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It started where all rot in Naples begins: in the cracks between stone, whispered over cigarettes and the dregs of bitter espresso.
At first, Giorno dismissed it. Naples was a city that fed on ghosts. People were always seeing the dead. In static, in wine, in the shape of shadows that moved wrong. But the rumors didn't fade. They thickened. Grew teeth.
They spoke of a business.
Orpheus S.r.l.
The name appeared on cards found in widows' pockets—plain white stock, no number, just an address that shifted depending on who read it. The street thugs his organization monitored spoke of it with the hushed dread reserved for things that couldn't be shot or burned. They said it wasn't a Stand ability. Or if it was, it didn't follow the rules. Played by something older. Something that didn't care about fairness or power or how much blood you had on your hands.
"It's not a shop, sir." The informant's hands had been shaking when he told Mista. "You don't walk in and buy. You apply. Put down a deposit, something you can't get back, and the Clerk decides if your grief is interesting enough. Most people lose their deposit and get kicked out." He'd swallowed hard. "But some walk out with shadows that don't match their bodies."
"It's a scam," Mista had said, tossing the card onto Giorno's desk. "Some low-level user milking broken hearts. I'll send a squad."
Giorno had stared at the card. Sans-serif typeface. Mundane as a laundromat receipt. So aggressively ordinary it felt dangerous, like finding something clean in a city built on grime.
"No," he had said, fingers brushing the card's sharp edge. "I will handle this personally."
He told himself he was going to expose a fraud. Punish a charlatan preying on the weak.
But as he walked toward the alley indicated on the card—a dark throat between crumbling buildings that looked like it had been designed specifically to swallow hope—the Don of Passione knew he was lying to himself the way he'd learned to lie to everyone else.
He wasn't going to shut them down.
He was going to beg.
The heat in Naples was usually physical, wet with salt and exhaust and the particular humidity that came from a city slowly sinking into the sea. But inside the alley, the air was different. Static. Dead. Like walking into a held breath.
Giorno adjusted his cuff, a nervous gesture he'd trained himself out of years ago. The velvet of his suit suddenly felt like costume jewelry. He commanded the breathing rhythm of Italy's underworld, yet standing before the frosted glass door, his pulse hammered against his collar like something trying to escape.
He pushed the door open.
A bell chimed. Tinny. The kind you'd find in a corner store.
Inside, it smelled of ozone and old paper and something else underneath—something like formaldehyde, or the air right before lightning strikes. A ceiling fan cut through the stale air with rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack, the blades slightly off-center so each rotation had a little hitch in it that set Giorno's teeth on edge. Behind a counter that looked like it had been stolen from a dentist's office in 1987 sat the Clerk.
The Clerk didn't look up. He was filing his nails with slow, monotonous strokes, the rasping sound somehow louder than the fan.
"Name of the deceased?"
The voice was flat. Bored. The tone of someone who had asked this question so many times it had lost all meaning.
"Leone."
Giorno's voice cracked on the second syllable.
He froze. He hadn't stuttered in years. Hadn't let his voice betray him since he was sixteen and still learning how to speak with the authority of someone who could order deaths over breakfast. But the moment the name left his mouth, the polished armor of the Don evaporated like steam. The cool, calculated composure he had forged over years of bloodshed and careful political maneuvering just—melted. Left him raw. Exposed. He felt the phantom sunburn of a fifteen-year-old summer pricking his skin, remembered what it felt like to be young and desperate and so fucking hopeful it hurt. He felt small.
"Leone Abbacchio," he repeated, firmer this time, though heat bloomed across his cheeks in a way that made him want to turn around and walk out. Made him feel like a child caught wanting something he had no right to ask for.
The Clerk stopped filing.
He looked up slowly, the way someone might look up from a newspaper if you'd interrupted something mildly interesting. His eyes were like static on a dead television channel. He looked Giorno up and down, and it wasn't with respect or recognition or even fear. It was the look of a pawnbroker appraising a watch he already knew was fake, deciding whether it was even worth the effort to tell you.
"And you are the claimant?"
"I am Giorno Giovanna."
He waited for it. The recognition. The fear. The careful recalibration of tone that happened when people realized exactly who they were speaking to.
The Clerk sighed.
It was a sound of such profound, bone-deep boredom that it was almost offensive.
"We have a lot of Giovannas in the file," the Clerk said, leaning back in his chair until it creaked. He laced his fingers together over his stomach. "A lot of Leones, too. Common names. You'd be surprised how many dead Leones there are in Naples alone." He tilted his head, studying Giorno with the clinical detachment of someone examining a specimen. "We don't take just anyone, Mr. Giovanna. The queue is long. The resources are finite. Why should we waste a retrieval on you?"
Irritation flashed through Giorno's desperation, hot and sharp. "I can pay. Anything you ask."
"Money is boring." The Clerk waved a hand dismissively, and Giorno noticed his nails were bitten down to the quick despite the file. "The processing fee isn't cash, Mr. Giovanna. It's collateral. Non-refundable. And honestly..." The Clerk's lip curled slightly. "You look like a high-risk case. Too much baggage. People like you tend to have complications."
"I want him back." The demand came out sounding like a plea, and Giorno hated himself for it. He leaned over the counter, desperation leaking through the cracks in his authority like water through a failing dam. "I want him exactly as he was. Name your price."
The Clerk's gaze dropped to Giorno's chest.
He stared for a long, uncomfortable moment at the iconic ladybug brooch pinned to the velvet lapel—the three of them, arranged in a small constellation. The life-giving totem that had become synonymous with Giorno's power, with his ability to create and heal and drag people back from the edge of death.
Just not the one person who mattered.
"That," the Clerk said, pointing a pale finger. The nail was ragged. "The brooch. The blue one on your left."
Giorno's hand flew to it instinctively, fingers curling protectively around the cool metal. "This is just jewelry. I can buy you a thousand—"
"No." The Clerk's voice was flat again, already bored with the negotiation. "I want that one. It looks heavy enough." His grey eyes flicked back down to his ledger, dismissive. "Give it here, and I'll consider opening the file."
Giorno's throat felt tight. His fingers were still wrapped around the brooch, and he could feel his own heartbeat pulsing against the metal. It was just a piece of jewelry. Just enamel and gold and a pin. He'd worn it for so long he barely noticed the weight of it anymore, but now, being asked to give it up, he realized how present it had always been. The small, constant pressure against his chest. The cool metal he touched absently when he was thinking.
He hesitated for only a fraction of a second.
He unpinned the brooch. It felt like unpinning a piece of his own soul, like removing something structural. His fingers fumbled slightly and the pin scratched his thumb. A tiny bead of blood welled up, bright red against his skin.
He placed the brooch on the counter.
The Clerk snatched it up with surprising speed, his movements suddenly sharp and precise, and dropped it into a drawer that clattered shut with a sound like a coffin closing.
"Accepted," the Clerk droned, already returning to his ledger as if nothing had happened. As if Giorno hadn't just paid for the chance of seeing silver hair and purple eyes again, that particular way someone used to look at him—tired and wary and something else underneath that neither of them had ever named. "Please note: Retrieval is subject to temporal variance. We bring the soul back. We do not guarantee the packaging. You don't get to choose, Mr. Giovanna. The contract is for the person as they are."
Giorno swallowed hard. His chest felt lighter without the brooch. Exposed. Like he'd walked outside without a shirt and only just noticed.
"I accept."
The Clerk buzzed him through a side door.
"The Aisle," the Clerk said, pointing down a corridor that stretched much, much longer than the building's physical dimensions should have allowed. The perspective was wrong. The walls seemed to curve in ways that made Giorno's eyes hurt if he looked too long. "Walk. Don't stop. Don't speak. And the classic rule applies, Mr. Giovanna." The Clerk's smile was thin and didn't reach his eyes. "Do not turn around until you cross the threshold of the sun."
The corridor was lined with mirrors on both sides. Not flat glass. Shifting, liquid surfaces that reflected things that weren't quite right—Giorno's reflection was there, but it moved a half-second too slow, and its eyes were older than they should be.
Giorno stepped onto the black linoleum.
Thump.
His first footstep echoed.
Thump.
The second seemed to go on forever, reverberating down the impossible length of the hallway.
Thump.
Lonely. Sharp. The only sound in a space that felt like it existed outside of sound entirely.
Then, a pressure.
A hand slipped into his.
Giorno's breath caught in his throat, sharp enough to hurt.
The hand was large. The fingers were long, and the grip was firm in a way that felt like muscle memory, like this hand had held his before and knew exactly how to fit against his palm. His thumb grazed over the skin and found the rough, familiar topography of calluses—the specific pattern of them, the little ridge along the side of the index finger from where someone used to hold a gun, the slight thickness at the base of the thumb from years of physical work. The friction of a man who worked with his hands. Who reloaded clips and poured wine and stood close enough that Giorno could count his breaths.
Leone.
The name screamed. It filled his entire head with white noise and desperate hope and the terrible, overwhelming relief of contact after so much absence.
Giorno squeezed the hand tight, interlacing their fingers, and felt the answering pressure. Faint. Uncertain. But there.
"Abbacchio," Giorno whispered, breaking the rule immediately because he couldn't help it, he'd never been good at following rules when it came to wanting something this badly. He was fifteen again. Standing on a boat. "Are you hurt?"
Silence.
Just the sound of two sets of footsteps now, his and the heavier tread behind him. The hand in his gave a small tug, pulling him forward. Urging him on.
"It's me," Giorno said, and his eyes were stinging, and he kept them fixed straight ahead on the exit door at the end of the tunnel—a rectangle of blinding white light that seemed to get further away the closer he got. "I fixed it. I fixed everything. The organization. The city." The words felt hollow, inadequate. What else was there to say? What had he ever said that mattered? "You don't have to—" His voice cracked. "It's different now. Better."
No reply.
Just the steady, rhythmic gait of the person behind him. Boots scuffing against linoleum with each step. Heavy. Real.
And that was when the doubt started to coil in Giorno's stomach, cold and oily and familiar in the way that fear always is when you've been ignoring it.
This was a parlor trick. A Stand ability that mimicked tactile sensation. He was the Don of Passione, holding hands with a ghost in a hallway lined with lying mirrors, making a fool of himself. Mocking his own grief. Being scammed by someone who'd realized the easiest marks were the ones who'd already decided they wanted to believe.
There's no one there, his logical mind hissed, the part of him that had survived this long by never trusting anything that seemed too good. You're holding air. You're going to walk out of this hallway, turn around, and find nothing. And everyone will know. They'll all know you were desperate enough to fall for this.
The grip on his hand tightened, sudden and firm, as if sensing his hesitation. As if the person behind him could feel him starting to pull away.
Giorno gritted his teeth. He walked faster, pulling them both forward now, and he was angry—angry at the hope that had made him come here, angry at the vulnerability that made his palm sweat where it pressed against what was probably just air shaped like a hand, angry at himself for wanting something this badly, for being this weak, for not being able to just let go and move on like a reasonable person would.
The door was getting closer. The light was getting brighter.
He hit it at almost a run.
The light was violent. It bleached Giorno's vision white, forcing him to squeeze his eyes shut as he stumbled out of the black void and onto cracked pavement that was sun-warm under his shoes. The humidity of Naples slammed back into him like a physical blow. The weight of exhaust fumes and frying garlic and the distant, chaotic symphony of traffic and voices and life continuing on without him, the way it always had.
He was still holding the hand.
He stood there, chest heaving, blinking away the afterimages burned into his retinas. Behind him, the Orpheus S.r.l. door clicked shut with the mundane, final sound of a grocery store entrance, and the spell of the corridor shattered. The silence broke. The world came rushing back in.
Giorno looked down at his hand.
He was holding a hand. A real, physical, warm hand.
But the context was wrong.
The skin wasn't cool and pale like marble. It was warm. Flushed with heat and blood and life. And the nails weren't chipped from nervous picking. They were short. Clean. Bare.
Giorno turned around.
"I should have known it was a scam, I—"
The words died in his throat. Choked off by sudden, sickening vertigo.
The man standing in the alley blinked against the glare, lifting his free hand to shield his eyes from the relentless sun. He was tall—the right height, broad-shouldered, physically taking up the exact amount of space Abbacchio had always taken up.
But the silhouette was wrong.
He wasn't wearing the leather coat that used to billow like a dark sail. Wasn't wearing the scowl of a man who'd decided long ago that the world was rotten and the best you could do was try not to make it worse.
He was wearing a police uniform.
Navy blue. Crisp. The fabric was so stiff it still held factory creases—hadn't been worn enough to soften, hadn't been slept in or sweated through. The brass buttons caught the sun and flared like small accusation points.
Giorno's eyes traveled up, desperate, searching for something familiar.
Every detail was a fresh wound.
The hair was silver but shorter. Neater. The haircut of someone fresh from the academy, regulation-length, nothing like the way Giorno had memorized it.
The architecture of the face was there—those sharp, severe lines of jaw and cheekbone. But softer somehow. The deep lines that usually bracketed his mouth and the furrow between his brows smoothed away. The dark lipstick was there, carefully applied, but it sat differently on a mouth that hadn't yet learned how to sneer.
And the eyes.
They were still that vibrant purple with gold undertone, strikingly beautiful, but—
Bright. Clear. Looking at Giorno with polite uncertainty instead of the wary exhaustion he'd grown used to seeing there. The eyes of someone who still believed in things. Who hadn't yet needed anyone to save him.
Giorno's chest tightened with something he couldn't name. Recognition and wrongness all at once.
The officer flinched, suddenly registering that he was holding hands with another man. He pulled back—not with disgust, but with polite, awkward haste. He wiped his palm on the coarse wool of his trousers, and Giorno's hand was left suspended in the air, still curved around the shape of fingers that were no longer there.
Empty.
Giorno was suddenly aware of his own appearance—the perfectly tailored suit, the open chest, the remaining ladybug brooches pinned to his lapel. He looked exactly like what he was. The kind of person a young cop might be cautious around.
The young officer straightened his belt—heavy leather, standard-issue baton and holster. He adjusted his cap with both hands, and when he looked at Giorno there was no recognition. No familiarity. Just polite attention.
The way you'd look at anyone.
"Excuse me, sir," he said, and the voice—it was similar, the timbre was right, but higher. Lighter. Uncertain in a way Giorno had never heard before.
Something shifted in Giorno's chest. Not quite pain. Not quite hope. Something unsteady between the two.
"I... I think I must have taken a wrong turn," the officer continued, offering an apologetic smile—sheepish, genuine, without any of the bitter edge Giorno had memorized. He pointed vaguely toward the main street, squinting against the sun. "Do you know where the precinct is? I'm afraid I'm going to be late for my shift."
Giorno's throat was dry. He swallowed. Found his voice.
"Two blocks north," he said, gesturing toward the main street. "Turn left at the fountain. You'll see it."
"Thank you." The officer's smile widened, relieved. He started to turn away.
Giorno's hand moved before he could think about it, reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a business card—plain white, his personal number embossed in simple black ink. No name. No title. Just numbers.
"Here," Giorno said, holding it out. "In case you get lost again."
The officer hesitated, then took the card with a small, uncertain laugh. "I appreciate it, but I think I'll manage now." He tucked it into his breast pocket anyway, polite. Professional.
He nodded once, touching the brim of his cap. Started walking toward the main street.
"Good day, Leone," Giorno said quietly.
The officer stopped.
Turned back slowly, his expression shifting from polite confusion to something sharper.
"How did you—" He paused, searching Giorno's face. "My first name. How did you know?"
Giorno met his gaze steadily. "You look like one."
The officer blinked. "I... what?"
"A Leone." Giorno's voice was calm. Matter-of-fact. "There are many in Naples. You have the look."
It wasn't an explanation. It didn't make sense. But Giorno said it with such quiet certainty that the officer seemed to falter, caught between suspicion and the simple strangeness of the moment.
"I suppose..." he said slowly, still watching Giorno with those bright, searching eyes.
He trailed off. Didn't finish the thought.
His hand moved unconsciously to his chest, fingers pressing against the fabric where his heart was, as if checking for something that should be there but wasn't. His eyes stayed on Giorno's face a beat too long before he finally turned and walked away.
Giorno stood in the alley. His hand was still warm where it had held another hand. His chest still felt light without the brooch.
The door to Orpheus S.r.l. was gone. Just blank wall now, crumbling and ordinary.
Giorno turned and walked in the opposite direction. He didn't look back. He forced his spine straight, forced the Don of Passione back into his shoulders. He listened to the rhythm of his own footsteps, counting them to keep from screaming. One. Two. Three.
"Hey!"
The voice cut through the alley. Sharp. authoritative.
Giorno stopped. He didn't breathe. Slowly, he turned his head.
The young officer was standing twenty feet away, in a patch of sunlight, one hand shielding his eyes, the other still pressed against the breast pocket where he’d put the card. He looked frustrated, his brows drawn together in that familiar, jagged scowl that made Giorno’s heart ache.
"You," the officer called out, sounding annoyed with himself. "You got a name to go with that number?"
Giorno stared at him. The alley felt very quiet.
"Giorno," he said softly. Then, louder: "Giorno."
The officer—Leone—rolled the name around in his mouth. He frowned, as if the taste was bitter. He looked at Giorno for a long, suspended second, the confusion in his eyes warring with an instinct he clearly couldn't understand.
"Right," Leone muttered. "Watch yourself out here, Giorno. This isn't a safe neighborhood."
He turned and walked away for real this time.
Giorno watched him go until the blue uniform disappeared into the grey noise of the city. He touched the empty spot on his lapel.
"I know," Giorno whispered to the empty air. "I'm counting on it."