“Neve,” she replied.
Hearing the name out loud after fifteen years was a revelation.“She’s still here?”
“No,” Sister Ana told me.“She left eight months ago.”
I went still.
“She grew up,” Sister Ana continued.“We don’t keep girls here forever, Atlas.She wanted to start her own life.A job.A home.A chance at a normal life.”
My pulse kicked up, sudden and unwelcome.“Where did she go?”
“Different places.She wanted to see the world.But she still writes and I believe she found her feet in Tuscany.”She reached into a drawer and pulled out three small postcards.
Tuscany.Of course she’d choose somewhere quiet.Somewhere alive.Somewhere untouched by the world we’d dragged her from.
I took the postcards without speaking.Each one felt heavier than the last.
“You saved her once,” Sister Ana reminded me gently.“You should have expected she’d want more than walls.”
“She was better off here,” I muttered.
“No,” she said with certainty.“She was safe here.But safe is not a life worth living.”
I didn’t deny it.I couldn’t.
She watched me as if she could see the gears turning in my head.
“She is not your responsibility anymore,” she added.
But she was wrong.Because keeping her alive had been my mistake.And mistakes had consequences.
I slid the postcards into my coat and stood.
“Thank you,” I added stiffly.
“For what?”she asked.
“Not questioning why I needed to know.”
She nodded.“You will do what is right.You always have.”
I left without responding.
Outside, the sky was heavy with clouds.The air felt colder.
Tuscany.She was in Tuscany.She’d been gone for eight months.Eight months was enough time for a ghost to carve out a new existence and pretend that the past never happened.
She was somewhere out there—alive, rebuilding, unsuspecting.But the world was smaller than she thought.And fate had a habit of dragging unfinished business back to shore.
8
Atlas
The old Volvo rumbled down the street, loud enough that a few heads turned.If Marcello saw me driving that thing, he’d drop dead on the spot.But I wasn’t there to draw attention.I was in unfamiliar territory, and the last thing I needed was to stand out.So I left the Maserati in the basement of my Tuscan penthouse and bought a beat-up green Volvo from a street vendor a few blocks away.
There was only one reason I was there, and it had nothing to do with business or alliances.
I was at the peak of my reign.The family was stable.The council respected me.Our influence had spread across six major regions.I hadn’t wanted that title, but now that I had it, I’d protect it with everything I had.I’d protect everything my family built from the ground up if even it took my very last breath.