'd already made the decision for me.
I didn't stop him.
He made me sit right next to her. Close enough that I should have felt something shift – awareness, discomfort, anything.
She didn't react.
Not to me. Not to him. Not to anything.
That was what caught my attention first.
Not the setting. Not the situation.
Her.
Grey eyes. Dull. Flat. No emotion. No reaction. Nothing.
It wasn't indifference, and it wasn't boredom. It was absence, as though there was nothing there to respond in the first place.
I couldn't stop looking at her. Not because she was trying to be noticed, but because she wasn't.
That was what made her impossible to ignore.
When she left, I tried to find her. Every contact, every source, every place she could have been.
Nothing came back.
No name. No trace. No record.
It was as though she had never existed.
But I knew she had.
And I hadn't stopped looking.
I wouldn't.
I needed a name for those eyes.
The training grounds look the same as they always have. The layout hasn't changed, the structure is identical and the routine is as predictable as ever. Groups are already formed, each one settling into their usual corners as though this place runs on something unspoken and fixed.
The atmosphere is different here. Quieter. More focused. Conversations are lower, movements more deliberate.
This is the only part of the school where people stop pretending.
I step inside with the others, my attention moving across the room out of habit. Faces, positions, movement – everything registers without effort.
Our usual spot is already occupied.
Luca and Leonardo are there, but they're not alone. Carlo is with them, leaning back as usual, but his attention isn't on us. It's on the people sitting with them, and that alone is enough to shift my focus.
Three people I don't recognise.
A girl with long brown hair falling over her shoulders sits slightly angled away from the others. Her posture is straight but closed off in a way that feels intentional. She doesn't try to draw attention, but she doesn't avoid it either.
Next to her are two guys who look almost identical. Same height, same build, same features. Twins. One has darker brown hair, the other lighter, but that's the only real difference between them.
And then–
Her.
I don't stop walking, but something in me does.
My focus narrows instantly, everything else in the room fading into something distant and irrelevant. The noise dulls, movement blurs, and for a moment, none of it exists the way it did before.
Grey eyes. The same flat, unreadable eyes.
Exactly the same.
For a second, nothing else matters.
She's here.
On the island. In this school. Sitting with the Morettis as though she belongs, as though she always has.
Matteo keeps walking, completely unaffected. Nathaniel and Tristan follow behind him without hesitation, as though there's nothing unusual about any of this.
I don't.
Because it doesn't make sense.
I'd been looking for her ever since that day, and every lead had ended the same way. There had been no name, no trace, no record. It was as though she'd never existed.
And now she's simply here.
Not hidden. Not difficult to find.
Just here.
Like every search I'd made had been leading me here all along.
My body moves before I consciously decide to. The distance between us closes without effort, my focus still fixed on her as the rest of the group comes back into view around her.
Matteo steps forward first, his voice steady and controlled, as though nothing about this moment holds any weight.
“Everyone,” he says, “this is Sabrina.”
Sabrina.
Sabrina Moretti.
Something clicks into place with a certainty that doesn't feel like coincidence. Of course it's her. Of course the one person I couldn't find has ended up here, in the one place she shouldn't be able to disappear from.
Matteo continues the introductions, his tone casual enough that no one questions it.
But I barely hear him.
Because after weeks of searching, I finally have a name for those eyes.