Chapter Seven - The First Match

The matchbox felt heavier than it should have.

Eva turned it over in her hand, the sharp edges biting into her palm as if warning her—there was no turning back after this. But that was the thing about stepping into hell. Once your feet touched fire, it was already too late to beg for heaven.

Damian stood beside her, silent, his gaze fixed on the table between them. On it sat the first of the files they'd pulled from the vault—dossiers, pictures, ledgers. Names she didn't recognize and some she'd never forget. The men who murdered her sister weren't ghosts anymore. They had faces. Addresses. Weaknesses.

"I expected a war," she said, striking the first match, watching it hiss to life. "I just didn't think I'd be the one to start it."

She dropped the flame onto the photo of the man called Benedetto. One of the syndicate heads. It curled at the corners, blackening to ash.

Damian didn't stop her.

"We move tonight," he said after a moment. "You want action? You'll get it. But there's something you need to see first."

She didn't like the sound of that. "What now? Another vault? Another locked door?"

He shook his head. "No. A meeting. We're going to see one of my informants. Someone who used to work with Mateo Lanza before he vanished."

Her pulse stuttered. "Vanished?"

"They found pieces of him. Not enough to bury."

So much for answers.

---

They left through the underground passage that tunneled beneath the estate like veins. Eva kept her steps quick and her breathing steady, but something in the dark pressed against her spine. Paranoia—or maybe just the ghosts of the house that made her a widow in name and a soldier by necessity.

The car waiting for them was matte black, windows tinted so dark they looked like obsidian. Damian opened the door without a word, and Eva slid in, the leather cold against her back.

The drive was short, tense. Rain lashed against the windshield, and city lights bled into long streaks across the windows. Neither of them spoke.

He didn't offer comfort. She didn't ask for it.

They stopped outside a crumbling tenement on the city's edge. Not the kind of place anyone willingly visited after dark—unless they had something to sell or someone to kill.

"This is where your 'informant' lives?" Eva asked, eyeing the boarded-up windows and flickering streetlamp.

"She prefers the term retired."

"From what? Assassination?"

Damian smiled—just barely. "Something like that."

They climbed three flights of creaking stairs, each one groaning under the weight of what was coming. Eva kept her hand near the blade tucked under her coat. She didn't trust anyone. Not even Damian. Especially not Damian.

He knocked once. Then twice. Then again, softer. A coded rhythm.

The door cracked open. A sliver of light revealed a pale woman with silver hair and a gun in her hand.

"You brought her," she said, voice gravel-soft.

"She's earned the truth."

The woman opened the door fully. Her eyes landed on Eva, calculating. "You look like your sister."

Eva froze. "You knew Isabella?"

"I trained her," the woman said. "And warned her not to trust anyone with a crown."

Eva stepped inside.

The apartment was a fortress disguised as ruin. Maps pinned to walls. Surveillance monitors flickering. Guns in drawers, knives in flowerpots. This wasn't a home. It was a war room.

"I'm called Mira," the woman said. "And if you're here, it means we're out of time."

Damian crossed his arms. "Tell her what you told me."

Mira's eyes didn't leave Eva's. "Isabella didn't die because of a mission gone wrong. She died because someone inside Damian's organization sold her out."

The floor tilted.

Eva gripped the edge of the table to stay upright. "Someone… inside?"

"Someone high," Mira confirmed. "Trusted. Maybe even still trusted."

Eva turned to Damian. "You said she volunteered. That she knew the risks."

"She did. But I didn't know about the leak."

"You mean you didn't see it. There's a difference."

He didn't argue. That scared her more than if he had.

Mira pulled out a manila folder. "I kept digging after the funeral. For her. For me. Mateo was a pawn. But the real player—the one who wanted Isabella gone—still walks free."

She slid the folder toward Eva. "Open it."

Eva did. And found a name she recognized immediately.

A name that didn't belong to the syndicate.

A name that belonged to someone in their house.

Her blood ran cold.

"No," she whispered. "It can't be."

Damian's face darkened. "What did you find?"

Eva looked up, eyes burning. "Your cousin. Luca."

Mira nodded. "He's the leak. And if you don't kill him by tomorrow, he'll kill you."