Chapter 8 - The Mark on Her Flesh
The rain fell in sheets, cold, relentless, and smelling of ozone and wet dirt.
The mud in the backyard churned beneath the boots of half a dozen mercenaries. Elias was on his knees, his hands forced behind his head, pinned down by two massive men in tactical gear. His face was bruised, blood trickling from a split lip down his sharp jawline.
Beside him, Saraphina was thrown violently onto the wet ground. Her dress was torn down the center of her back from the blast, exposing the pale, jagged mark of the *Croce d'Ombra* beneath the flickering yellow glow of the patio light.
Anton Castiglione stepped forward, holding a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol. He was a man in his fifties, with silver hair slicked back and a cruel, triumphant sneer plastered across his face.
"Twenty years, Elias," Anton purred, pressing the cold barrel of his gun against the back of Elias’s neck. "Twenty years of watching you rebuild your father's miserable empire from the shadows. And all it took to draw you out into the open was a common housemaid."
Elias didn't look at Anton. He didn't even flinch against the cold steel pressed into his spine.
His eyes were fixed entirely on Saraphina, who lay huddled in the mud three feet away, struggling to breathe.
"Let her go, Anton," Elias said, his voice flat and gravelly. "She's nobody. A nanny hired through a civilian agency. Kill me and take the territory. Leave the girl out of it."
Anton laughed, a grating, wet sound. "Oh, Elias. Even now, you lie. We swept the estate's records after you fled. We found the doctor's intake notes from Jamaica."
Anton took two steps toward Saraphina, using the tip of his expensive leather shoe to turn her onto her side. The torn fabric of her dress fell away completely, revealing the ancient scar in all its terrible clarity.
Anton froze.
The sneer vanished from his face, replaced by a sudden, sickening realization. He leaned down, his eyes wide with disbelief as he traced the shape of the double-crossed lines carved into her flesh.
"No..." Anton whispered, his hand shaking slightly as he aimed his gun at Saraphina's head. "It can't be. The Warden died in the fire. We saw the body."
Saraphina slowly raised her head from the mud. Her hair was soaked, plastering against her cheeks, but her eyes held no fear. They were burning with twenty years of stolen memories and unyielding resolve.
"Tell me," Elias's voice cracked, cutting through the drumming rain as he struggled against the guards holding him down. "Where did you get that, Anton? Who ordered the fire?!"
Anton didn't look back at Elias. He was staring at Saraphina as if he had just seen a ghost walk out of a grave.
"She wasn't your father's ward, Elias," Anton whispered, his voice trembling over the distant wail of police sirens approaching from the valley below. "Your father didn't assign her to you."
Saraphina pushed herself up on her forearms, her hazel eyes locking onto Anton's pale face.
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"I think," she whispered, her voice cutting through the storm with chilling clarity, "it's the reason you're about to die."
***
