Luca Romano had mastered the art of blending in.
He knew how to walk into a room and make the world slow down. He was tall, olive-skinned, with raven-black hair slicked back in careful disarray. His eyes, a stormy blue, gave nothing away. He wore custom suits and rare cologne, and he carried himself like the room belonged to him—even when it didn't.
But beneath that elegance was a man with no loyalties. No attachments. No moral code.
Only allegiance to one shadow:
Markus Adler.
---
Luca met Markus in Geneva, years ago, during an art auction where paintings were just a front for arms negotiations. Markus was quiet that night, observing more than speaking. But he had noticed Luca.
More importantly, he had tested him.
He handed Luca a dossier.
Inside were three names. Three men in three cities. One week to bankrupt them all without a trace.
Luca didn't ask why.
He simply did it.
And when he delivered the results—clean, silent, surgical—Markus simply nodded.
"You're not loyal," Markus said. "But you're thorough. That's rarer."
They never signed a contract.
Only blood and blackmail held them together.
---
Since then, Luca had worked in over fifteen countries.
He spoke seven languages. Dated politicians' daughters. Sold fake identities to real billionaires. Once, he disguised a kidnapping as a honeymoon retreat.
But Nairobi was different.
This was personal.
Because Markus had grown obsessed with one woman—Amara.
A woman he once seduced, then ruined.
A woman who now haunted his empire like a slow-burning fuse.
Luca didn't understand it at first.
Markus was cold. Tactical. Never sentimental.
But when he spoke of Amara, there was a flicker of something... uncalculated.
Fear, maybe.
Or guilt.
Or worse.
Regret.
---
When the Faith Kamau assignment came, Luca was in Monaco, charming an heiress into funding a fake crypto exchange.
Markus's message had no subject line.
> "Nairobi. Red dress. Name: Faith. Treat her like an asset. Seduce, then chain."
Simple.
Just how he liked it.
He flew to Nairobi the next morning.
---
Meeting Faith wasn't a challenge.
She was beautiful, poised, a little too sharp to be fully broken, a little too desperate to be fully safe. The kind of woman who wore control like perfume.
Luca liked women like that.
They fought back.
Which made conquering them feel almost noble.
He played the perfect guest—Italian charm, warm eyes, harmless flattery. Faith smiled, laughed, even touched his wrist when she asked questions.
It was working.
But then something strange happened.
She asked him a question he wasn't expecting.
"Do you believe in redemption, Luca?"
He blinked.
Not because of the question, but because of how she asked it.
Soft.
Almost wounded.
He smiled, defaulting to seduction.
"Redemption is just guilt wearing heels."
Faith laughed.
But her eyes didn't.
And for the first time in a long time, Luca felt... watched.
Not by her.
By something behind her.
Like a conscience.
Or worse.
A mirror.
---
He returned to his hotel suite and couldn't sleep.
He stared at the ceiling, listening to the city hum below. Nairobi was alive in a way Europe never was. It breathed in rhythms, not schedules. The night held secrets in its wind.
Faith's voice played in his memory.
And so did another voice—one from a file Markus had once shared.
Amara.
He pulled out the encrypted drive Markus gave him. Inside were folders marked with dates, places, names.
He found one labeled: A.Kenya
He clicked play.
"They say men like him are shadows, but I saw him in daylight. I saw the devil's face—and it smiled."
Another file:
"You don't heal from someone like Markus. You survive him. But you never walk out the same."
Luca stared at the screen.
There were over thirty such clips.
Testimonies. Letters. Voice memos.
Each one a woman scarred by the same man who called him 'brother.'
And somewhere in all those files, Amara's voice became something else—an echo that nested in Luca's thoughts.
---
The next day, Faith invited him to a charity event.
Children. Music. Food. Laughter.
Luca hated it. Too much joy. Too much light.
But Faith... she was radiant. She carried children. Laughed with old women. Donated with quiet grace.
And when she saw him standing awkwardly near a palm tree, she smiled like he mattered.
He didn't.
But for a second, he believed it.
---
After the event, they drove together.
Faith rested her head on the window.
"You ever feel like you're meant for more than this?"
Luca looked at her.
He was supposed to lie.
But something cracked.
"Every day."
She turned to him.
"Then why don't you leave it?"
He didn't answer.
Because he couldn't.
Markus didn't allow escape.
Only obedience or destruction.
---
That night, Luca stood on the hotel balcony, cigarette burning between his fingers. Nairobi's lights glittered below, distant and untouchable.
He thought of Vienna, Zurich, Prague, Monaco. The lives he'd built. Then broken.
He thought of Amara's file.
And of Faith's eyes.
He wasn't sure who haunted him more.
---
Later, he called Markus.
"She's not entirely yours anymore," Luca said.
Markus didn't respond immediately.
Then: "That's why you're there. Fix it."
Luca opened his mouth to speak. Then stopped.
Markus hung up.
---
The next morning, he typed a message to Markus:
> "She's slipping."
Markus replied instantly:
> "Then break her. Or I break you."
Luca closed the laptop.
He stared at his reflection in the dark screen.
Was he still the devil's ambassador?
Or had he become something else?
A man with doubt.
A man with guilt.
A man with... fear.
Not of Markus.
Of himself.
---
He met Faith again that evening.
She wore a navy blue dress and no makeup. Her hair was tied back loosely. Vulnerable. Unarmed.
"I trust you," she said quietly.
And Luca flinched.
Because trust was a weapon he didn't know how to disarm.
---
He returned to his suite and pulled out a single envelope.
Inside was a picture of a young girl.
Ten years old.
Dark curls. Green eyes.
Luca's sister. Bianca.
Dead now.
Killed in Naples during a raid on their family's home. He was seventeen. She was nine.
He survived.
And Markus found him a year later, broken and burning for revenge.
Markus didn't save him.
He reshaped him.
---
And now, as Luca stood on a Nairobi balcony, he whispered aloud:
"Bianca, would you forgive me for this?"
The wind offered no answer.
Only silence.
Only consequence.
---
In Berlin, a reporter received an anonymous email that night.
Subject: "Markus Adler."
Attachment: A partial list of financial laundering schemes across Europe. And Luca Romano's name, tied to at least three.
The reporter stared at the file.
Then picked up her phone.
The ghost had sent a whisper.
And someone had finally started listening.