All That Was Forgotten

Chapter 1: Present Day

The moment I mounted the rifle to my shoulder, everything else falls away. Just like it always does.

The stock nesting against my cheek, like it was always meant to be there. The sight alining with my eyeball, as I breathed in. The range smells like it always does. Hot brass, gun oil and the metallic tang of spent powder. But up close, it's the rifle that speaks.

I breathed out slow. The world reduced to the sight at my front, and the little bull of ink on the paper. My finger finds the trigger like it remembers a route home. I didn't even think. I just pulled.

The first shot cracks. The recoil pushing into my shoulder and rolling through my spine. The kick is cleaner with the rifle, it felt like a contained thunder. I kept my eyes on the target as the paper jumped, the hole blooming where I had expected it to.

Then I pulled the bolt with a practiced motion. Each movement is economical, automatic. Two, three, four. The rhythm arrives, metromonic and cold. With it, comes the odd, hollow contentment. It's like my body remembers its language even if my mind keeps asking questions.

People tend to think that memories are all photographs and names. But they forget that our bodies keep its own ledger. From the way my shoulder loads and locks, the way my breath still catches when the first shot broke. How to keep the pressure subtle when I'd pull the trigger, to keep the barrel level. My body remembered it all, even when the rest of me still feels like a stranger.

"Nice shot," a familiar voice said from behind me. "I see you've still got it in you, Isolda. Made me wonder if that whole 'memory loss' thing of yours was an act."

I peel off my headphones and lift my goggles, clicking the safety on and let the rifle rest in its cradle. For some reason, my hands had always felt heavier after a set, like the world felt slightly even more real.

"Grandpa," I greeted, taking his outstretched hand and pressing a quick kiss to the back of his palm. It was a customary thing in our family. Especially when he is the head of everything.

I straightened, then fold my hands behind my back. The way I'd used to when I wanted to look respectful and less smaller than I felt. There was just something about my grandfather, despite his shock white hair and his shorter built. He still had the ability to command the room, even at the tender age of 82.

"I thought you were in a meeting," I said, catalouging the slight slope of his shoulders, his eyes roaming the room. He studies people like a man calculating his chess pieces.

"It finished early," he said. "Fortunately."

"What do you need?" I asked, crossing my arms as we made our way out of the place and into the warm, open air. The noise from the gun range falling away behind us, replaced by the low murmur of new recruits and guards, milling on the lawn.

He slows when we reach them sparring, pausing to scan the new faces as if he is reading their worth. "I've got a special mission for you, Isolda," he said, his hands clasped behind his back as he watched. Then he turned, his eyes locked on mine in a way that make the words he's about to utter feel like both a promise and an order.

"What is it, Grandpa?" I asked.

He didn't hesitate. "I need you to kill someone."

The words landed like a slammed door. But I didn't flinch. It was like I was already three steps ahead. Mentally loading the rifle, running through the angles, exits, the little violent choreography that had become second nature.

He only kept going, steady and cold.

"This man had been on a rampage. Stealing our supplies, undermining our people in the ministries, murdering our men here and there like he's craving for our attention. He needs to be removed."

I can't help the smile curving at the corner of my lips. I didn't even bother ot hide it. Finally. After all these years of getting my body back in shape, rehalibitations, I can go back into the field. Maybe then, some sliver of my past memory could come back.

I've grown tired of the endless charity galas I had to attend, just so the entire Famiglia knows I'm alive. All those picture-perfect dinners I've been forced to go and mingle with business partners like I'm some cow, ready to be bartered off to the highest bidder. f**k that. I've been hungry to get back on the field, to be useful. To be lethal again.

"Name him," I said. "And I'll get it done."

But Grandpa's eyes were flat, unreadable. He took a deep breath, then let the name drop like a stone into a still pool.

"Alexandre Barinov."

It's like I was struck by lightning. There was something about the sound of his name that tugged at my heartstrings. My palms suddenly went damp, my chest clecnhed tight, breaths shortening until they felt shallow and fragile. Am I going into a panic attack? What the f**k? Did I know him?

I could feel Grandpa's eyes on me curiously, assessing my reaction but I tried my best keeping it cool, unreadable. Despite how his name wound around my ribs like a rope, pulling taut and leaving behind a hollow ache that felt dangerously like recognition. Did he have anything to do with my accident?

"Barinov," I forced out, tasting the name out like it could root some sense into me. Even my voice sounded distant to my own ears. "Do I know him?"

I blinked, hunting for a reason in my head, for a face that should have mathed the sound. But nothing came. Nothing but this hollow, urgent feeling like a thread, tugging at the hem of something I've been careful to sew closed.

"No, I suppose not," he said. "But you'll receive the details about him soon."

"Why me?" I blurted.

Truly, he could've send anyone. There were more men who are definitely more qualified than I am. Not that I'm complaining, but I haven't been out in the field since the incident, three years ago.

Grandpa only looked at me, expressionless, as if he's wondering if I'd truly reject this, knowing how desperate I've been trying to get back out into the field like the others. "I just thought that it would be...poetic."

My brows furrowed in confusion. My lips parted, about to ask him what he could possibly meant but he had already walked away, ushered by one of his men, something about their incoming shipment. Leaving me there, watching as the recruits practised drill after drill, the wind sending chills down my spine.

Still, his name just kept ringing and ringing in my head. Incessantly. Like it was begging for me to remember.

Like a warning, or a promise.