Ashes And Echoes

Chapter Two

The scent of smoke clung to her hair as they fled.

Aria's heart pounded so loud it nearly drowned out the roar of the engines behind them. Nico's arm was steel around her waist, his grip unrelenting as he guided her through the underbrush, down an overgrown service path that led from the villa's cliffs toward the road below. Each second felt like a stolen breath, each step a gamble.

The Moretti estate burned behind them—not with fire, but with fury.

Gunshots cracked in the distance, too far to be aimed but close enough to remind them that time was bleeding away.

"Here!" Nico yanked open the door of a matte black motorbike hidden beneath a canvas tarp near an abandoned tool shed. He handed her a helmet. "Get on."

She didn't hesitate. Not even for a second.

Her hands trembled as she secured the strap under her chin. Her gown was torn, stained with ash and adrenaline, but she swung her leg over the bike without complaint, pressing her chest to Nico's back.

"Hold tight," he warned.

She did.

The engine screamed to life, and then they were gone.

Dust and gravel sprayed into the night as they shot down a backroad carved through the Sicilian countryside. The wind sliced through her hair, tangling it wildly as villas, vineyards, and miles of coastline blurred past them in streaks of moonlight and shadow.

For the first time in her life, Aria Moretti wasn't being watched.

She was running.

And somehow, she wasn't afraid.

Not yet.

They didn't stop until the sun began to rise.

Nico pulled off the road into a weathered olive grove, where gnarled trees stood like silent sentries. A crumbling stone chapel stood at the grove's center, its cross long since rusted, its bell tower cracked.

He killed the engine and pulled off his helmet.

Aria climbed off the bike, legs weak, eyes scanning the quiet clearing as silence returned.

"I know this place," she murmured.

"You should," Nico said, brushing a leaf from her shoulder. "Your mother used to come here."

Her chest tightened. "With you?"

He nodded once. "She trusted me."

The air shifted.

Aria's mind raced with everything she'd seen in the last twelve hours. Her father's betrayal. The kill order. The warning on her laptop. The pendant Nico held—the one her mother wore the night she died.

"How do you have it?" she asked, voice low.

Nico didn't answer right away. He turned, opened the chapel's rusted door, and gestured for her to follow.

Inside, the air was cold and thick with dust. Broken pews leaned against the walls, and shards of colored glass littered the floor beneath shattered windows. In the back, a table had been cleared—laid out with files, blueprints, and weapons.

And in the center, a black briefcase.

He opened it.

Inside: documents, photographs, a gun, and her mother's pendant—still warm from where he'd been holding it.

"I found it the night she died," he said quietly. "Hidden in a floorboard in the wine cellar beneath the villa. She knew someone was coming for her. She left it behind in case she didn't make it out."

Aria reached for it. The chain was delicate, the locket heavier than she remembered. She pressed the hidden clasp.

It clicked open.

Inside—

Not a picture.

Not a keepsake.

A microchip.

She looked up at him, stunned.

Nico nodded grimly. "That's the second half of what she gave me. The first was that flash drive. The chip… holds the encrypted logs from your father's private network. Proof of everything."

Her throat tightened. "Why didn't you tell me before?"

"Because I wasn't sure you were ready to believe it." He met her eyes, deadly calm. "Until tonight."

She sank onto a broken pew, the pendant clutched in her hand. "All this time… I thought she died because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. An accident."

"There are no accidents in your father's world." Nico crouched beside her. "Only strategy. And sacrifice."

Tears burned behind her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. Not yet. She had learned too well how to bleed quietly.

"Why now?" she whispered. "Why come back now, after all these years?"

Nico's jaw flexed. "Because the board shifted. Because your father is making moves even I can't predict. And because Damiano is not what he seems."

She froze. "You know about the engagement?"

"I know he's not marrying you for love."

A bitter laugh slipped from her lips. "That much was obvious."

"No, Aria." Nico's voice hardened. "He's not marrying you for peace either."

She turned to him slowly. "Then what does he want?"

Nico stood and began to pace. "Control. Of both syndicates. The Morettis and the Rizzos. Your father's growing weaker. The marriage was his insurance policy. But Damiano—he's not just playing along. He's outmaneuvering him."

Her blood ran cold.

"So what do we do?"

Nico looked at her, and for the first time, she saw hesitation in his eyes. Not fear. Something deeper.

"We disappear," he said finally. "We go dark. You lay low while I decrypt the chip. Once we have the full picture, we expose him. Expose them both."

Her gaze dropped to the microchip in her hand. The key to everything.

Then her breath caught. "Nico… what if I'm part of the plan?"

"What?"

She swallowed. "Damiano let me go. I saw it. He could've stopped me. He didn't. What if he wanted me to run?"

Nico stiffened. "Then we're already too late."

Back at the villa, the wreckage from the night before was already being erased. Blood scrubbed from marble. Security footage wiped. Lies rehearsed.

But Damiano Rizzo sat in Cesare Moretti's office, untouched by chaos. Calm.

He leaned back in the leather chair, sipping espresso like a man who had already won.

Cesare stormed in moments later. "You lost her."

Damiano looked up, gray eyes like ice over steel. "No," he said evenly. "I set her free."

Cesare's face turned crimson. "What game are you playing, Rizzo? I brought you into this family. Promised you, my daughter—"

"And I promised you an empire," Damiano cut in. "But you forget, Don Moretti… I don't follow. I lead."

The older man took a step forward, fury rising.

But Damiano stood slowly, setting the porcelain cup down on the table between them.

"My men are already tightening the perimeter around the island," he said coldly. "I'll let her run. Let her think she's safe. But when the time comes, she'll crawl back. And when she does…" He smiled.

"She'll have no one left but me."

Cesare's lip curled. "She's not yours to control."

Damiano's smile vanished. "She was never yours to protect."

Silence burned between them.

Then Damiano picked up the kill order from Cesare's desk—Aria's name still printed at the top. He folded it neatly and slid it into his coat pocket.

"You buried too many secrets, Cesare," he murmured. "And now your sins will choke you."

He turned toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Cesare spat.

"To end what you started."

Back in the chapel, Aria stood beside Nico as the sun poured in through a broken stained-glass window. The light caught the dust in the air, turning it golden.

She felt different.

Not free, not yet. But awake.

"What happens if we fail?" she asked quietly.

Nico looked at her. "Then we burn it all down."

She stared at the pendant in her palm, the chain swinging like a blade.

"No," she said. "We build something new from the ashes."

And outside, across the grove, hidden beneath the trees—

A pair of gray eyes watched them.

Damiano was already closer than they thought.

And he wasn't alone.