The sky over Rome was dark velvet, bruised by the weight of midnight, and Leon stood on the rooftop of the safe house staring at the city lights like they held answers.
He hadn't spoken in hours.
The truth he’d uncovered clawed at his insides like a rabid beast. A false childhood. A manufactured destiny. A possible double.
He wasn’t just hunting Gabriel Renzo anymore.
He was hunting himself.
Footsteps behind him.
Soft. Familiar.
Mira.
She stepped beside him without a word, her long dark coat fluttering in the wind, eyes flicking across his face like she was trying to read a language only she understood.
"You haven’t said anything since the compound," she said softly. "That’s not like you."
Leon exhaled, slow and tight.
“I saw a boy,” he muttered. “In the video.”
Mira waited.
“
