The villa clung to the cliffs like a vulture's nest, its iron gates creaking as they swallowed the limousine whole. Serena pressed her forehead to the cold glass, the Mediterranean waves crashing below, clawing at the rocks as though they, too, wanted to escape. The car door opened, and the salt-stained wind slapped her face, carrying the metallic scent of blood from the butcher shop down the road.
Vittorio's men flanked her, their silence more oppressive than any threat. The villa's entrance yawned wide, a gaping maw of polished marble and flickering torchlight. Her reflection warped in the floor's black veins—an unwelcome ghost, her cheek still throbbing from his blow.
"Move." One of the guards shoved her forward.
She stumbled, her heels catching on the grout between the stones. The halls twisted like a labyrinth, oil paintings of Marchetti ancestors glaring down from the walls—dead eyes, bloodied swords. One portrait stopped her dead in her tracks: a younger Vittorio, unscarred, with a boy's hand resting on his shoulder. The boy's smile was sunlight. Gabriele, the plaque read.
"Admiring my family?"
Vittorio's voice slithered from the shadows. He leaned against a doorway, swirling amber liquid in a glass. His scar glinted in the torchlight.
She flinched. "I—wasn't—"
"Lost?" He smirked. "You will be."
He led her to a room at the end of the hall. The door groaned open to reveal a four-poster bed draped in velvet the color of dried blood. A single barred window offered a sliver of sea and sky.
"Yours," he said, as if giving her a coffin.
Serena's fingers brushed the locket at her throat, the cyanide pill inside an ever-present temptation. But Luca's face flashed behind her eyes—his swollen eye, split lip—and her hand fell.
Dinner was served at a table longer than her childhood apartment. Vittorio sat at the head, tearing into a blood-rare steak, the juices pooling on his plate like an open wound. A servant shoved a silver platter at Serena—black truffles shaved over bone-white risotto. Her father's last meal, the night he died.
"Eat," Vittorio said, never looking up.
The truffles tasted of damp soil and betrayal. She gagged, swallowing bile.
He sipped his wine, watching her over the rim. "Your brother prefers his meat charred. A shame he'll be eating through a straw."
The fork trembled in her hand. Keep chewing. Don't cry.
A maid entered, her apron stained, balancing a coffee pot. The spout trembled as she poured scalding liquid, spilling some over Serena's cup.
"Attenta!" the maid hissed, lunging to blot the spill with her sleeve.
Serena jerked back, but the coffee kissed her wrist, a searing brand. She bit her tongue until copper flooded her mouth.
Vittorio set his glass down. The click of the glass echoed.
The maid froze, breath caught. "M-Mi dispiace, Don Marchetti—"
He rose slowly, deliberately, his stiletto glinting in the candlelight. The maid's whimper died as he slashed her palm. Blood splattered onto the table, mixing with the risotto.
"Fix her," he said, tossing Serena a linen napkin.
Her hands shook as she wrapped the maid's wound, the woman's pulse fluttering like a caged sparrow. The blood seeped through the fabric, warm and sticky.
Vittorio gripped Serena's nape, forcing her to meet his gaze. "Remember this. Every drop they spill…" His thumb smeared blood across her collarbone. "…is yours."
He left her kneeling in the silence, the maid's sobs echoing down the hall.
---
Midnight coiled through the villa like smoke. Serena lay rigid on the bed, the velvet sheets strangling her legs. Footsteps prowled outside the door—his footsteps.
The knob turned.
Vittorio stood in the doorway, backlit by the hall's sulfurous glow. A knife gleamed in his hand.
Serena's scream lodged in her throat.
He crossed the room in three strides, his weight sinking the mattress. Cold steel brushed her temple. She squeezed her eyes shut.
Snip.
A lock of her hair fell onto the pillow.
"Proof of life," he murmured, tucking the curl into his pocket. "For your brother… if you behave."
The door clicked shut.
Serena's breath exploded, ragged and wet. She scrambled off the bed, her knees hitting the floorboards. A muffled clink sounded beneath the rug.
She peeled it back.
A rusted scalpel lay taped to the wood, its edge flecked with old blood. A note, scribbled in medical shorthand: 12th rib. Moonrise.
Her father's code.
Somewhere, waves pounded the cliffs. Somewhere, a clock ticked.
And deep in her marrow, a spark hissed to life.
She palmed the scalpel, its weight foreign yet familiar.
Soon, she promised the ghost in the mirror.
Soon.