My grandfather's voice echoed through the parking garage like a ghost made flesh. Don Alessandro Romano stepped fully into the red emergency lighting, and I could see the decades etched into his weathered face. But his eyes burned with the same intensity I remembered from childhood photographs.
"Nonno?" I whispered, using the Italian word for grandfather that I had not spoken in twenty years.
"Surprised, bambina? You should not be. The Romano family has always been good at surviving." He gestured to the chaos around us. "Even when survival requires extreme measures."
Commander Chen kept her weapon trained on me, but her attention flickered between my grandfather and the ongoing firefight. "Alessandro Romano died in 1998. I have seen the death certificate."
"Death certificates can be fo
