Embers

Chapter Four: Three Years of Blood

New York.

It was 4:30 a.m. when I stepped off the bus. The Greyhound station smelled like a mixture of sweat and disinfectant, a stench that lingered long after I left. My neck was stiff from leaning against the window, and the air was crisp and biting—late October had already stolen the last warmth of summer. I stood outside, an old canvas bag slung over my shoulder, the envelope from Vito tucked safely in my pocket, watching the Manhattan skyline slowly emerge from the gray morning mist.

I’d been to New York before—once with Luca. He’d taken me to a penthouse restaurant on 57th Street, Central Park stretching like a green jewel outside the window. That night, he wore a navy blue suit without a tie, top two buttons undone, looking less like a Mafia godfather and more like a young entrepreneur fresh out of business school. He ordered a cocktail I don’t even remember the name of, took my hand in his, and said the city would devour people, but he’d make sure no one ever laid a finger on me.

I felt untouchable then.

Looking back, it’s ironic.

The one truly devouring me sat across from me that night, smiling like an angel.

I shook the memory loose and hailed a taxi. The driver was Pakistani, a string of plastic flowers dangling from the rearview mirror, the car heavy with the scent of curry. I handed him the address; he glanced at it and then at me in the mirror. His eyes weren’t hostile, just knowing—as if he could see exactly where I was headed.

I ignored him.

The cab crossed the Brooklyn Bridge, the East River below black as ink. Manhattan’s lights flickered to the right, dense and clustered like piles of dying campfires. Luca had once told me the city never truly slept—there was always light somewhere.

He was right. But none of that light reached me.

Vito’s address led me to Queens: a three-story brick building with a convenience store sign at the entrance, a faded Coke ad plastered to the glass window. I rang the doorbell. After a long wait, a hoarse voice crackled through the intercom.

“Who are you looking for?”

“Vito sent me.”

Silence. Then static, and finally the lock clicked open.

The staircase was narrow and steep. Plaster peeled from the walls, and every landing held clutter—cardboard boxes, an old bicycle, a bag of cat litter crusted with age. At the third floor, a door stood ajar.

An Asian man, balding and in his fifties, arms tattooed, wearing a simple white T-shirt, appeared.

“Are you Isabella?” he asked in heavily accented English.

“Yes.”

He studied me—not like a man looking at a woman, but like a veteran assessing a recruit.

“My name’s Jin,” he said. “Come in.”

His apartment was small, orderly, stripped of comfort. No sofa—just a folding table and two metal chairs. On the wall hung a vivid photograph of a rice paddy, so green it hurt to look at. On the table lay a disassembled Beretta, parts neatly arranged, a drop cloth beneath, and a small bottle of gun oil.

“Sit,” he instructed.

I did.

“Vito said you don’t know anything.”

“I can shoot,” I said.

“Anyone can shoot,” Jin said, flicking the spring on the magazine. “A monkey could learn to shoot after two months. Killing isn’t the same as shooting.”

He reloaded the magazine with slow, deliberate precision, then set the gun on the table, muzzle pointed at the wall.

“What is killing?” I asked.

“First, forget yourself,” he said.

I frowned.

“You carry something inside—anger, hatred, fear. Forget it. Killing isn’t venting. It’s completing an action. Like breathing, like walking. The more you think about who they are, the less capable you are of finishing it.”

He picked up a bullet and placed it in front of me. It wobbled slightly, then steadied.

“When you see it, it’s just a bullet. Not your mother’s death. Not your father’s blood. Not his betrayal. Just a bullet.”

I stared at it. The brass glinted faintly in the dim light.

“Can you do it?”

I didn’t answer.

Jin waited, then retrieved a tattered notebook and tossed it in front of me.

“Start here. Memorize this in a month. Then I’ll teach you the rest.”

I opened it. Hand-drawn anatomy charts, rough lines but precise placement—heart, lungs, liver, major arteries.

“People are more fragile than you think,” Jin said, staring out the window at the hazy Queens skyline. “Don’t aim for the head. Hit here—” he tapped below the collarbone, “—the aorta. They won’t die instantly. They’ll struggle for three to five seconds, then bleed out. Easier than the movies.”

I said nothing.

“Disappointed? Thought I’d teach you to blow someone’s head off?”

“No. I was wondering if five seconds is enough.”

He considered me, then let out a soft hum-laugh.

“Interesting,” he said.

That month, I stayed inside. Memorizing charts by day, disassembling and reassembling guns by night. Jin’s rules were strict. The Beretta had to be taken apart in thirty seconds, reassembled in thirty. Blindfolded. At first, I needed five minutes. Parts slipped from my sweaty hands, nearly hit the floor. Jin didn’t yell—he made me start over. Ten times. Twenty. A hundred.

By week two, my hands were covered in tiny cuts, stinging even in hot water.

By week three, I could take apart the Beretta blind in the dark.

Then Jin handed me a Glock 19, heavier, with more recoil. “Real training starts now,” he said.

The site was an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn, walls graffiti-covered, floor littered with rusty pipes and broken bricks. Targets weren’t paper—they were mannequins dressed in old clothes, red circles painted on their chests.

First live-fire day: sixty rounds, only seven hits.

That night, I sat in the apartment staring at empty shell casings. Jin slurped noodles and crunching pickles, the sound echoing.

“You shot like crap,” he said without looking.

“I know.”

“Good. Try again tomorrow.”

I nodded. Then I went to the window, looking out at Queens rooftops, power lines, and the glittering Manhattan skyline beyond.

Luca was out there. Maybe in his penthouse, signing a multi-million-dollar deal. Maybe in a restaurant, ordering a cocktail for someone else. Maybe just staring out a window.

He didn’t know I was here. Didn’t know Aivi Fernandez was still alive.

I touched the scar near my temple. Healed completely, smooth under my fingers.

“Forget yourself first,” Jin’s words echoed.

I hadn’t done it yet.

But I had time. Three years. I gave myself three years.

Three years to return to those lights—not as Ivy, not as a victim—but as someone he’d never expect.

The cold wind rushed through the window. I shut it, turned to the desk, and picked up the Glock.

The magazine slid in. Click.

A soft sound. Like a promise.