For a second, no one moved.
Noa didn’t breathe. Didn’t blink. Just stared down the barrel of the gun pointed at the one person he couldn’t lose again.
His brother looked… unreal. Taller than he remembered. Lean muscle packed under a black coat that clung like a second skin. Hair longer, slicked back. Scar down his left brow. Eyes exactly the same but emptied out. Not dead. Just hollow, like something had been scooped out years ago and never returned.
Alessio stayed still. His body tense, shoulders squared, like he was calculating how many moves it’d take to disarm him. But Noa raised a hand. Slow. Controlled.
“Don’t,” Noa said quietly. “Don’t pull that trigger.”
His brother tilted his head, gaze never leaving Alessio. “Why not? You pulled a knife on someone you loved.”
“That’s not th
