*Damian's POV*
The night my world ended didn't begin with chaos.
It began with warmth.
Rain washed over the private airstrip, turning everything silver under the floodlights. Renia stood beside me beneath the shelter of my coat, her cheek pressed lightly against my arm, her laughter soft enough to make the storm feel distant.
"You're thinking too much," she teased, nudging me with her shoulder.
"I'm watching you," I murmured, brushing a wet curl away from her face. "That counts as thinking?"
She rolled her eyes, pretending to be unimpressed, but her smile tugged upward anyway.
God, that smile… I hadn't known I was memorizing it.
"Once we land," she said, "you're telling Ethan the truth. No more avoiding it."
I tightened my arm around her. If I had known it was the last time I'd hold her like that, I wouldn't have let go.
"I will," I promised—quiet, gentle, and maybe the first lie of the night.
We boarded the jet once the crew finished checks. Rain hammered steadily outside, but inside felt warm, familiar. Home.
Renia sank into her seat and tugged her blanket over her lap while scrolling through the photos on her phone. Our last holiday. Her birthday dinner. The awful cake I baked and completely butchered. She laughed at every memory, and I felt the tension in my chest ease the way it only ever did around her.
Twenty minutes after takeoff, she unbuckled.
"I'm running to the lavatory," she whispered, brushing her lips against my cheek. "Don't overthink your entire life while I'm gone."
"I make no promises."
She smirked and walked off, balancing herself gracefully as the jet hummed through the clouds.
I watched her disappear down the aisle.
I never looked away from her for long.
I wish I hadn't looked away at all.
She was still gone when the first shudder rolled through the aircraft.
A subtle tremor—too sharp to be turbulence.
The second one was worse. Violent. The jet jerked sideways hard enough that the overhead lights flickered.
"Renia?" I called, already unbuckling.
A metallic groan split the cabin—deep, unnatural.
The pilot's voice crackled through the intercom, strained.
"Mr. Cole—we're experiencing a critical malfunction on the left engine. Attempting to—"
The jet lurched violently.
I staggered into the aisle, gripping the seats as alarms screamed overhead. The oxygen masks dropped. The cabin tilted.
"Renia!" I shouted.
I saw her—just a few rows away—reaching for me, trying to steady herself against the wall.
Our eyes met for a split second.
Then the world snapped.
The nose pitched downward.
The floor vanished beneath us.
The sky swallowed the jet whole.
Her scream cut through the chaos—my name breaking apart on her lips—
Then everything went white.
—
Cold.
So cold.
Rain. Smoke. Metal.
I woke on my back, half-buried in mud, every bone screaming. The wreckage stretched across the shoreline—twisted and burning against the dark Italian sea.
"Renia…" My voice cracked.
I crawled through glass and fire. My leg dragged uselessly behind me, but nothing—nothing—could stop me.
I found her near the shattered remains of the cabin.
She lay on her side as if she were only sleeping, her hair plastered to her face, her skin pale beneath the rain.
"Renia," I breathed, lifting her gently, cradling her against my chest.
Her head fell against my shoulder.
She didn't move.
She didn't breathe.
Something inside me broke in a way I still don't know how to describe.
I held her until my voice gave out, until the fire dimmed and the storm swallowed the world whole.
I survived.
She didn't.
And a part of me stayed in that wreckage forever.
—
Footsteps. Voices. Lantern light.
A small fishing family found me—drawn by the smoke rising offshore. They pulled me from the wreck, carried me through the storm, and sheltered me in their cottage. The wife—a midwife with enough medical knowledge to keep a dying man alive—cleaned my wounds and stitched what she could.
No hospitals.
No authorities.
If I had reached either, the world would have known I survived.
But fate hid me instead.
For days, fever blurred reality. Memories cut in and out. Their young son sat beside the bed, changing the cold cloth on my forehead, whispering prayers in Italian.
Through the haze, one thought kept returning:
This wasn't an accident.
When the pain finally dulled enough for me to stand, the fisherman brought a box of items salvaged from the shoreline.
Inside was my pilot's phone—waterlogged, flickering, but alive enough to reveal one haunting truth:
The flight plan had been forwarded before takeoff.
By someone inside my circle.
By someone who knew my route.
Only a handful of people had access.
My brother was one of them.
Not because he hated me. Not because we were enemies.
But because he was jealous.
Because he wanted what I had.
Because he never thought sharing information would get me killed.
But someone else used that leak.
Someone who wanted me dead.
Renia had paid the price.
And the man who survived walked out of that cottage as someone new.
—
Tonight, two years later, I stand in my study, rain once again sliding down the windows. My reflection stares back at me—older, colder, forged from ash and seawater.
The photo in my hand contains the faces of every man connected to that night.
Every shadow in the chain.
Every name that profited from my absence.
My fingers tighten until the edges curl.
And then the truth hits—slow and sharp, sinking into me like a blade:
Someone had known my exact route.
Someone had touched information meant for no one else.
Someone had set the night on fire…
…and Renia had died in my place.
I have no witness.
No confession.
No clear path forward.
Just a vow.
Someone tried to kill me.
And I will not rest—
until every lie is dragged into the light.
Because they took the woman I loved.
And now?
Now the ghost they created is coming for them.