The Crow
The next morning, early.
The sun had barely risen over the hills of Palermo.
I hadn’t slept. Not really. Too many thoughts, too many possibilities.
Finally, the phone vibrated.
Marco.
I picked up immediately.
“I’m listening.”
His voice was steady, but deeper than usual. Serious.
“I’ve got something concrete. The call came from an encrypted line in Naples, bounced through three relays. High-level stuff. The kind of guy who knows exactly what he’s doing.”
“A name?”
“Not yet. But one nickname came up in the circuits: Il Corvo.”
I froze. That name… I’d heard it before. Rare. Usually whispered. Tied to old vendettas between Calabrian families. A ghost of a man, never caught, but feared.
“Does he have a link to the Waltons?”
“Probable. What’s certain is that he knows who Hope really is. And he’s been interested in her for years.”
I tightened my grip on the phone.
“Keep digging. Naples, Calabria. I want his face, his name. And I want to know why now.”
“It’s already in motion.”
I hung up.
And turned slowly toward the bedroom.
She didn’t know it yet, but the war had just started.
And me?
I was ready to do whatever it took so no one touched the woman I loved.
I served them each a coffee.
The tray sat on the big stone table under the pergola. The sky was clear, the air soft… yet everything was tense.
I didn’t sugarcoat it.
“His name’s Il Corvo. A ghost to the agencies. A nightmare to the families. Specializes in infiltration, sabotage, blackmail… and above all, symbolic killings. He doesn’t just kill — he sends a message with every death. He likes to hurt, slowly.”
I caught their eyes. Matteo pinched his lips. Lorenzo went pale.
And Hope…
She let out a dry laugh. Bitter. Glacial.
“I know who he is.”
Everyone turned to her.
She calmly lifted her coffee cup, brought it to her lips, then set it down.
Pulled out a cigarette pack. Lit one with surgical slowness.
The first in years. No one dared to say a word.
She inhaled deeply, exhaled the smoke into the warm morning air.
“His name’s Dario Esposito. He was my father’s shadow. I grew up with him around. Always there. Always silent. My father treated him like a brother — until he betrayed him.”
Alessandro growled, low:
“He’s the one… who killed Caleb Walton?”
Hope nodded, impassive.
“And he never stopped watching me. He knew I wasn’t dead. He just waited. Patient. Calculating. He’s back because he needs a message. And I’m perfect for that.”
I looked at her. And I recognized her.
That emptiness in her eyes. That extreme cold.
The one she hadn’t shown since… New York, 2019.
I set my cup down quietly.
“Alessandro. Matteo. I need a word. Just a minute.”
They followed me inside. I came up with a vague pretext, a phrase that meant nothing.
Once we were away from her, I faced them, grave.
“That look — I know it too well. Last time she had that look, she left her apartment without a word. Put on her black leather jacket. Took a gun. Went to handle something herself. She was twenty. She wasn’t supposed to know how to shoot. And yet…”
Matteo frowned.
“She killed someone?”
“No. She broke two ribs, emptied a clip into a wall with sniper-level precision, and shut down a man who’d threatened her. She left without a word. Came back like nothing happened.”
Alessandro went pale.
He spun around. Ran toward the terrace.
And she was gone.
The chair empty.
The cigarette still smoking.
The coffee cup barely touched.
Hope had vanished.