The morning of the gallery opening, the Moreno mansion felt like it was holding its breath.
Staff ran up and down the stairs with flowers and boxes, phones rang, and the distant sound of the sea beat like a tired metronome. At the end of the hallway, the light under Miguel's office door drew a sharp line on the floor.
Leo knocked twice.
"Caruso," came the voice from inside.
He entered. Miguel was there with four of his most trusted men, hard faces, eyes that weighed every move. The air smelled of leather and half-burnt cigars.
Miguel rose from his chair. "Tonight's the right night," he said without preamble. "At the end of the inauguration, you'll act. It has to look like a kidnapping. She can't suspect a thing."
One of the men nodded; another clicked his tongue.
Leo stood perfectly still, hands behind his back. "Operational details?"
"No scenes. No blood. A van parked behind the alley. Twenty seconds. You lead."
Miguel took a step closer, lowering his voice. "Remember, we're doing this to protect her."
That last word, protect, sounded wrong.
Leo felt the old scar on his forearm pull tight, as if even his skin could sense the lie before his mind did.
"Understood," he said. His tone was flat, but inside, the words broke like glass.
Naiara descended the main staircase slowly, and for an instant, everything in the villa froze. Her copper-colored dress clung to her curves like liquid light, the kind that steals color from sunsets and never gives it back. Her hair fell loose around her shoulders, soft waves framing the face he knew would haunt him forever.
Leo saw her halfway down the stairs, and something in his chest cracked.
It wasn't beauty, he already knew she was beautiful, it was that calm new glow in her eyes, the quiet strength of someone who had begun to heal. (The warehouse. Her breath. Her surrender: you're my ruin.)
She found him waiting at the bottom, leaning against the banister.
"So?" she asked, twirling one earring between her fingers. "Do I look… gallery-ready?"
Leo didn't have time to find a safe answer.
"You look…" He straightened his collar, forcing the air back into his lungs. "Perfect."
A spark lit up her gaze, brief, mischievous. She took the last few steps down. Passing by him, her hand brushed his arm, a barely-there touch that sent a tremor down his spine.
"Let's go, bodyguard," she teased. "Don't you dare leave me alone tonight."
Not for a single second.
The words clung to him like a promise and a curse.
The gallery was alive, a hive of voices, laughter, heels tapping out soft percussion on polished floors.
Clara's photographs glowed on the walls: women in the wind, the sea trapped in their eyes, Palermo itself turned into a girl who refused to bow. Champagne, flashes, murmurs.
Naiara moved among them, radiant, graceful, unstoppable. Clara hovered near her, hair tied in a messy knot, ink stains on her fingers, showing her prints to collectors with pride and disbelief.
Leo watched from the edge of the crowd, mapping exits, timing steps, studying faces. Every smile of hers hurt and healed him at once.
How can I kidnap someone who's already taken everything from me?
Miguel drifted through the guests with the smile of a man unveiling a cathedral. Every so often, his gaze flicked to Leo, and a tiny nod passed between them, sharp as a blade: Tonight. Don't fail.
Time slid toward the toast.
Naiara climbed one step of the small stage and raised her glass.
"This gallery is a dream made real," she said, voice steady, eyes shining. "Thank you for believing in it."
Applause. Flashbulbs. For a fleeting second, Leo could pretend the world was simple again, beauty, art, light. Then the mission crawled back like smoke under a door.
When the event wound down, and the crowd thinned to clusters of laughter, Clara grabbed Naiara by the wrist. "We're celebrating," she declared. "Just us. No artists. No dads. Two cocktails and freedom."
Naiara hesitated, then smiled. "Just us."
Miguel was talking to a dealer when Leo approached. "Miss Moreno's going out. I'll escort her."
"Go," Miguel said without turning. "Don't lose sight of her. Everything must look normal."
Normal. The word felt like a blade against Leo's tongue.
The seaside bar shimmered with strings of warm lights hanging above a wooden deck.
Salt and lime mixed in the air. Waves whispered their rhythm beneath the hum of voices. Clara and Naiara sat at a corner table, legs crossed, the copper dress glowing like a dying ember. They talked, laughed, gestured. Clara's hands made her stories larger than life.
Leo stayed a few meters away, back against the railing, eyes scanning the perimeter.
But every few seconds, against his will, his gaze found her again. The line of her jaw. The curve of her smile. The way her eyes softened when she listened.
Why does the world feel clean again when she laughs?
His phone vibrated. A single pulse, encrypted line.
"Caruso," he answered.
"The shipment's moving now," said the voice. "Port. Dock three. Moreno advanced the schedule. This is our window."
Leo's grip tightened. "I can't leave the girl."
"Direct order. Go. Now. Ninety-minute cover. Then return." A pause. "End this, Caruso. Tonight."
End it. End her. End himself.
"Understood."
He hung up, staring at the sea, letting the sound of waves fill the spaces where his conscience screamed. Then he walked back to their table with the calm of a man who'd just erased himself.
"Mr. Moreno needs me," he said quietly. "Something urgent. Stay here. I'll come back."
Naiara looked up, frowning. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes."
The lie was perfect, practiced. "Don't move from here."
She studied him for a heartbeat longer than she should have, as if she wanted to stop him with her eyes. Then she nodded.
Clara, oblivious, lifted her glass. "Go, superhero. But don't make us wait."
He turned and left. The sea sounded heavier now, like it knew.
The port was a mouth of steel swallowing the night.
Searchlights. Chains. Diesel and rain.
The team moved like shadows, feet silent, breath controlled. "Team one, left. Two, with me," Leo whispered into his mic.
The cargo ship sat docked, engines off, belly full. Silhouettes ran along the deck, too organized, too quiet.
"Now," Leo ordered.
The raid burst open: lights, shouts, the sound of boots. Two men went down in seconds; a third tried to flee, slipped, hit a crate. Leo pinned him with a knee and the calm of long practice. "Stay down. It's over."
They found drugs hidden in double compartments, forged papers, coded manifests but nothing that tied back to Miguel.
Nothing clean enough to hold.
"He's gone," muttered one agent.
Leo stared into the darkness beyond the docks. A single boat light moved far out at sea, slow and deliberate.
"He moved before we did," he said. "Like always."
By the time they secured the scene, Leo's watch read seventy-two minutes.
Ninety, the commander had said. Then return.
Return.
He didn't think. He just ran, through the storm, through the noise, through the ache in his chest.
The bar was still lit, but the table was empty.
Two glasses. A droplet sliding down the glass like a tear.
The chairs had been pushed aside, not in panic, just… gone.
Leo scanned the deck. Left, right, up, nothing.
He ran to the counter. "The two women who were sitting there, did you see where they went?"
The bartender wiped the same glass for the hundredth time. "Left not long ago. The dark-haired one got a call. Looked spooked. Then the other told her to go."
"Who called them?"
"Didn't catch it," the man shrugged. "But she said something like 'I have to go home.'"
A shiver crawled up Leo's spine. He bolted for the exit. Rain hammered his shoulders like fists.
Villa. Go to the villa.
He drove on instinct, headlights cutting through sheets of water.
The gates were ajar. The house dark except for one faint strip of light upstairs.
He entered using the code only three people knew. "Naiara!" he shouted, louder than he meant to. "Naiara!"
No answer.
The low hum of the refrigerator. A window cracked open. The scent of copper and jasmine.
He took the stairs two at a time. Her bedroom door was half-open. The bed was made. Perfectly. The bedside phone lay on its side, as if someone had set it down too fast. No sign of struggle. No easy clue.
He called her cell. His fingers trembled, though he'd never admit it.
Once. Twice. The third time, the line clicked open. He inhaled sharply, ready to hear her voice, to ask where are you?
It wasn't her voice. It was his.
The same voice, but not. Identical storm, different darkness.
"You weren't the best… not this time."
Silence.
Then the line died.
Leo froze. The phone felt heavy, foreign, wrong in his hand.
Something inside him dropped, slow and final, like a body into deep water.
He understood everything in one blinding flash that didn't light anything, it only burned.
He wasn't alone in this war anymore.
And someone who looked too much like him had just made the first move.