26. Valaria
Valaria
The safe house is silent.
Pietro’s in the next room, working with a secure contact on what he calls “fail-safes.” I didn’t ask for details. I didn’t have to. The look in his eyes told me everything.
He’s planning for what happens if I break.
I don’t blame him.
Because part of me wonders if I already have.
I sit cross-legged on the bed, the old file open in front of me. Each page–a razor. I read the words again. Memorize them. Whisper pieces out loud just to hear how they sound in my voice.
Subject demonstrates exceptional recall, resilience under stress, and adaptive manipulation.
Emotional resistance is high. Loyalty unclear.
I close my eyes.
And I try to remember.
Not Manhattan. Not growing up with Emma.
Before.
Back when I was just a girl with too many questions and a mother who always looked over her shoulder.
I remember sitting in a concrete room painted with clouds. Being told to match shapes. To memorize numbers. To answer questions before they were asked.
I remember hands clapping when I got it right. Frowns when I didn’t.
I remember a voice—low, calm, female.
“She doesn’t need to know she’s being tested.”
I open my eyes.
The memory is real.
God.
I rub my hands over my face.
There’s a code scribbled on the back of one of the pages. A series of numbers and syllables. Phrases I don’t recognize.
They hum at the edge of memory like a song I’ve only ever heard in dreams.
Veins intertwine. Memories leap.
Italian words that haunt me.
I pull out my phone and record myself saying them aloud.
“Le vene si intrecciano. Ricordi balzano.”
Then I play it back.
Nothing happens.
At first.
But then?—
A pulse of heat shoots behind my eyes. Sharp. Sudden. Like someone reached into my skull and flipped a switch.
I gasp.
Memories explode.
Not of my mother.
Not of missions.
Of training.
A man’s voice. A clicker. Lights blinking in timed intervals.
I see a room. The woman with a red streak in her braid.
A whisper: Crimson Oracle is showing high cognitive sync. Phase Two may begin by fall.
I grip the bedpost, breath ragged.
I wasn’t just a bystander.
I was being built.
When Pietro finds me an hour later, I’m still shaking.
He doesn’t ask what happened.
He just sits beside me and wraps an arm around my shoulders.
“You went looking,” he says.
“I found too much.”
“Anything useful?”
“Maybe.”
I look at him.
“Do you know what it feels like to doubt every memory you have?”
“Yes,” he says quietly. “I do.”
I lean into him. I know his childhood is a blur he says better not remembered.
And for the first time, I let him hold the weight of it with me.
Because I need help.
His voice is a low rasp in the dark. “You have no idea what you mean to me.”
I freeze, his words catching me off guard.
We tangle in the sheets, he kisses me, claims me like I am something he’ll bleed for. And already has.
He brushes a knuckle down my cheek, slow and reverent. “You think you’re a weapon. A risk. A ticking clock.” His fingers trail to my collarbone, his lips following, warm against the beat of my heart. “But to me, you’re the reason I still believe in anything good.”
I want to deny it. To push him away before he sees how much I need to hear this. But his mouth captures mine before the walls go up, and everything about the kiss makes me ache—slow and deep and devastating.
He slides my robe down over my bare shoulders. He plants tiny kisses across my collarbone. Nuzzles into my neck. His mouth finds mine as if he’s hungry for me. I let my robe slide onto the bed.
I watch him disrobe in the half-light. His eyes flick to mine.
A faint smile.
His eyes are deep pools of worry.
We lie together skin to skin.
I savor his warmth.
I rub my cold hands over his body to warm them.
I tilt my head waiting for a kiss.
His kiss is slow and deep.
I need to feel our connection.
Pietro’s eyes lock on mine as he slides inside me, it’s not just need—it’s worship.
His name escapes my lips like a secret I didn’t mean to confess. His body moves over mine with purpose, with heat, with something I thought I’d stopped deserving—love. He groans against my throat, hips grinding deeper, slower, like he wants to memorize the shape of us.
And somehow, somewhere between the sweat and the shivering and the way he whispers my name like a vow, I feel safe.
I clutch at his shoulders, my legs wrapping around him, pulling him impossibly closer. Every thrust unravels me. Every word rebuilds me.
My orgasm is soft, comforting, filling my whole body with warmth.
Pietro releases into me with a sigh.
We lay joined drifting into sleep.
As light dawns, he kisses my shoulder—leaving his mouth over it, tasting me.
“I’ve loved you since the moment you pulled a gun on me and didn’t flinch.”
I laugh, breathless. “You’re insane.”
“For you? Completely.”
Pietro looks over my shoulder. The papers in the file are strewn across the bed—crumpled, torn when we rolled over them, not caring about anything except our desperate need for each other.
“Don’t look at it,” I say.
He reads the word I don’t want to hear.
“ARCADIA. Does it mean anything to you?”
I must face whatever is staring me in the face.
“I don’t know if it’s a place. A program. A person.”
I can’t tell him more. Because there is nothing more.
Not yet.
I must pick out the clues in the dream.
I know it hides the next step.
And I’m going to find it—no matter what it takes.