A KINGDOM OF ASH AND FLAME

The scent of lilies made her sick.

Too strong. Too sweet. Like they were trying to smother the truth.

That beneath their pristine white petals, beneath the carefully arranged bouquets and velvet-lined coffin, was a lie.Matteo Moretti hadn't died in a car crash.

He'd been murdered.

Sera stood under a steel-colored sky, the chill in the late March air slicing through her black coat. People were beginning to leave, murmuring condolences as they passed, most of them strangers or half-remembered family friends. She barely nodded, eyes fixed on the coffin like it might open and give her back what it took.He was supposed to meet her that night.

One hour before the crash, he'd sent a text:

"Need to talk. Urgent."

Then nothing.

She hadn't even gotten to say goodbye.The funeral was short. Formal. Clean. No questions asked. No answers given.Closed casket, of course.They said the impact had been too severe.That Matteo wouldn't have wanted to be remembered "like that."

But Sera knew better.

She'd seen enough crime scene photos in law school to know what a lie smelled like.This wasn't a crash.This was a cover-up.By the time the priest left, the cemetery had emptied. Her mother was already in the car, lost in that glassy-eyed silence that had swallowed her whole since the phone call came.Sera remained.Her heels sank into the soft earth as she crouched near the casket. The wood was dark mahogany, polished, spotless,no one dared let dirt touch it. Like presentation could erase the violence that ended her brother's life.

"You promised me you were out," she whispered. "You said you were done."

No answer. Just wind.

"You lied, Matty. You were back in it, weren't you?"It wasn't even really a question.A sound caught her attention. Soft-deliberate.Not the wind. Not a bird.

Footsteps on gravel.Sera rose slowly, every muscle tense. She didn't need to look to know the presence behind her didn't belong to the priest or any relative.

It was colder.

Sharper.

She turned.

And found herself face to face with a ghost from her nightmares.

He was exactly how Matteo had described him back when they still talked.Tall. Imposing. Sharp-suited even in mourning black.Eyes like wet charcoal: unreadable, but far from empty.

Luca Valentini.

The heir to the Valentini crime family.The name had hovered at the edges of her investigation for weeks. The kind of name you whispered in courtrooms and tried not to write down.She'd never met him before.

But she recognized him instantly.He said nothing. Just stood there, watching her.It wasn't curiosity in his gaze.It was calculation.Like he was already trying to solve her,decide whether she was a threat or just another mourning woman with a big mouth.

"Come to pay your respects?" Sera asked, voice flat.

A pause. Then, "Something like that."

"You don't belong here."

"I could say the same to you."