Several days passed by in silence, a silence that was uncomfortable and scary. They say that silences have the entire answers, but after receiving them, Zara wasn't sure if she preferred not knowing. She could have joined the law enforcement and made a name for herself.

But now?

Now she would always be Zoya Ferrara, daughter of Emmanuel and May, the leader of the Ferraras gang.

Wearing an old cardigan of hers, she climbed down the steps on a cloudy morning. It was misty outside, raindrops clinging to the windows of the living room. Her aunt....or her god aunt....was drinking a cup of hot coffee. She made one for Zara and placed it on the other end of the table from where she sat.

"So." Zara started the conversation as she let the ceramic warm her hands. "Zoya Ferrara....Zara."

Jean was glad that she was ready to talk. She had expected a lot worse reaction from Zara for what she had revealed but she only needed time to think over the truth. "I was going to name my own daughter that. It was a great coincidence that it worked as a wordplay with your actual name."

Zara looked up from the foam of the coffee to her supposed aunt. "Please tell me that not all of it was based on lies." She said, leaning forward in her seat. "That....you really did care for me and that....Mal was always my friend."

Jean got out of the sofa and sat next to Zara, brushing her hair backwards. "Of course I love you." She said, the softness in her voice melting their hearts. "I always have and I always will. You are my daughter. No one can change that."

Zara smiled softly.

That evening, she asked her next set of questions. "What happened in the war?" Zara asked as the two of them sat beside a window, finishing their evening coffee. "Did my father....really kill," Adrian's father. "Gordon Cardena?"

Jean placed her mug on the table and took Zara's hand in hers. "Zara....I know that trusting me will be hard now. But I have tried my best to keep you away from all this until you were ready to hear the truth about what happened that day."

Zara took a deep breath. She was ready.

"Cardena and Ferrara did not betray each other."

"Excuse me?"

Jean's eyebrows furrowed at that reaction but she kept going, her voice filled with tension with the truth that she had been hiding all her life. "Emmanuel and Gordon were closer than brothers. I only know this because I was with your parents. The two of them wanted to bring peace in the Council and end the feuds between the gangs, once and for all. They were going to make an alliance between each other. That's why they met that night.

"But there was a third person that they trusted....they shouldn't have. The two did not kill each other without this third person instigating it in the first place. They couldn't have, because they were going to revamp the Treaty and build a new empire."

Silence took over them, this one filled with all the unanswered questions and the flooding truth.

"Who was it?" Zara managed to get out, ignoring her hammering heart.

"It was-"

That was the last time Aunt Jean spoke.

A sharp noise came from Zara's right, making her gasp in shock as she saw crimson take over the white blouse that Jean was wearing.

She had been shot.

Zara got out of her seat and pulled her aunt to the ground, keeping an eye out using the wooden table as a support. They were in the middle of nowhere and there was no one around. Where could that shot have come from?

"Zoya...."

Zara knelt before her aunt and opened the buttons to find the wound right on her chest. "No...." She gasped.

"You....have to go to....Shot Drop." Aunt Jean spoke, a tear falling out of her left eye. "He will....keep you safe." Her hand reached out to find Zara's head to bless her. 

"No! I'm going to get you out." Zara said, holding her aunt's hand tightly. "We're both going to go to Shot Drop, you hear me?"

Jean managed to smile softly. The girl she raised had the same spirit that her parents did. Her work was done. "The third person....."

"Shush! You are going to make it and we are going to take down the third man together. Don't give up on me. Stay with me!"

But Jean could feel the life leaving her. Her vision was going blurry and she had been shot enough times to know which bullet had her name written in it. "The third person's name.....the Korol."

"No, stay with me, Aunt Jean! Stay with me!"

Aunt Jean reached out to caress Zara's face once more. She had done it the first time when Zara went to school for the first time and then made it a tradition to do it every time to pass down good luck to her. 

This would be the last time she would do it.

She caressed two streaks of warm blood on Zara's cheek and closed her eyes, ready to leave this world and meet her brother and the Ferraras in the afterlife. She wasn't religious exactly, but she believed she would meet them.

"No!" Zara screamed, not caring that she would be giving away her location to the shooter. She had lost the only family she ever had right in front of her and no one could save her then. She pulled Aunt Jean into a hug, never wanting to let go of her. "No....Aunt Jean." She sobbed.

She waited for the shooter to make his second shot or to come inside the house.

But the safehouse remained silent in the middle of the woods, leaving Zara to grieve the loss of yet another person.

⧪

The handles of the front door of Shot Drop wriggled as someone tried to come inside. Mal got out of his seat and rushed to open the door, patting his hair down as he walked. But opening the door and finding Zara outside, her dress bloody, made his eyes widen.

"Zara! What-" Zara fell to her knees, making him grab her forearms. "Zara!"

"They killed her, Mal. They killed....Aunt Jean."

Mal gulped.

Zara knew the truth.

He brought her inside and made her sit on the last step of the staircase that would lead to his home upstairs. He locked the front door and made sure that the other doors were locked as well.

Zara was shaking, mumbling about Aunt Jean. "They killed her. They killed her. They killed her."

"Who killed her?" Mal asked, taking her hands in his and pressing on her pulse to make sure that she hadn't been shot and to calm her down.

Zara looked him in the eye for the first time since she walked through the doors. "The Korol. The third eye. The one that is doing all this." Zara broke out crying, not being able to keep it in anymore. She had driven back to New York for an entire hour trying not to break down, but this was it. This was her final stand. "They killed her, Mal! What am I going to do now?"

"Ssh, I've got you now." Mal made her rest her head against his chest and patted her back, not caring about the blood that he would be getting on him. "You asked me to trust you. So trust me now. I've got you."

And he wasn't going to leave her side. No matter what.

He was a Henderson for a reason. They had teamed up with Jean after the war for a reason. It was to protect Zara. From what? They found it out that day when Jean finally revealed the truth.

Zara had no choice in front of her now.

In fact, she wasn't even Zara anymore, because that identity died with Jean Medina.

She was Zoya Ferrara.