Two hours after Lara awoke, a nurse with tight curls escaping her cap and oversized eyeglasses perched precariously on her nose slipped into the dim stairwell. The hospital lights buzzed overhead. She glanced once over her shoulder before dialing a number she clearly did not call lightly.
"What is it?" a deep baritone answered, sharp and impatient.
The nurse swallowed. "She's awake."
On the other end of the line, a man in his fifties slowly removed the cigar from his lips. He didn't speak right away. He watched the ember glow, then fade, as smoke curled lazily in front of his face like a living thing—obedient, controlled. He listened in silence as the nurse relayed the details, his expression unreadable.
His fingers tightened until the cigar snapped cleanly in two.
A dangerous glint flickered in his eyes. Finally, he thought. The pawn has awakened.
He had waited twelve long months for this moment.
A single miscalculated move—one rare lapse in his otherwise flawless planning—had cost him more than he anticipated. Two pawns were dead on impact. And Lara… broken, barely clinging to life. When he saw her bloodied and mangled body, he feared she would die like the others.
When days turned into weeks and weeks into months, even his patience had worn thin. He had nearly followed through on his contingency plan—ending the life of the daughter he had raised for twenty years, the girl he had molded so carefully for his purposes. The thought still lingered, dark and unsettling. But something—caution, perhaps fate—had stayed his hand.
And now, here she was.
Lara had proven more resilient than he ever gave her credit for. Despite catastrophic injuries, despite a year trapped in silence and shadows, her body had refused to surrender. She survived the coma.
A year was nothing.
He had spent two decades laying the groundwork for what was to come. Compared to that, this delay was merely an inconvenience.
He rose from his chair and crushed the remains of the cigar into the ashtray.
"Lionel," he said calmly, already reaching for his coat. "Prepare the car. We're going to Hope Hospital."
…
At the hospital, the quiet of Lara's room fractured when the door opened.
She looked up, expecting the resident doctor, but instead found herself facing an imposing man in his late forties or early fifties. He carried authority the way some men carried weapons effortlessly and dangerously. His tailored coat hung perfectly on his broad frame, and his silver-threaded hair only sharpened the severity of his presence. Just behind him stood a younger man dressed in black from head to toe, posture rigid, eyes alert. A bodyguard. Of that, Lara had no doubt.
The older man's gaze locked onto hers.
Artemio Fuegerro's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly when Lara met him not with recognition, but with the distant curiosity one reserved for strangers.
The surgeon he had placed in this hospital had warned him that Lara had amnesia. But Artemio did not believe it. Lara had always been a master of deception. He was convinced this was an act, a calculated move in a mission she had yet to complete.
"I am glad that you are finally awake, Larissa," General Fuegerro said at last.
His face remained impassive, but his voice carried something beneath its calm surface—control, expectation, possession. Lara felt it instantly, a chill sliding down her spine.
She studied him for a moment before answering. "Excuse me, sir," she said evenly. "Do I know you?"
The question landed like a crack in glass.
The young man in black took a step forward, hope flashing in his eyes. "Don't you remember us?"
"I'm sorry," Lara replied, her gaze darting between them. "I lost my memory. I can't remember anything."
Artemio searched her face, hunting for the smallest fracture in her composure. Finding none, he asked, "Do you know what happened to you?"
"I was told I was in a car accident," she said. "I was in a coma for twelve months."
"And before that?" His voice was steady, but his eyes were not. "How much do you remember of your past?"
Lara shook her head. "Nothing."
A muscle jumped in Artemio's jaw. Damn it.Fate was not on my side.
"You were on a mission that night," he said slowly. "Something went wrong. Your supposed parents… died on the spot."
Lara's brows knitted together. "What do you mean, supposed parents?" she asked. "They weren't my biological parents?"
Artemio chuckled softly, the sound devoid of warmth. "So you truly haven't changed. Still sharp. Still quick-witted. Exactly as I trained you."
Her head snapped toward him.
For a split second, the softness drained from her expression, replaced by something cold and commanding—an intensity that made Artemio instinctively take a step back. It was the look of someone who understood power… and had once wielded it.
"Am I related to you?" Lara asked.
The edge in her voice faded, but the question struck deep.
Artemio exhaled, relief loosening his shoulders. Whatever he thought he'd seen must have been a trick of the light, an illusion.
Before he could answer, another guard at the door moved swiftly to his side and whispered something urgent.
Artemio's eyes darkened.
"You have other visitors arriving," he said briskly. "We'll continue this another time." He reached into his coat and pressed a small black box into Lara's hands. "Use this. The phone is new—but your biometrics are saved in there, so you can open it with your face or fingerprint."
Before Lara could respond, the men turned and exited the room, their departure as sudden as their arrival.
Silence settled once more.
Lara stared at the box resting in her palms, its weight suddenly heavier than it should have been. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears as she slowly lifted her gaze to the door they had just disappeared through.
Who is General Artemio Fuegerro? And more terrifying—what am I to him?
The way he had looked at her lingered in her mind: not like a stranger, not even like family, but like someone reclaiming something he believed was his. His words echoed, sharp and unsettling. I trained you.
Trained her for what?
A mission. A past she could not remember. A life that felt dangerous even in its absence.
Lara's fingers curled tightly around the box. Somewhere inside her chest, beneath the confusion, something stirred—an instinct, cold and deliberate.
Whatever she had been before the accident, it was still waiting.
And it was only a matter of time before it remembered her.