Chapter 1

On the night before the Moretti succession ceremony, I found a post in the Confessional of the Dead that had been sent from ten years in the future.

“If you could rewrite your blood oath, whom would you erase from the family tree?”

The anonymous reply read:

“Leon Vita.”

“If not for that adopted son who used a life-debt to secure his place—a man destined to become my husband and consigliere—I could have had Matteo at my side years ago.”

The poster’s icon was a black iris.

Viola Moretti had used it as her private seal for seventeen years.

I stared at the profile of a Viola ten years older than the woman I knew, and all warmth slowly drained from my fingers.

Every time she had laced her fingers through mine in front of the elders, she had been thinking about how to break free of me.

Every time she had said, “The family needs you,” she had never meant, “I need you.”

I removed the obsidian ring from my right hand and placed it beside the succession contract.

Then I signed the departure agreement offered by the North Sea Mercantile Association.

If she saw me as a blood debt she could never repay—

then I would grant her one last freedom and settle that debt for good.

Chapter 1

On the night before the Moretti succession ceremony, I found a post in the Confessional of the Dead that had been sent from ten years in the future.

“If you could rewrite your blood oath, whom would you erase from the family tree?”

The anonymous reply read:

“Leon Vita.”

“If not for that adopted son who used a life-debt to secure his place—a man destined to become my husband and consigliere—I could have had Matteo at my side years ago.”

The poster’s icon was a black iris.

Viola Moretti had used it as her private seal for seventeen years.

The birth year, family crest, and encrypted signature on the profile all belonged to her as well.

Only the date was wrong.

The post had come from ten years in the future.

At first, I thought it was a trap forged by a rival family. Then she mentioned my parents’ deaths in the comments.

Twelve years ago, an ambush erupted at St. Maria Docks.

My father shielded a young Viola from the first volley of gunfire. My mother rammed a car through the blockade and drove her out of the docks.

Neither of them came home.

Mr. Moretti adopted me afterward. Standing before my parents’ graves, he promised that I would be his son—and, one day, Viola’s husband and consigliere.

The two obsidian rings were the tokens of that promise.

I had always believed they marked the beginning of two orphaned children holding each other up.

When I first arrived at the estate, nightmares kept me awake every night. Viola would sit outside my door, hugging her pillow until dawn.

She stayed beside me while I learned how to hold a gun again. At my first family banquet, she announced in front of everyone that I was her brother, not some outsider they had taken in.

When we were sixteen, we exchanged rings in the harbor clock tower.

She said that no matter which of us became the head of the family, we would always stand on the same side.

I held on to those words for seven years.

But the Viola from ten years in the future had written:

“Everyone kept reminding me that his parents died for me.”

“If I showed him the slightest coldness, someone would accuse me of being ungrateful.”

“He never needed a gun to force me. All he had to do was stand there, and he became a chain around my throat.”

Someone below asked, “Did you finally get free of him?”

“Of course.”

She quickly uploaded a photograph.

In it, the woman wore the ruby signet of the Moretti boss. The man beside her wore the obsidian ring meant for the consigliere.

A crescent-shaped scar marked the web of his thumb.

It was Matteo Bellini.

The son of an allied family, he had grown up alongside us.

And the matching obsidian ring was still on my right hand.

“At the succession banquet, I admitted in front of every boss that Matteo was the man I loved.”

“I ordered Leon to surrender the ring and the consigliere’s seat. He refused.”

Someone mocked him in the replies. “A man who climbed into the family on borrowed gratitude would never give that up.”

Viola replied:

“So I suspended his grandmother’s family doctor and withheld the white transit pass she needed to leave the sealed district.”

“The old woman couldn’t wait. He signed the renunciation papers the next day.”

My eyes remained fixed on those words for a long time.

My grandmother had a weak heart. Every month, the family doctor delivered her medicine.

She was the last blood relative I had in the world.

Viola knew that.

Better than anyone, she knew what my grandmother meant to me.

I closed the page, then opened it again.

After doing that three times, I sent the older Viola a private message.

“I was bound by an old agreement to someone who did not love me either.”

“Were you happy after you left that person?”

The Viola from ten years in the future replied almost at once.

“I wouldn’t call it happiness.”

“But at least Matteo stayed with me for ten years.”

“We had fallen for each other long before that. Because of Leon, we could never be together openly.”

“How long before?” I asked.

“The first peace talks in Sicily.”

That was three years ago.

When Viola returned from those talks, she gave me a small silver saint’s medal.

She said she had been bored on the journey and bought it on a whim.

I had worn it beneath my shirt ever since.

So that same journey had also been when she and Matteo fell in love.

A knock sounded outside the study.

Mr. Moretti’s lawyer placed two documents in front of me.

The first was the blood-oath contract I was meant to swear at tomorrow’s ceremony, accepting the roles of both consigliere and fiancé.

The second was an appointment letter the North Sea Mercantile Association had sent six months ago.

They wanted me to oversee legitimate shipping and marine insurance, and they were prepared to secure permanent residency for both my grandmother and me.

I had already turned them down three times for Viola’s sake.

This time, I removed my obsidian ring and set it on the first contract.

Then I signed my name at the bottom of the second.

Chapter 2

Viola returned to the estate the following afternoon.

She had just finished a family negotiation on the south shore, and sea mist still clung to her coat.

When she saw me, she tossed a black velvet box onto the table.

“For you.”

Inside was a silver lighter engraved with the Moretti iris.

“Why is it exactly like the one Matteo gave Leon?” Mrs. Moretti asked with a smile.

“Matteo stopped by this morning. He said he chose it himself.”

Viola froze for the briefest moment.

Then she said quickly, “They’re souvenirs from the same shop. Of course they look alike.”

The old me would have asked why she and Matteo had gone to the same shop, and why they had chosen the same gift for me.

Now I simply closed the lid.

“Good. If one breaks, I’ll have a spare.”

Viola looked at me, a faint crease forming between her brows.

At dinner, Mr. Moretti brought up the succession ceremony.

“Leon will take the consigliere’s seat. Matteo will continue to manage the south docks. Once the wedding is over, the family will truly be in your hands.”

Viola set down her wineglass.

“Father, I want to change the appointments.”

The dining room fell silent.

“I want Matteo as my underboss,” she said. “Leon can continue keeping the books, or he can take the north warehouses. We can decide on the consigliere later.”

Mr. Moretti’s face darkened.

“Is this your decision, or the Bellini family’s?”

“Mine.”

Viola’s gaze settled on me as though she were waiting for a familiar argument.

The older Viola had said that every time I heard Matteo’s name, my expression would turn cold and I would use my parents’ blood debt to force her to give in.

“Then we’ll do it your way,” I said.

“You’re the one who will sit at the head of the table. You have the right to choose the person you trust most.”

Mrs. Moretti looked as if she wanted to object.

Viola, however, showed no trace of relief.

She followed me into the corridor and blocked my path.

“What did you mean by that?”

“I agreed to the change.”

“Leon, are you trying to mock me with this attitude?”

“No.” I met her eyes calmly. “I’ve simply understood at last that neither a consigliere nor a husband can be purchased with an old debt.”

Her expression hardened at once.

“There it is again.”

“Every time you’re angry, you put on that face as if nothing matters to you. Why can’t you be like Matteo and say what you actually mean?”

Before I could answer, Viola’s phone rang.

Matteo had cut his finger on a shell casing at the training grounds and wanted to know where the first-aid kit was.

The wound in the photograph was barely half an inch long.

Viola turned immediately.

“Don’t cause trouble before the ceremony. I’ll come take a look.”

She left so quickly that she never noticed my left arm hanging stiffly at my side.

Three days earlier, I had been ambushed while inspecting the chapel for her ceremony. A stray bullet grazed my arm, leaving a wound that required twelve stitches.

Over the phone, she had only said, “You’re already a candidate for consigliere. Don’t tell me you need me to look after a scratch.”

Later, it was my elderly grandmother who changed my blood-soaked bandage.

Half an hour later, a new photograph appeared in the family’s encrypted social circle.

Matteo sat at a table while Viola bent over his hand, wrapping his finger in gauze.

The caption read: “The person you can rely on will always appear before you even have to ask.”

Someone asked whether the two of them had already been together for some time.

Matteo replied, “Don’t start rumors. Her family has already chosen a fiancé for her.”

Not a word of it suggested he felt the slightest need for distance.

I had once waited for her at that same table.

Two winters ago, I endured an interrogation for the family. My right hand was fractured so badly that I could not hold a glass of water.

Viola promised she would come as soon as her meeting ended.

I waited from nightfall until dawn and received only one message: “Something came up.”

Later, I learned that Matteo had lost a card game and persuaded her to drive to the coast with him.

Back then, I found a thousand excuses for her.

Now every one of them had lost its meaning.

I closed the photograph and entered the Confessional of the Dead again.

“If Leon chose to withdraw before the succession ceremony, would you be happy?” I asked the older Viola.

This time, she waited a long while before replying.

“Perhaps not happy.”

“But at least he wouldn’t die in the Moretti family’s White Cellar.”

Chapter 3

I stared at the screen until the only sound I could hear was my own heartbeat.

“How did he die?”

The older Viola seemed unwilling to remember.

Only after night had completely fallen did her answer arrive.

“After the succession banquet, his grandmother died.”

“Leon decided Matteo had killed her. He stormed into the council chamber with a gun and nearly shot him.”

“I had no choice but to strip him of the family name and lock him in the White Cellar beneath the Old Customs House.”

“No choice?” I asked.

“He had lost control.”

“And the evidence showed that he sold the North Shore warehouse routes to the police. By family law, he should have been executed on the spot.”

Cold sweat gathered in my palms.

“Why did his grandmother die?”

“A heart attack.”

“Matteo only went to deliver a wedding invitation. While he was there, he told the old woman that he and I were the ones truly in love.”

“She couldn’t accept it. They argued.”

“You believed him?”

“Matteo wouldn’t lie about something like that. He’s reckless, but he isn’t cruel.”

Her certainty was a blunt knife, slowly carving away the last of my hope.

“What happened next?”

“I intended to release Leon after he calmed down.”

“But on the third night, a fire broke out in the cellar.”

“The guards said he tore up his confession, injured two men, and poured lamp oil over the archive shelves.”

“By the time they put out the fire, he was dead.”

The words on the screen blurred.

Only when I looked down did I realize how violently my hands were shaking.

In that future, I lost my grandmother. I lost my name. I died in the cellar of the family that had raised me, condemned as a traitor.

And Viola reduced everything to a few words: “He lost control.”

I rushed into the bathroom and retched over the sink.

The face in the mirror was bloodless. Red had already soaked through the bandage on my left arm.

Reason told me it was only an impossible future.

But every detail on that screen fit too perfectly—even the notch my father had carved into the back of his brass token just before he died.

I could not gamble my grandmother’s life on the hope that it was false.

I ran out of the estate without even taking my coat.

My grandmother lived on the quietest floor of the church hospital.

She was sorting old photographs by the window. When she saw me, she paused.

“Isn’t the succession ceremony about to begin?”

I knelt in front of her and took her warm hand in mine.

“Grandmother, let’s leave Port Aspera.”

“Let’s go somewhere without the Morettis or the Bellinis. Somewhere no one needs a white transit pass.”

She was silent for a moment, then gently stroked my hair.

“You’re finally willing to let Viola go?”

“I am.”

My heart still hurt when I said it.

But I did not take the words back.

“I won’t be her husband. I won’t be her consigliere.”

“I only want you to live.”

My grandmother studied me for a long time before nodding.

“Then we’ll go.”

“Wherever you are, that is home to me.”

I contacted the North Sea Mercantile Association and confirmed that a ship would leave at dawn the next day.

As I stepped out of the ward, two figures blocked the far end of the corridor.

Viola and Matteo had clearly heard the last few sentences.

Matteo was the first to speak, smiling. “Leon, did the two of you have a fight?”

“Running away before the succession ceremony is bad luck. If you’re angry, take it out on me. Don’t make things difficult for Viola.”

He raised one hand as he spoke. Fresh white gauze encircled his index finger.

Viola immediately caught his wrist.

“The doctor told you not to move it.”

Only then did she notice my left arm.

Dark blood had soaked through my shirt and was dripping from my fingertips to the floor.

Something uneasy flickered across her face.

“Your wound opened again? Come back to the estate. I’ll have the doctor—”

“No.”

I stepped back before her hand could touch me.

“Viola, from today onward, we are brother and sister in name only.”

“Everything else ends here.”

Chapter 4

The concern on Viola’s face hardened into coldness.

“What game are you playing now?”

“This isn’t a game.”

“I will withdraw from the succession ceremony and return the Moretti name to your father. From now on, whoever you choose, you will not have to consider me.”

Matteo’s smile stiffened.

“Leon, don’t be impulsive. Everyone knows you’re supposed to become Viola’s husband. If you suddenly walk away, what happens to her?”

“Isn’t this what you always wanted?” I looked at him.

“The consigliere’s seat. The obsidian ring. The place beside her.”

Before Matteo could answer, Viola gave a cold laugh.

“Fine.”

“If you insist on seeing the worst in everyone, I have no reason to protect your feelings any longer.”

In front of me, she took Matteo’s hand.

“I was already planning to announce at the succession ceremony that he is the man I love.”

“As for you, I have only ever loved you as family.”

While she spoke, her gaze never left my face, as though she would not stop until I finally broke.

I only let out a long, quiet breath.

For the first time, the future had changed.

“Congratulations.”

Then I said, “I hope you get everything you wanted.”

Viola’s grip tightened so suddenly that Matteo winced, but she did not release him.

I turned back toward the ward without looking at either of them again.

The succession ceremony went ahead that evening.

Viola wore the black ceremonial dress of the new boss and received the ruby signet in the family chapel.

She named Matteo her underboss and publicly acknowledged their relationship.

Shock rippled along both sides of the long table.

Everyone waited for me to erupt.

Instead, I walked to Mr. Moretti and placed my father’s brass token on the table.

It was proof of the Moretti family’s blood debt to the Vitas.

Its bearer could make one demand in his lifetime that the family was forbidden to refuse.

“I don’t want territory, a seat at the table, or a marriage contract.”

“I want only the freedom for my grandmother and me to leave Port Aspera. From this day forward, the blood debt between the Vita and Moretti families is settled.”

Mrs. Moretti’s eyes filled with tears.

Mr. Moretti closed his eyes for a moment, then picked up the token.

“I grant your request.”

“But wherever you go, this will always be your home.”

Mrs. Moretti removed a small key from the chain around her neck and placed it in my palm.

“This belongs to the house your parents left behind in the Old Quarter. We kept it for you.”

She moved to embrace me, then stopped when she saw me step back.

“I’m sorry, Leon.”

“We always said you were our own son, yet we treated the last generation’s sacrifice as permission to decide the course of your life.”

I closed my hand around the key. For the first time, I did not call her Mother.

“Thank you for taking care of me all these years.”

I did not argue. I simply left the obsidian ring with the token.

After the banquet, Viola stormed into my room.

More than half of it was already empty.

Her gaze went straight to my bare right hand.

“Where is the ring?”

“I returned it to your father.”

“That belonged to both of us!”

“No.” I closed the last suitcase. “It belonged to the life our elders chose for us in the name of gratitude.”

“Now it is free. So are you.”

Viola stood in the doorway, her voice tight.

“Where are you going?”

“North.”

“When are you coming back?”

I looked at her and remembered everything she had written in the Confessional of the Dead.

“I’m not coming back.”

She stared as if I had told an absurd joke.

“Leon, you’ve lived with the Morettis for twelve years. Where could you possibly go except here?”

“Anywhere.”

“As long as it is not beside you.”

I carried my suitcase past her.

Behind me, the door slammed hard enough to shake the frame.

Before dawn, a car arranged by Mr. Moretti took my grandmother and me to the north harbor.

I had not told Viola which ship we would board.

When the ocean freighter sounded its horn, Port Aspera still lay beneath a blue-gray fog.

I stood on deck and watched the old city shrink into a black speck on the horizon.

At that same moment, in the estate chapel, Viola received the ring I had left behind from her father.

The instant the obsidian touched her palm, a crack split its polished face.

Ten years of memories tore through her like a volley of gunfire that had arrived far too late.