Luna stood at the top of the grand staircase, the echo of gunfire from her memories still ringing in her ears.
Gone.
Everyone she had ever known in that quiet little neighborhood gone in a blaze meant for her. The message was clear: they weren't just hunting her. They were erasing her.
Damien had said she didn't have a choice.
He was wrong.
That night, while the mansion slept beneath layers of armed guards and ancient walls, Luna made hers.
Escape.
She moved silently, barefoot, her black dress replaced with dark jeans and a jacket she swiped from one of the storage closets. The weight of her father's ring left for her in the study felt heavier in her pocket than it should've. She'd take it, and nothing more.
She paused at the back corridor leading to the garden doors. Two guards. Silent. Armed.
She inhaled, and walked forward like she belonged there.
"Miss Cross?" one of them asked.
She didn't respond.
She moved faster.
"Miss"
She ducked under his outstretched arm, kicking him behind the knee. He dropped with a curse. The second guard reached for her, but she was already running.
Out the door. Across the grass. Through the cold, clipped hedges of the garden.
Freedom was a breath away.
Until she slammed straight into Damien.
His grip caught her arms with brutal precision, stopping her like a stone wall.
"You really thought you could run?" he asked, voice low, almost amused.
She shoved against him. "You don't own me."
"No," he agreed. "But they'll kill you if I let you go."
She twisted. "Let me take that chance."
He didn't release her. His hands, large and steady, held her without hurting. That somehow made it worse.
"You think this is just about an old vendetta?" Damien asked. "You're the last Cross. That makes you a crown. And crowns don't walk away. They get stolen. Or destroyed."
Luna's heart pounded.
"I didn't ask for this," she said, the anger crackling beneath her words.
"No one does," Damien said quietly. "But the difference is you still have the power to fight. Others died to make sure you could."
His grip softened. He let her go.
"You want to leave?" he said. "The gate is there. But if you walk out, you won't get far. And I won't follow you next time."
She stood frozen.
He turned away.
But Luna didn't run.
She stood in the garden as the stars stared down coldly, and the weight of reality settled like chains around her shoulders.
She was a Cross.
The last.
And like it or not she had a war to survive.
Luna didn't speak as Damien walked away. The silence between them stretched like a wire pulled tight, humming with everything unsaid.
She looked toward the gate again. Just beyond it, freedom waited or at least the illusion of it. But in the shadows, she could feel it.
Eyes.
Threats.
The promise of death cloaked in the scent of roses and gunpowder.
Her knees trembled not from fear, but from fury.
How dare they take her life and twist it into this?
She turned back toward the mansion, the legacy she didn't ask for looming behind her like a beast with open jaws.
Inside, the staff moved like ghosts silent, efficient, and always watching. Some bowed slightly as she passed. Others avoided her gaze. Everyone here seemed to know who she was… before she did.
By the time she reached the grand hallway again, Damien was already waiting.
He stood at the end of the corridor with a manila folder in his hand.
"You need to see this," he said.
She crossed her arms. "Is it more lies?"
"It's the truth." He handed it to her without argument.
Luna opened the folder and froze.
Inside were surveillance photos. Of her. At her university, her apartment, even a blurry one of her feeding stray cats behind her building.
And below that… a picture of her neighbor's body. Burned. Unrecognizable. Labeled Message sent.
She looked up slowly. "How long have they been watching me?"
"Too long," Damien replied. "That's why I brought you here before they did."
A chill slid down her spine.
"These aren't ordinary enemies," he continued. "They're called the Virelli Syndicate. They've been trying to dismantle the Cross empire for years. Now that your father is dead… you're the only one left standing in their way."
Luna's breath caught. "I've never even held a gun."
"You'll learn," he said simply.
"I'm not a killer."
"Neither was your mother." He paused. "Until she had to be."
She stared at him. For the first time, she saw something different in Damien's eyes not arrogance or authority.
Grief.
And behind that… guilt.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why are you helping me?"
His jaw tightened. "Because I promised your father I would protect you. And because…" He hesitated. "You're not just some heiress, Luna. You're the spark that could burn their whole empire down."
The folder fell from her fingers. Photos scattered like broken truths at her feet.
She didn't pick them up.
Instead, she looked Damien in the eyes and said the one thing she never thought she'd say.
"Teach me."
The words hung in the air between them like a trigger waiting to be pulled.
"Teach me."
Damien's expression didn't change, but something in his posture shifted less predator, more commander. He walked slowly to her, every step deliberate, controlled.
"This isn't like school," he said quietly. "There are no rules. No warnings. If you want to survive, you'll have to kill the part of you that still thinks the world is fair."
"I already did," Luna replied, her voice cold and steady. "The night they burned my old life to ash."
For a moment, Damien just stared at her. Measuring her. Or maybe mourning her.
Then, without another word, he turned and led her through the dim hallway, deeper into the mansion.
They passed rooms filled with relics of crime and power oil paintings, marble statues, weapons displayed like art. It wasn't a home. It was a fortress. A museum of bloodlines and bullets.
Finally, they reached a metal door at the end of a corridor. He punched in a code. The lock clicked open.
Inside was a sleek training room. Cold lights buzzed overhead. The walls were lined with weapons. In the center: a ring of mats and a mannequin dummy riddled with old knife wounds.
Luna stepped inside. Her reflection stared back at her from the mirrored wall.
Wide-eyed. Lost. But not broken.
Not anymore.
"Tomorrow," Damien said, voice crisp. "We start with self-defense. Then weapons. Then strategy. You'll train six hours a day. Fail, and you bleed. Quit…" He looked at her. "There is no quitting."
She nodded once.
"I don't expect you to become a killer overnight," he added. "But I expect you to survive."
She looked him dead in the eyes. "I don't want to survive."
"I want to win."
A ghost of a smirk tugged at Damien's lips.
"That," he said, "is the Cross in you."
He left her alone in the room.
Luna turned back to the mirror. She barely recognized the girl staring back.
But she would.
Soon.
She would become the kind of woman who couldn't be erased.
The kind of woman who burned back