The rooftop did not offer shelter, only height, and Michele Ferrara stood at its edge as though the distance between him and the ground below meant nothing at all, his boots planted firm against the cold concrete, his shoulders relaxed in a way that did not suggest ease but control, and the city stretched beneath him in quiet indifference, its lights flickering like distant signals no one intended him to answer.
The rifle rested in his hands.
Not carelessly.
Not reverently.
But as something familiar.
His fingers moved with practiced precision, adjusting, checking, aligning each part with a steadiness that spoke not of haste but of ritual, and his breath remained slow, measured, though his gaze carried something far less calm, something sharpened by memory rather than the present.
"Mercy is weakness."
