Chapter 1: Elara
Chapter 1: Elara
The night brings a distant taste back, somewhere deep in my mind it’s buried, not ready to be found yet.
I can feel it on my tongue the moment I step out of the black Mercedes and step onto the dark concrete, not lit up by any lights other that the Mercedes headlights. I feel the tastes stronger with every step I take deeper into the abandoned shipping yard. Fog curls around my ankles, thick and heavy, swallowing every step I take. Rusting containers loom around me and above me, like grave markers.
My hand brushes against the knife strapped inside my coat. Not because I’m scared – I don’t get scared – but because preparation is survival.
My sister Aria’s voice crackles suddenly in my earpiece and in the earpieces of the other 6 men behind me.
“20 minutes, no guards, the shipment should be inside the warehouse”
Should.
I hate that word. It brings uncertainty.
“Only speak if something changes,” I whisper. “Keep the van running.”
I cross the yard cleanly, in silent strides, my gun in my hands too. My heels are custom – soft, noiseless, made for slipping through shadows. Every sense is awake, sharp, suspicious.
This whole side mission smells wrong. Feels wrong. Still tastes too familiar.
The anonymous message that was sent to my family – claiming the Ravelli mafia was conducting illegal weapon exchanges – was encrypted, precise, and perfectly timed.
Too perfect.
But we were running out of time. We were loosing warriors and assassins daily, we were running out of time. If we could catch them doing this it would be perfect.
I reach the warehouse door with the 6 men behind me. The metal is Icy. Dust disturbed just slightly. No fingerprints. Someone erased their presence carefully.
A trap.
I feel it in my bones.
Still, I push the door open.
Darkness devours me and my men.
Then – movement.
My blade is out before I can even think, and the hand with my gun is over the one with the blade forming an X at my wrists. My signature move.
A voice drifts from the shadows – low, arrogant, and unmistakably familiar.
“So, the famous Elara Draven does exist.”
My pulse spiked. Not with fear – never fear – but with pure, furious recognition.
Alessio Ravelli steps out of the darkness like it was built for him – with some men behind him too – Tall, broad shoulders, dressed in black that clings to every muscle and menace. His jaw is sharp, his eyes even sharper, and the faint scar beneath his lip looks like it was carved by a promise and a sin. I’d never met him either, but I knew everything about him. And I was hoping he’d never meet me either.
He shouldn’t be here.
I shouldn’t be here.
Which means someone wanted us to be here.
“Elara,” Alessio says, his eyes dragging over me in a slow confident sweep, as if finally confirming the whispers he’d heard for himself. “Six men at your back, and yet you seem like the only weapon someone should be concerned about. I pictured someone impressive, but not someone who could eclipse their own entourage. The underworld talks about you like a myth, but seeing you now? They were right about something for sure. You’re more dangerous than they say.”
“I could say the same.”
His smirk curves, dangerous and unbothered.
“Oh sweetheart, I never come alone. The whispers of you have said you always come alone though. Why didn’t you?”
“I don’t need backup. I’m giving myself an extra challenge at protecting more people than myself.”
“Oh, I know.” He says quietly replying to me saying I don’t need backup. “That’s what makes you the most dangerous thing in this room.”
Heat coils up my spine. Not attraction. Just irritation at how he is correct.
Before I can reply, the earpiece cracks violently.
“Elara-” Aria’s voice fractures with panic. “Get out! Something’s-”
The line dies.
Allesio’s expression shifts.
We lock eyes, a single heartbeat stretching thin-
The floor explodes.
A deafening blast tears through the warehouse. Fire erupts upward, swallowing steel beams and oxygen. The shockwave slams me onto my side, a hear ripping across my ribs.
Debris crashes around me.
A hand grabs my wrist.
“Elara! Move!”
Alessio’s voice – raw, urgent.
He yanks me behind a metal support beam just as flaming shards collapse where I had been lying.
My ears continue ringing. Vision flickers. Smoke claws down my throat.
This wasn’t a mistake. Or a misunderstanding.
It was an assassination.
I shove him back against the pillar, blade pressed against his throat. Firelight dances across his smirk.
“What did you do?” I hiss through gritted teeth, digging the knife just enough for him to feel it.
He doesn’t flinch. But leans into the blade.
“You think I planned this?” he snarls. “Half my men are here! They’re dead.” His hand closes around my wrist – firm, controlled, a warning. “Look at me Elara! Someone want’s us both gone.”
Another explosion shakes the foundation.
We don’t have time for blame.
Or rage.
Or pride.
I let go.
Alessio grabs my arm. “Side exit. Come on.”
I hate that I need him.
I hate that he knows I need him.
My teeth grit. Hate had always been – would always be – easier, cleaner. But the thought of dying here, letting the Draven mafia bleed because of my pride, is worse. Every instinct screams to shove him away, but survival digs it’s claws into my skin and drags me to his grip
I let him drag me through the smoke and falling metal, both of us running on instinct and fury.
Outside, the air slams into me like ice, sharp enough to hurt. Smoke and ash claw down my throat as I hack it out, blood stinging my lip. I press myself against a cold shipping container nearby, metal biting into my shoulder, every nerve screaming at me for leaving my rookies behind. Alessio looms too close behind me, chest heaving, heat pouring off of him in waves, his scent a mix of smoke, gunpowder, and something else I can’t name; Danger, power, and… him. My skin itches to pull away, but the world around us is still collapsing, still burning, and every instinct says I can’t. None of our men followed us out. No one survived long enough to. And I was furious – furious at him – for getting my rookies killed.
“Someone set us up,” he says.
I wiped my mouth. “No shit sherlock, we find them.”
His gaze sharpens – something dangerous, something mutual, something that shouldn’t exist between born enemies.
“Never thought I’d work with a Draven.” He murmurs.
“I’m not working with you.” I say pushing myself off the container.
He smirks.
“You already are.”
Siren rise in the distance – our families or cops, both equally lethal-
Alessio offers me his hand.
“They’ll kill us on sight. Move.”
I stare at his palm. Taking his hand means stepping into something I can’t undo.
Walking away means death.
With a breath I don’t want to take, I take his hand.
His grip tightens, steady and sure.
“Guess we’re partners now.”
I yank my hand back. “Touch me again and you lose fingers.”
He grins as if I had just kissed him.
