For a moment, Amira forgot how to stand.
The world around her became soundless, like someone had pulled the plug on reality. She stared at Leonardo, waiting desperately for him to say he was wrong.
But he didn't.
He didn't take it back.
He didn't soften it.
He just watched her with the quiet, devastating certainty of a man who had finally spoken a truth he feared more than death.
"No," she whispered, voice thin. "Leo… no. That can't be right."
"It is," he said gently.
Her heart hammered painfully against her ribs.
"But I don't remember any of that. I don't remember Matteo. I don't remember Vienna. I don't remember you."
Leonardo's jaw flexed, like the words hurt him.
"You were never supposed to."
Amira stepped back.
Once.
Twice.
Trying to breathe through the sudden tightening in her throat.
"Explain," she managed.
Leonardo ran a hand through his hair, his expression drawn tight with conflict.
"After Matteo died," he said quietly, "I was out of my mind. I didn't even realize someone was watching until I heard footsteps behind me. I saw you in the alley eyes wide, terrified, shaking. You'd seen everything."
Her mind flashed with something — a flicker — a blur — a shadow of memory she couldn't hold onto.
"I didn't know who you were," Leonardo continued. "I didn't even know if you could speak. But I knew one thing: if the Syndicate found you, they'd kill you."
His voice dropped.
"And they'd make me do it."
Amira's breath caught.
"I couldn't let that happen," he whispered. "So I did the only thing I could."
She stared at him, skin prickling.
"What did you do?"
Leonardo stepped closer not touching her, just close enough that she could feel the weight of the truth pressing between them.
"I sent you away. I made sure you were taken out of Vienna within hours. New city. New guardian. New papers. New life."
Amira's head spun.
"My memory"
He nodded slowly.
"Trauma can wipe what it can't handle. I didn't plan that. But I didn't fight it, either."
Her chest tightened until it hurt.
All this time…
All these years…
Her life had started in the middle of a story she never knew she was part of.
"And you never looked for me?" she asked, voice barely a breath.
Leonardo's expression cracked the first real fracture she'd seen in him.
"I looked for you every day," he murmured. "Every year. Every country my father sent me to. Every case. Every city. Every whisper of a runaway girl."
His eyes burned.
"But I couldn't find you. You vanished completely. Like the world swallowed you to save you from me."
A tear slipped down Amira's cheek before she could stop it.
"How did you know it was me now?"
Leonardo hesitated.
"The first night I met you," he said softly, "you froze when we passed the old cathedral near Piazza Navona. The same way you froze when you saw a man with a scar running across his cheek. The same way you reacted to gunfire not like someone afraid of violence, but like someone who had already survived it."
Her heart thudded painfully.
"But I didn't remember"
"You remembered with your body," he said. "Memory isn't always conscious."
Then, quietly:
"And your eyes… I never forgot them. Matteo talked about you before. Said he used to help a girl who stayed near the old orphanage. Said she was too sharp for her age. Too observant. Too quiet."
He swallowed.
"When I looked at you, I felt like I'd seen those eyes somewhere my mind refused to revisit."
Amira stared at him, a cold ripple moving down her spine.
"You knew before the Regent told you?"
Leonardo nodded slowly.
"I suspected. I just didn't want to believe it. Because if you were that girl… then every danger around me was already tied to you."
A long silence settled.
Wind pressed cold air between them, scattering bits of gravel across the ground.
"You saved me," Amira whispered. "You saved my life."
Leonardo gave a small, broken laugh.
"No," he said. "I destroyed your first one… and forced you to build another."
Her chest ached so deeply she had to wrap her arms around herself.
"I don't blame you," she said.
"You should."
"I won't."
"Then you don't understand what I did."
Amira stepped closer, voice steady despite the tremor in her bones.
"You were seventeen, Leo. Seventeen. You were a terrified boy watching your brother die in your arms. You saved me the only way you knew how. That's not a sin. That's mercy."
Leonardo looked away — jaw tight, eyes burning.
"You don't know how much blood followed that night. How many people chased shadows looking for the girl who witnessed Matteo's death."
Her pulse skipped.
"What do you mean?"
He met her eyes slowly.
"The Syndicate didn't stop searching for you. Not even after I lied. Not even after I convinced them Matteo was alone."
A cold chill slid down Amira's spine.
"Someone else is still looking for me?"
Leonardo nodded.
"Moritz Vass."
Her breath stilled.
"Why?"
"Because Vass believes Matteo's witness is the key to breaking me," Leonardo said quietly. "And he's right."
The weight of that truth settled heavy in her chest.
The wind picked up. A car horn blared faintly in the distance. The night felt sharper somehow like it finally understood the danger wrapped around her.
"Why didn't the Regent tell me?" she asked.
Leonardo let out a humorless exhale.
"My father would rather amputate a memory than let it control him. If you being the witness made me weak, he'd bury that truth under a hundred lies."
Amira lifted her chin, swallowing the last of the panic tightening her throat.
"So now I'm not just someone you care about."
"I'm a loose thread in a story the Syndicate wants erased."
Leonardo's expression hardened with protectiveness so fierce it nearly hummed in the air.
"You are not a threat. You are the one thing I will not lose."
Her breath caught.
"And that," he added, "is exactly what makes you a target."
Another silence.
Not empty.
Heavy.
"What now?" Amira whispered.
Leonardo closed the distance between them until he stood just inches away. His voice was low, soft, almost reverent.
"Now," he said, "I get you out of Vienna before Vass realizes who you are."
She grabbed his wrist.
"No."
Leonardo froze.
"No?" he echoed.
"I'm not running again," she said. "Not from a past I didn't choose. Not from a man who wants to use me. Not from the truth."
His eyes softened painfully.
"You don't understand. Staying puts you in the center of everything."
"I'm already in the center."
"Amira—"
"No," she repeated firmly. "All my life, something has felt… unfinished. Like a story that started before I was born. I'm done being confused about who I am. I'm done letting other people choose what I remember."
Her voice trembled, but her resolve didn't.
"I'm done being hidden."
Leonardo searched her face not for fear, but for certainty.
He found it.
And something shifted inside him.
A surrender.
A decision.
Maybe even a kind of hope.
"Then there's one more truth," he said quietly.
She tensed.
"What truth?"
Leonardo reached into his coat and pulled out a small, worn pendant — old metal, scratched, tarnished by time.
He pressed it into her palm.
"You were wearing this the night I sent you away," he said. "I kept it. I don't know why."
Amira closed her fingers around it.
A shiver rolled through her.
She turned the pendant over.
Inside was a tiny inscription, barely visible:
Her breath hitched.
"My initials…"
"It wasn't always your name," Leonardo said softly. "But Matteo said the girl he helped always signed her drawings with A.M."
Amira felt the ground shift beneath her feet.
"Drawings?" she whispered.
"Yes."
A slow realization spread through her chest — warm, painful, undeniable.
Her childhood memories…
The missing pieces…
The strange familiarity she felt around Leonardo…
None of it was coincidence.
"I knew you," she said quietly. "Before any of this."
Leonardo's voice was barely a whisper.
"Yes."
"And Matteo knew me."
"He cared about you. Protected you."
Her eyes burned.
"And you saved me."
Leonardo shook his head.
"No," he said, stepping forward and touching her face with trembling fingers. "You survived in spite of me. But I will spend every breath I have making sure you never run alone again."
Her eyes met his.
Steady.
No fear.
No hesitation.
"What happens next?" she asked.
Leonardo's jaw tightened, resolve settling over his features like armor.
"Next," he said, "we go after Vass."
"You just said he's dangerous."
"Yes. Which is why we cannot wait for him to come to us."
"And the Regent?"
A faint, dry smile touched his lips.
"My father will join only when it benefits him. But he won't stop me."
She took a breath.
"And me?"
Leonardo's expression softened, raw and unguarded.
"You stay at my side," he said. "Not behind me. Not hidden. With me."
Amira nodded.
"Then let's finish what started that night."
Leonardo reached for her hand.
She let him.
And somewhere deep inside her a locked memory shifted.
Not fully.
Not enough to see.
But enough to know one thing:
The girl she used to be was no longer lost.
She had returned.