Valebrook City, 2:07 a.m.
The screen flickered.
And for the twentieth time that night, Juliana watched her mother die.
Shot once. Twice. A third bullet exploded through her cheekbone, sending bone fragments across the marble floor of their estate. Her father, already half-conscious, screamed against the gag in his mouth. Blood soaked his knees, chains rattled against the cold tile, and the man standing behind him—tall, silver-suited, surgical gloves—leaned in and whispered something inaudible before driving a scalpel through the base of his skull.
Pause.
Juliana stared, motionless. Her fingers hovered over the screen, trembling. Her jaw locked so tightly her molars ached. She blinked once. Then again.
Rewind. Play. Again.
The man's voice crackled this time, a whisper caught in the security feed.
~ "No more angels. No more beasts. The girl dies next."
The girl. Her. Age sixteen when it happened. Half a world away, hidden in a Malaysian boarding school like some lost princess in exile. Safe, her father had said. Untouchable.
All Lies.
Her iPad beeped. She barely noticed. Then another ping. This time, it wasn't a notification. It was a live signal — a camera feed. Someone was inside her old home.
She stood instantly, knocking the wine glass off the edge of the table. Shards scattered. Her hand went to her belt — cold steel. Still holstered, still loaded.
~ "Juliana Black."
The voice came through her AirPod — modulated, and anonymous.
~ "You want revenge? I have the names. Your father kept a ledger. But you have to be ready. No rules. No mercy."
On her screen, the camera inside the Da Vinci family estate cut to static. And then a black screen filled with six blood-red letters:
"WIDOW."
A minute later, a black envelope was slid under her apartment door.
She didn't open it right away. Instead, she dropped to her knees, stared at the thick paper, the elegant calligraphy, and felt her chest tighten as if her ribs were to snap. She opened it slowly. Inside was a single piece of cardstock.
Six names.
Six cities.
Six targets.
All marked with the same blood-seal crest that had been burned into her childhood bedroom wall the night of the murders. Her hands stopped shaking. Her purpose had a pulse again.
____
Valebrook City—Two Days Later
The first name on the list: Victor Mendez. Arms dealer. Corporate darling. Former ally of her father, now a billionaire selling prototype weapons to criminal syndicates across three continents.
She found him in a high-rise downtown—top floor, glass walls, gold cufflinks, and a private security team dressed like they worked for God.
He never saw her coming. The front desk guard got a tranquilizer to the throat. The elevator operator got a blade between the ribs. She wore a dark wig, tight blazer, and smiled at every camera on the way up.
As if daring them to remember her face.
~ "You have ten seconds," she whispered, gun pressed to the underside of Victor Mendez's jaw. "Ten seconds to tell me who ordered the hit on the Da Vincis."
Victor stammered. His tie was soaked in sweat. A drop of blood ran down his temple from where she'd pistol-whipped him seconds earlier. Outside the window, the skyline twinkled.
~ "It wasn't me. I only signed off the funding. I didn't know it was—"
~ "You. Killed. My parents."
~ "No! Blade did. I swear! Blade pulled the strings. He's the one who ran Project Widow... "
Juliana squeezed the trigger. Click. Empty.
He exhaled. Relief flushed across his face. That was her favorite part.
She pulled the second gun — the old Russian one with a sticky trigger and three bullets inside.
~ "This one's for my mother."
She shot his kneecap. He screamed. The office echoed with it.
~ "This one's for my father." She shot the other.
~ "This one's for me." She didn't shoot the third bullet. Not yet. Instead, she yanked him up by the collar, blood pouring from his legs. His body flailed like a broken puppet.
~ "Where's Blade?"
~ "Dead. No. Alive. Hidden — he's hiding in Ukraine. No — Mexico. I don't know! I swear!"
She pressed the barrel to his lips and whispered, "Wrong answer." The last bullet painted the window with his brain matter. He slumped like a bag of wet meat, twitching once before stillness took over. Juliana turned toward the camera in the corner and gave them her name:
~ "Juliana Black. Daughter of Rose and Michael Da Vinci."
~ "I'm not here to make peace."
She pressed the detonator in her pocket. Five floors below, Mendez's private armory exploded in a chain of fireballs that rocked the tower's base and sent panic through Valebrook's elite.
She walked away calm, down 32 flights of stairs, changing clothes every five floors until she blended into the swarm of evacuees like a tourist lost in chaos. By the time the first responder arrived, she was already blocks away — heading toward the second name on the list.
Later that night — Juliana's Hideout. Her body was bruised. Her hands blistered from gripping the fire escape for too long. But her eyes burned with clarity. She opened the hidden safe behind her bathroom mirror. Inside was a velvet pouch. Inside the pouch — an old chain. (Her father's dog tag. Her mother's silver ring)
She clutched them both.
~ "You sent me away to protect me," she whispered. "But I'm done hiding now."
The safe also held something else — the one item she swore she'd never touch again. The Black Diary. Her father's handwriting filled every page with names, maps, coordinates. It wasn't just a list of enemies. It was a blueprint for war.
_____
3:00 a.m. – Unknown Location
A monitor lit up in a government control room. A man in a gray suit stood before it, arms crossed, watching the footage of Victor Mendez's murder. He didn't blink. He didn't flinch.
Beside him, a woman in black heels leaned close.
~ "She's back, sir."
The man — code name Viper — sighed. "I hoped we'd have more time."
~ "What should we do?"
~ "Nothing. Not yet." He zoomed in on Juliana's face in the grainy security footage.
~ "Let her run. Let her kill. We'll find out who helps her... and then we burn them all."
_____
Back in Valebrook – 4:12 a.m.
Juliana sat on the edge of her bed, wrists bloodied from a fresh cut. Not for pain. Not for pity. She had to remove the tracker.
She pulled the chip from her forearm with a pair of sanitized tweezers and dropped it into a glass of hydrochloric acid she'd prepped on her nightstand. It hissed. Melted. She exhaled slowly.
Her body was now completely untraceable. No prints. No ID. No digital trail. She was a ghost.
Until —
Knock knock.
Her hand went to the gun under her pillow. Another knock. Louder.
She walked to the door in silence, heart thudding like war drums in her throat.
~ "Juliana Black," came a man's voice from the other side, smooth, unhurried, like a threat wearing sweet perfume.
~ "If you open this door, your life will never be the same again."
Her breath caught. Not because she recognized the v
oice. But because she didn't.
And it sounded exactly like her father's.