Chapter Thirty-Two #2
I remembered the day I went looking for her. Dario and I had been staying with Sean at the time, and when he returned with the groceries, I knew it was my only chance. I left Dario with him, telling him I needed some air.
I had one goal: find Anna Sergeyevna Petrova.
Somewhere along the way, I collided with an older couple. I muttered a quick apology and kept walking, never looking back.
Then I saw her.
Anna stood in the courtyard of a hotel, speaking on the phone and pacing as though the world revolved around her. She carried herself with an arrogance that made something in my chest tighten, as though she genuinely believed nothing could ever reach her.
She looked up.
The moment her eyes landed on me, she froze.
She knew who I was.
Her expression changed so quickly there wasn't even time for denial. Her lips parted slightly, but she never got the chance to speak before I reached her.
I didn't hesitate.
I hit her hard enough to throw us both to the ground, the impact slamming through my body as we crashed onto the cold pavement. She screamed and tried to push me off, but I was faster, stronger and far more violent than she expected.
I didn't stop.
My fists struck her again and again until the sound of my heartbeat drowned everything else out.
“You were going to take him!” I screamed. “He's not for sale!”
Her nails scraped across my arms, breaking the skin, but I barely felt it.
“He's not yours!” I shouted, my voice breaking beneath the weight of everything I couldn't say calmly. “He has someone who cares about him! He's not yours to destroy!”
For a moment, there was nothing but movement, noise and fury.
Then I reached into my jacket.
The knife I'd taken from Sean's drawer felt heavier than it should have.
Her eyes widened the moment she saw it.
Fear finally broke through.
Good.
I drove the blade into her.
She gasped, her body folding inward as her hands flew to the wound, as though she could somehow stop what had already been done. I watched her struggle, watched the strength drain from her in real time.
Then I saw it.
Her gaze shifted past me for a split second, unfocused, and I remembered why I'd been there in the first place.
Dario.
Small. Waiting. Unaware of anything beyond the safety of whoever I'd left him with.
Something in my chest tightened at the thought of him being anywhere near a world like this, anywhere near people like her. It wasn't hesitation; it was instinct, pure and immediate – the need to protect him that had existed long before I understood what I was becoming.
But there was no time to think about it.
Her breathing turned shallow, and then it stopped.
I didn't stay. I couldn't. I turned and ran.
That day was when the world knew of Morana.
After I killed her, I told Sean exactly what I'd done. There was no hiding it from him. He didn't flinch or judge me. He simply nodded once, as though he'd been expecting it all along.
He handled the body himself, cleaned everything up as though it were just another task in a life that had long since stopped being normal.
Then he sent what was left of Anna Sergeyevna Petrova directly to Ivan Volkov.
Wrapped neatly. A message delivered in blood and silence.
Morana is coming for you.
The name slipped into the underground like smoke, carried first in whispers and disbelief before becoming something heavier. A myth, a rumour, a warning dressed up as fiction.
They all thought I was a ghost.
They were all wrong.
I looked back at Nonno, the memory still sitting heavily in my chest, and suddenly something shifted into focus. The shade of grey in his eyes was the same shade I'd remembered from that day.
“You and Nonna...” I said slowly, disbelief threading through my voice. “You were the couple I bumped into.”
Nonno gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
“I told you,” he said quietly. “I know more than anyone in this house.”
My stomach tightened.
Because he wasn't just there in my memory as a stranger. He had seen me. Not as Sabrina. Not even as the girl I'd been trying to survive as back then.
He had seen Morana.
Before I had ever known that name belonged to me.
“Did you know?” I asked quietly. “Did you know I was your granddaughter?”
Nonno was silent for a moment before shaking his head.
“No.”
“I wish I had,” he admitted. “I wish I had known that the teenager I saw kill someone in broad daylight was my granddaughter. But I didn't. Not then.”
His gaze drifted briefly towards the dark window before returning to me.
“You were wearing a mask. I couldn't see your face properly, and by the time everything was over, you were already gone.”
The kitchen fell quiet.
“That day, when you looked at me, I didn't know who you were,” he continued. “I didn't know your name. I didn't know you belonged to us. But I remember thinking you were far too young to be carrying that much anger.”
His voice remained steady, though something heavier lingered beneath it.
“You weren't fighting because you enjoyed it. You were fighting because there was something you were trying to protect. Something you would have bled for without hesitation.”
My throat tightened.
Ivan had wanted Dario.
That had been enough.