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Rome, Italy – April 1501

The sound of a thrown knife's blade sticking into a wooden support beam of a scaffold echoed throughout the air and pierced the midnight silence. A woman dressed in a slightly tattered dark ruby gown dashed on the cold cobblestones while holding her dress up, breathing heavily as her dark brown wavy locks of hair waved in front of her face, the other remaining hair in a side braid. While keeping her face straight in the direction she was running towards, her glassy gray-green eyes darted to the side as much as she could go without having to move her head. She could tell the man was still running after her with haste even though he was about fifteen meters away, and her gut lurched.

"Gabriela!" shouted the man, running without difficulties. His pearl white tunic swayed over his dark brown chaps while he pursued her in the candlelit night on the streets of Rome, with his leather boots pitter-pattering on the cobblestones. He looked similar to Gabriela, in comparison to his dark brown curly hair that reached down halfway to his ear, and his eye shape that rather leaned towards a glossy gray iris. Strapped to his back, he had a blade the length of his entire arm, secured in a sheath as it swung back and forth.

The streets of Rome were nearly empty with the exception of the candlelight. Gabriela knew that she had nowhere to run at this point, and he was gradually catching up to her. The buildings towered over her and her pursuer, not leaving her much room to throw him off. She had to stick with the streets at this point.

Not yet, she told herself, this cannot be just yet…

As soon as she spotted an alley, she sharply turned left around a corner to enter it. Gabriela looked for another alley she could use for another diversion. Two alleys on her right appeared. Skipping the first one, she bolted towards the second alley and continued running for a good fifty steps or so. She slowed her pace down and decided to look back behind her this time. He was nowhere to be found. A sigh of relief came from her chest as she slowed even more down while trying to attempt to muffle her panting.

It should be safe for the time being, thought Gabriela, leaning her back against the wall as she was attempting to catch her breath.

"Gotcha, sis." The hiss came from around the corner as a knife emerged from the shadows to her left, thrusting downwards towards her left shoulderblade. The sound of her agonizing cry of pain echoed throughout the alley as the knife was pulled out from her shoulder, leaving a two-inch deep stab wound and blood splattering everywhere from her shoulder.

The maiden fell forward to her knees; the pain was unbearable. She glanced behind her while clenching her left shoulder. He walked around her to face Gabriela, with the bloodied dagger still in his left hand. A slightly quiet whistle came out of his mouth, causing the guards on the rooftops nearby to jump down and to join their summoner.

"O…Orazio," she gritted her teeth, "why…?"

"Dearest sister, you know too much." The serrated knife was twirled in his left hand a couple of times like a child's toy. He shook off the excess blood from his knife and sheathed it in his belt sheath. "Guards! Secure the entrance and exit to the alley. No one should be getting in…or out…this is strictly family business."

All four of the guards nodded. Half of them split towards the direction Gabriela came from, whereas the other half secured the direction that she should have continued in. Orazio withdrew his blade from his back and quickly examined it. "I was going to give you a chance, but you snapped back and thus made me retract the chances you would have had."

Her almond-like eyes stared at the top of the blade. The blood from her wound was soaking through the entire shoulder area of her dress, and the pain was nowhere near subsiding. But she wanted to stand strong. And so she did, with difficulty from her position. "And…and yet I don't see why you chose this path of corruption and betrayal."

Orazio frowned. "Gabriela, you clearly do not understand what joining the Templars mean. Joining sides with them signifies that the Merlo family would finally gain power and even more money. All of those years we spent with a barely decent amount of money as children…compare it to when I began working once mother and father died. How do you think I was able to get everything for us without trouble? I did not work any jobs like what you may have thought of. But…I envisioned that we would not be laughed at and ridiculed for being dirty Merlo's any longer after siding with the Templars."

"And yet Orazio…even if it meant killing our parents? Even…Valerio?" This blurted statement pained her to say, both physically and mentally.

"They knew too much and refused it all." He spat on the path to his right. "And you do as well, sister." He pointed his blade at her face, and with a quick stroke, he slashed at her right side of her body. The cut was clean, but not as severely deep as her shoulder wound; more blood spurted out of her side and the pain seared through her entire body. She fell back onto her knees again and her back hit the building's wall behind her. Her breathing became more labored, and it seemed like everything was fading away from her vision. "Thus, you share the same fate as them all."

I spoke too soon...this seems to be the end of me. Please welcome me back, mother…father…Valerio. Gabriela slowly closed her eyes and braced for the worst pain and even death, not even flinching or wincing one bit.

Before Orazio could raise his blade up all the way for momentum, a mysterious man in a white robe leapt from the rooftop of the building behind him, revealing a hidden blade at the peak of his jump. As the momentum took him downwards, he forcefully shoved the blade into his spine upon contact and knocked the wind out of Orazio, instantly killing him. Gabriela managed to open her eyes for a bit and saw the man giving her older brother his final rites.

"Requiescat in pace," murmured the Italian.

As he stood up, Gabriela made a sound as if she was gasping for air. Wait…! If he saved her and if he was truly who she believed he was, then she did not want to die yet…at least not without a proper token of gratitude.

The man turned around and faced the dying maiden. Her eyes were slightly glazed over, and her shoulder still oozed with some dark blood. There was a small pool of blood near the cut on her body on the ground as well.

"M…Messere…please…" she groaned with every last ounce of her strength.

He immediately picked her up and cradled Gabriela in his arms. After briefly examining her condition, he knew that the timeframe to save her life was shortening by each second that passed. Perhaps…perhaps if he were to take her back to his place, she would survive…

"Grazie…Assassino…"

Everything went black.