Chapter 1

Introduction

Nico Vittori thought that once the blood pact was revoked, I would still wait for him the way I always had.

So he came to the chapel holding Bianca Marino's hand and told me, "I only see you as family."

He said Bianca's old enemies were hunting her and that she needed his protection. Bianca dropped to her knees in front of me, crying as she begged me not to send her back to the docks.

In my last life, I believed him.

I believed he would come back once he saw the truth, believed ten years at his side could outweigh one lie, believed there was at least a little sincerity in our engagement.

But later he told me he had agreed to marry me only to secure the Moretti family's port whitelist. The heirs to the Vittori treasury I had looked after for him were already loyal to Bianca. Even my parents' imprisonment began with a forged ledger he submitted himself.

Living it a second time, I finally stopped asking, "Why don't you love me?"

I called in the Council registrar and had the revocation drawn up in front of everyone.

Blood pact revoked. Safe house reclaimed. Convoy recalled. Communications access rescinded.

If he wanted to keep calling me family, I would give him the boundaries that came with it.

In ninety days I would leave New York for the Free Port of Marseille to study auditing.

What he did not know was that I would be taking more than myself with me.

I would also take the ledger he and Bianca most feared would come to light.

Because this time, I would not wait for anyone else to clear my name.

The Sicilian sea breeze swept through the old harbor, setting the white canvas rustling. The clinic bell had not yet rung, but Elena Moretti had already heard someone crash into the iron gate outside.

"Let me in." Nico's voice was so hoarse it barely sounded like him. "Elena, you can't marry him."

The Beacon Project guards did not move. Every guest's name glowed on the entrance screen, but Nico's old crest triggered a red denial light. Elena saw him beyond the flower arch: his once-impeccable suit was hopelessly wrinkled, his collar sat crooked, and sleepless nights had left his eyes bloodshot.

Gabriel took her hand without asking whether she wanted to go to Nico. He simply left his palm open to her and waited for her to decide.

In that moment, Elena remembered standing outside a door just like this ten years earlier. Only back then, the person beyond it had been the last one she still trusted.

In her last life, Nico had asked to dissolve the blood pact in the chapel, saying the Russo family's old enemies had marked Bianca and she could not survive without him. A month later, Bianca died in a ferry explosion, and not even her body was recovered. After that, Nico stopped speaking, stopped eating, and locked himself in a room at an old Alpine outpost.

Elena thought love could save a person. She balanced the missing entry in the Vittori port books, lent Nico the Moretti whitelist, and sat with him below the snow line for seven days and seven nights. At last, he lifted his head and thanked her. She took it as proof that the boy she had known was back.

But ten years later, in a hospital, Nico brought a living Bianca to her bedside. Elena had just lost all feeling in her legs after a car crash and was still holding birthday cards from the two young heirs to the Vittori treasury whom she had raised. He told her the engagement had never been about love. He had wanted the Moretti family's two Council votes and its port whitelist. Those same children had already sworn loyalty to Bianca.

"You watched the door for us for ten years." Bianca leaned down and tucked the blanket around her, smiling gently. "Now it should go back to its real owner."

Nico did not deny it. Later, forged ledgers sent both sets of parents into federal custody while a sedative seeped through Elena's IV and into her blood. The last thing she saw was Nico taking the bronze beacon from her bedside.

Before the bell rang, Elena surfaced from that memory. The sea wind was still blowing, and Nico was still shouting her name outside the gate.

She lifted her head and gave Gabriel a small smile.

"Let's go in."

The next second, the world turned over. The damp scent of incense filled her nose. Elena opened her eyes and found herself in the front row of the Vittori chapel, with winter rain falling beyond the windows. Nico stood beneath the candelabrum, holding the hand of a Bianca who had not yet "died."

He held Elena's gaze and spoke with deliberate precision.

"Elena, our blood pact has to be revoked."