The air in Lucerne didn't just bite; it judged. It was a crisp, expensive cold that seemed to mock the thin fabric of Elara's—no, Anna's—coat. To the tourists wandering the Kapellbrücke, the snow was a romantic backdrop for a postcard. To her, it was a shroud.
She stood at the edge of the Lake Lucerne, watching the water churn in shades of bruised navy and slate.
Her breath hitched in the air, a ghost of a sigh.
Back in the cramped, humid apartment in the outskirts of Marseille—the place she had called home but felt like a cage—the air was always thick with the smell of stale grease and the impending roar of her adoptive father's temper.
Here, the air was so thin it felt like she was breathing diamonds.
She adjusted the strap of her bag. It contained everything she owned: two changes of clothes, a stolen passport that had cost her every cent she'd scraped together from waitressing shifts, and a single, tarnished silver locket she'd had since she was a baby.
"Don't look up," she told herself.
"Don't look at the cameras. Don't look like you're waiting for someone."She turned away from the water, her boots crunching on the fresh powder.
She needed to find a hostel, somewhere cheap, somewhere that didn't ask too many questions about why a girl with a French-accented stutter and shaky hands was traveling alone in the dead of winter.
She was so preoccupied with calculating the remaining Swiss Francs in her pocket—enough for three nights of soup and a bunk bed—that she didn't see the shadow stretching across the cobblestones.
The impact was absolute.
It wasn't like hitting a person; it was like walking into a marble pillar. The force sent her reeling, her heels catching on an icy patch. She felt the terrifying lurch of gravity, the certainty that she was about to sprawl onto the frozen ground and draw the very attention she was desperate to avoid.
A hand caught her.
It was large, encased in a leather glove that smelled of expensive hide and something faint, like sandalwood and ozone. The grip on her upper arm was firm—not painful, but possessive in its strength. It anchored her instantly.
"I—sorry, I wasn't—I'm so sorry," she stammered, her voice cracking. She didn't look up immediately. She looked at the chest of his coat. It was cashmere, dark as a moonless night, and so finely woven she could see the individual threads.
"Careful," a voice said.
It was a voice that belonged in a boardroom or a confessional. It was deep, resonant, and carried an undercurrent of authority that made her spine straighten instinctively.
She finally looked up, and the world seemed to narrow down to the man standing before her. He was strikingly handsome, but in a way that felt predatory. His features were all sharp angles—a jawline that could cut glass, a straight nose, and eyes the color of a winter sea.
They weren't just looking at her; they were analyzing her.
He didn't let go of her arm.
"I was distracted," she managed to say, her heart hammering a frantic rhythm against her ribs. Move. Get away. He looks like trouble. "The snow... it's beautiful."
The man didn't look at the snow. His gaze flicked down to her shoes—worn-out leather boots that were darkening with moisture—and then to the way she clutched her bag to her chest like a shield.
He saw the tremor in her chin. He saw the way she shrunk away from him, a reflex born of years of being the smallest person in a room full of anger.
"You're shivering," he observed. It wasn't an expression of sympathy; it was a statement of fact.
"I'm fine," she lied.
"You're a poor liar, Cara," he murmured, the Italian endearment slipping out with a naturalness that suggested he was used to women responding to him. But he wasn't smiling. His expression remained a mask of disciplined indifference.
A few yards away, a black Mercedes SUV sat idling, its exhaust forming thick plumes in the cold air. A man in a similar dark suit stood by the door, his eyes scanning the perimeter with a restless, military precision.
Anna felt a cold sweat break out under her layers. This wasn't a tourist. This was someone who moved with the gravity of power. The kind of power that her adoptive father had always whispered about with a mixture of terror and envy.
"What's your name?" he asked.
The question was a test. She could feel it.
She swallowed hard, her throat dry. She thought of the name on the passport in her bag. The name of a girl who didn't exist anymore.
"Anna," she said, her voice gaining a sliver of false confidence. "My name is Anna."
He tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing. He didn't believe her, but he seemed amused by the attempt.
"Anna," he repeated.
The name sounded different when he said it—heavier, more significant.
"I am Luca."
Luca. A simple name. A common name. But the way he said it made it sound like a title.
He finally released her arm, but the warmth where his hand had been lingered, a ghostly brand on her skin. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather-bound wallet. For a terrifying second, she thought he was going to offer her money, and the pride she had cultivated in the gutters of Marseille flared up, hot and bitter.
Instead, he pulled out a card. No name was printed on it. Only a phone number and an embossed crest—a lion entwined with a serpent.
"Lucerne is a small city, Anna," Luca said, his voice dropping to a low silk. "But it is easy to get lost if you don't know where the ice is thin. If you find yourself falling, call this number."
"I don't need help," she said, her voice stronger now, fueled by a sudden, irrational spark of defiance.
Luca's lips twitched—not quite a smile, but a hint of one. "Everyone needs help eventually. Some of us just pay a higher price for it than others."
He stepped past her then, the scent of his cologne trailing in his wake. She watched as he walked toward the idling Mercedes. The man by the door opened it with a silent, practiced motion. Luca paused before stepping inside, looking back at her one last time.
The snow began to fall harder, white flakes caught in the glow of the streetlamps, swirling between them like a veil.
The car door closed with a heavy, expensive thud. The SUV pulled away from the curb, disappearing into the white haze of the Lucerne night.
Anna stood on the sidewalk, the small card clutched in her hand. Her fingers were numb, but the card felt like it was burning. She looked down at the crest—the lion and the serpent. It felt like an omen.
She didn't know that the man who had just touched her arm was Luca Moretti, the heir to a legacy built on silence and steel. She didn't know that his father had sent him to these mountains not for a vacation, but to secure a foothold in a territory that was rapidly becoming a battlefield.
She tucked the card into her pocket, deep down where it couldn't be seen. She turned her collar up against the wind and started walking again, her shadow stretching out long and thin behind her.
The secrets of the past were buried deep under the Swiss snow, but winter was coming to an end, and when the thaw began, everything they were hiding would rise to the surface.
As Luca settled into the heated leather interior of the Mercedes, his phone buzzed. It was a secure line. He didn't answer immediately. He looked out the tinted window, watching the small, retreating figure of the girl.
"Sir?" the driver, Marco, asked softly. "The meeting with the Vanhoutens is in twenty minutes. We're already behind schedule."
"She's a runner, Marco," Luca said, his voice devoid of the softness he had used with her.
"The girl? She looks like a stray, boss. Nothing more."
"Strays don't have eyes like that," Luca murmured, rubbing his thumb against his forefinger, still feeling the faint vibration of her pulse through her sleeve. "She's terrified, but she didn't beg. She lied to my face without blinking. Find out which hostel she's staying at. Don't touch her. Just watch."
Marco nodded, his expression neutral. He had served the Moretti family long enough to know that when Luca took an interest in something—or someone—it was rarely for a simple reason.
Luca finally answered the phone.
"Speak."
"The rumors are true," a gravelly voice said on the other end.
"The Valenti line didn't end in the purge. There's a girl. They've traced a signature to the Swiss border."
Luca's grip on the phone tightened.
The Valenti. His family's oldest rivals, a dynasty thought to be extinguished in a bloodbath two decades ago. If an heir existed, the balance of power in Europe wouldn't just shift; it would explode.
"And?" Luca asked.
"The girl doesn't know who she is. She's been living in the dirt. But the vultures are circling, Luca. If we find her first, we have the ultimate leverage. If the others find her... we have a war."
Luca looked out at the falling snow. He thought of 'Anna'—the way she had stood, the way she had looked at him with a mixture of fear and a strange, flickering light of hope.
"I'll find her," Luca said, his voice cold and final.