A Vow Forged in Shadows

Clara

“You’re prettier than they said you’d be.”

The man’s voice is thick, slurred by expensive whiskey and a lifetime of getting whatever he wants. He swirls the amber liquid in his crystal tumbler, the ice clinking like a tiny, distant bell. His name is Luca Ricci. My target. He thinks this is a transaction of a different sort. He’s not entirely wrong. A service is being rendered. A price is being paid. He just has the details confused.

“And you’re more predictable,” I say. My voice is even, a calm surface on a deep lake.

He chuckles, a low rumble in his chest. “I like that. A woman with fire.” He leans forward in his leather armchair, the penthouse view of the city glittering behind him like a sea of fallen stars. We’re fifty floors up. Close to heaven. Or hell, depending on your perspective. The air smells of old money, leather, and his cologne, something sharp and citrusy that fails to cover the rot underneath.

“My fire isn’t for you to like,” I tell him, my eyes scanning the room one last time. Heavy mahogany desk. A single, unlocked door leading to a balcony. A bar cart stocked with top shelf liquor. No visible guards. He was confident. Arrogant. The best kind of target. They do half the work for you.

“Is that so?” He takes a slow sip of his drink, his eyes roaming over me, taking in the simple black dress, the way it clings. He sees a high class escort. An expensive night. He doesn’t see the thin, carbon fiber garrote wire woven into the hem of my dress. He doesn’t see the needle thin vial of succinylcholine tucked into my clutch. He doesn’t see Nyx. No one ever does. They call me the Ghost for a reason.

“They said you were discreet,” he continues, setting his glass down with a heavy thud. “That you knew how to handle… delicate situations.”

“I am the delicate situation,” I say, my hand resting on the small, beaded clutch in my lap. It looks elegant. It holds death.

He laughs again, louder this time. The sound grates on my nerves. “Excellent. I have a problem, you see. A business associate who has become… talkative.”

“I know,” I say. “His name is Antonio Moretti.”

Luca Ricci freezes. The smug look evaporates, replaced by a flicker of confusion, then alarm. The shift is subtle, a tightening around his eyes, the way his hand stops halfway to his glass. He wasn’t expecting me to know the name. The intel was good. Luca was selling secrets to the Moretti family’s biggest rival. He was the traitor.

“How do you know that name?” His voice is a low growl now. The predator finally realizes it’s in a cage with something bigger.

“It’s my job to know things.” I stand up, the movement fluid and silent. The dress shifts around me. “It’s what your boss is paying me for.”

His face pales. “My boss? What are you talking about? I am the boss.”

“You’re a captain, Luca. A small fish who thinks he’s a shark.” I take a step toward him. “And your father doesn’t appreciate you selling family secrets to pay off your gambling debts.”

Panic floods his features. Raw, ugly fear. It’s a look I know well. “Wait. Wait. This is a misunderstanding. I can explain. I can pay you more. Whatever they’re offering, I’ll triple it. Five million. Ten. Cash. Right now.” He gestures wildly toward a safe hidden behind a painting on the wall.

“You can’t afford me.” I keep walking, my heels making no sound on the thick Persian rug. I stop in front of his chair, looking down at him. He shrinks under my gaze, the powerful mobster gone, replaced by a terrified man who made a bad bet.

“Please,” he whispers. It’s almost pathetic. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s already done.”

My hand moves faster than he can track. I don’t use the vial. Too messy to retrieve later. I use the wire. It’s out, looped, and around his throat in less than a second. He makes a choking sound, his hands flying up to claw at the invisible line biting into his flesh. His eyes bulge, pleading.

I hold the tension, my grip firm and practiced. I don’t look at his face. I focus on the pressure, the mechanics of it. It’s cleaner this way. Detached. I count the seconds in my head. One. Two. This is for Lena’s tuition at the art institute. Three. Four. This is for the rent on our quiet little apartment, the one with the leaky faucet I still need to fix. Five. Six. This is for the life she deserves, the one I can never have. Seven.

His struggles weaken. His body goes limp, slumping in the chair. I hold for another ten seconds to be certain. Then I release the wire. It coils back into my hand, spotless. I tuck it away.

I take a moment. I check his pulse. Nothing. I close his eyes. A small, professional courtesy. I smooth his suit jacket. The scene needs to look peaceful. A heart attack. A man his age, with his lifestyle. No one would question it. My work is defined by what is not there: no witnesses, no evidence, no trace.

I walk to the bar cart and pour a small amount of his whiskey into his glass, topping it off. I place it on the table next to him, positioning it to look like he was reaching for it when the pain hit. I take a silk cloth from my clutch and wipe down the bottle, my own glass, any surface I might have touched. Standard procedure. Boring. Necessary.

My job here is done. All that’s left is to leave.

I cross the opulent room, my reflection a dark sliver in the floor to ceiling windows. Outside, the city is a vibrant, chaotic splash of light and life. Inside, it is silent and still. I open the door to the hallway, check that it’s clear, and step out, closing it softly behind me. I don’t look back.

The elevator ride down is quiet. A young couple gets on at the thirtieth floor, laughing, their arms wrapped around each other. The girl smells like champagne and something sweet, like strawberries. They’re blissfully unaware that death is riding down with them. I am invisible. A shadow in a black dress.

I walk out of the lobby, nodding politely to the doorman who holds the door for me. He smiles. I don’t smile back.

Outside, the night air is cool. I walk two blocks east, the sound of my heels a steady click on the pavement. I turn into a dark alley, the stench of garbage and stale beer hitting me. I stop behind a dumpster. From my clutch, I pull out a pair of worn sneakers and a gray hoodie. I slip the shoes on, pulling the hoodie over my dress. The glamour of the penthouse is gone, replaced by the anonymity of the street. I am no one.

My burner phone buzzes in my pocket. A single text message. A string of numbers. Confirmation of payment. The transaction is complete. I pull the battery from the phone, snap the SIM card in half, and drop the pieces into a sewer grate. The phone follows. Another ghost, gone forever.

I keep walking, my pace steady, melting into the sparse late night crowds. My mind is already moving on, compartmentalizing the last hour, filing it away in a dark corner where it belongs. I think about the grocery list. Milk, eggs, the weird herbal tea Lena likes. I think about the lie I’ll have to tell her about where I was tonight. A catering gig. A long shift for a demanding client. The lies are exhausting, but they are the walls I build to keep her safe. To keep my two worlds from ever colliding.

My real phone, the one with Lena’s smiling face as the background, feels heavy in my pocket. I resist the urge to check it. Not yet. I need to put more distance between that room and this street. Between Nyx and me.

Clara. My name is Clara.

I catch a late night bus, the hiss of its air brakes a welcome sound. I take a seat in the back, leaning my head against the cool glass of the window. The city slides by, a blur of neon and concrete. Each stop, each mile, is a step away from the ghost and a step closer to home. To her.

Lena. She’s eighteen, all bright eyes and boundless optimism. She sees the world in brilliant colors, paints it in bold strokes on her canvases. She has no idea what I do to keep those colors from fading. She thinks I’m a freelance event planner, working odd hours to make ends meet. She thinks I’m boring. I pray she always thinks I’m boring.

She is the only reason I do this. The only reason I became Nyx in the first place. Our parents died when she was ten and I was sixteen. I was left with a mountain of debt and a little sister who depended on me for everything. The world isn’t kind to orphans. You learn to be tough, or you get broken. I learned to be more than tough. I learned to be invisible. To be a weapon. A man from my father’s past, a shadowy figure named Silas, found me. He saw my desperation, my cold resolve. He gave me a new name and a new purpose. He trained me, honed my anger into a fine, sharp edge. And he paid me enough to give Lena a life our parents would have wanted for her.

The bus groans to a halt at my stop. I get off, pulling the hood tighter around my face. Our apartment is a third floor walk up in a quiet, unassuming neighborhood. The kind of place where people keep to themselves. It’s small, but it’s ours.

I climb the stairs, my keys already in my hand. Inside, the lights are on. I can hear the faint sound of music playing. I pause at the door, taking a deep breath. I force the tension from my shoulders. I wipe the cold, flat expression from my face. I let go of Nyx.

I turn the key and push the door open. “Lena? I’m home.”

Lena pokes her head out of her bedroom, her face breaking into a wide grin. She has paint smudged on her cheek and her blonde hair is a messy bun on top of her head. She is beautiful. She is everything that is good in my world.

“Aria!” she cheers, using the name I go by in this life. It was a stupid choice, a name I picked on a whim years ago, but it stuck. It’s another layer of the wall between my worlds. “You will not believe what happened.”

“Oh yeah?” I say, kicking off my sneakers and dropping my keys into the bowl by the door. “Did you finally figure out how to paint something that doesn’t look like a depressed blob?”

She throws a balled up sock at me. I catch it easily. “Jerk. No. I aced my History of Pigments final. A ninety eight. Can you believe it?”

“Of course I can believe it,” I say, a real smile finally reaching my face. “You’re a genius. I’ve been telling you that for years.”

“Well, now it’s official,” she says, beaming. “And an official genius deserves an official celebration. I was thinking that new club downtown, ‘Elysium.’ Tonight. We have to go.”

My body aches for a hot shower and twelve hours of sleep. The adrenaline from the job is wearing off, leaving a familiar, bone deep exhaustion in its wake. But then I look at her face, so full of hope and excitement, and I know I can’t say no. This is what I work for. These moments. Her happiness.

“Elysium, huh? Isn’t that place impossible to get into?”

“Not for a certified genius and her super cool older sister,” she says, grabbing my hands and pulling me toward my room. “Now go. Put on something amazing. We are going to have the best night ever.”

I let her drag me along, the weariness fading, replaced by a warmth that spreads through my chest. For her, I would do anything. I would face down the entire Ricci crime family. I would walk through fire. I would even go to a loud, overpriced nightclub on a Tuesday.

“Okay, okay, I’m going,” I laugh.

As I close my bedroom door, I catch my reflection in the mirror. For a second, I don’t see Clara, or Aria. I see the Ghost. Eyes that are a little too old, a little too calm. A stillness that doesn’t belong on a freelance event planner. I shake my head, forcing the image away. Tonight, I am not Nyx. Tonight, I am just Aria. A sister celebrating with the only person in the world who matters. Tonight, I am normal.

It’s a lie, of course. But it’s the most important one I tell.