Chapter Text
~Palawan - Nineteen Years After The Last Heist~
The moonlight spilled like liquid silver across the floor of the Marquina villa in Palawan. It was past midnight, and the house was quiet… except for the piano.
Valentina sat at the grand piano in the living room, her fingers trembling slightly as they danced across the keys. Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C-sharp minor, Op. 3, No. 2 filled the air; thunderous, brooding, and majestic. The notes hit like thunderclaps and whispered like ghosts. She played it not for beauty, but for power. For pain. For defiance.
Her long silk robe hung off one shoulder. A cigarette rested in the ashtray beside her, smoke curling upward like a spirit. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes fire-lit with something wild. There was still pain. There always would be. But tonight, she wasn't drowning in it; she was turning it into weaponry.
Behind closed doors down the hallway, Sergio paced while Raquel sat on the edge of the bed, watching him.
"She's out of her mind." Sergio muttered. "This isn't a job. It's suicide. Bogotá doesn't even have a real plan, just a list of names and a legacy complex."
Raquel's voice was low, tired but sharp: "She already said yes. She's in. And you know what that means. She's stubborn like you, and has nothing to lose like Berlin did."
He didn't answer. Just ran a hand through his hair, staring at the floor.
"You don't have to agree." Raquel said. "But you have to back her. Even if she doesn't want your help. Especially then."
Across the hall, Nairobi sat on her bed, knees pulled to her chest. She wasn't crying. Not exactly. But the music, that music, was doing something to her bones. Goosebumps ran up her arms.
Valentina played as if conjuring ghosts. Maybe Berlin's. Maybe her own.
She lit another cigarette; her fingers trembled, just briefly, but the flame steadied anyway. She exhaled slowly, and whispered to no one: "Fine. Let's give them a show."
She stood, straightened her robe, and walked past the mirror in the hallway. She paused. Met her own eyes. Pale skin, dark circles, couture and chaos.
A bitch with purpose.
Just like Berlin.
But better.
Stronger.
Because this time, she wasn't going to die for nothing.
***
By morning, the living room had transformed into a war room.
Valentina was on the floor in silk pajamas and mismatched socks, surrounded by a fortress of monitors, printers, and printed photos. Her hair was tied in a messy braid; a landline phone with a scrambled VPN line blinked green beside her. A wall of the villa had been claimed by blueprints of the National Bank of Hungary, photographs of Hungarian police stations, maps of Budapest, scribbled notes, and facial recognition scans.
Everything Bogotá had "forgotten" to do, she was now doing alone.
She sipped espresso from a chipped BLACKPINK mug and muttered under her breath. Another printer came alive with a low mechanical purr, spitting out files on the Hungarian police's chain of command. Her highlighter pirouetted like a soloist; this was choreography, not chaos.
Her speakers blasted the epic orchestral version of He's a Pirate from Pirates of the Caribbean, filling the room with sweeping, cinematic tension.
She turned in her chair, glancing at the mirror she'd angled toward the piano.
"We're fucked, aren't we, tío?" She said, looking straight through her own reflection as if Berlin might answer from behind it.
She smirked, then stood, pacing with a cigarette between her fingers. Her eyes scanned the messy wall of data.
"If I have to go down…" She whispered to the ghost. "I'll go down with this ship."
She picked up a printed photo of a stern-faced woman with sharp cheekbones and intense eyes. She was half Hungarian, but half Asian; Vietnamese.
"Vivien Jelei." She said softly, tracing the edge of the photo. "The Hungarian cop who's likely going to lead the task force against us..."
A beat.
"She's kinda a bomb." Valentina tucked the photo into the corner of the mirror, so Berlin could see it too. "And dangerous. Definitely dangerous. The kind that ruins your life or saves it."
Then she smiled, sharp and tired, and whispered: "Let's dance, Budapest."
***
Sergio stepped into the room, barefoot and half-dressed, and stopped cold.
The living room was unrecognizable. Cables snaked across the floor. The printer hummed again. The entire wall was a battlefield of data and faces and names To Valentina, it wasn't chaos. It was a symphony warming up; each instrument tuning to her rhythm, waiting for her downbeat. It was terrifying and impressive.
Valentina, perched cross-legged on the couch with her laptop open and a cigarette burning in the ashtray, barely glanced at him.
"Are you high?" He asked cautiously.
She grinned without looking up.
"Not yet. Though I might need cocaine for this. Bogotá just gathered his kids and some crazy Balkans and Finns. No plan. No prep. Just vibes."
She leaned forward and tapped on her keyboard. A new blueprint rendered on the main screen.
"But it's my mess now."
Sergio exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck.
"God help us."
In the kitchen, Raquel leaned against the counter, sipping tea. Nairobi stood beside her, peeling an orange, listening to the soundtrack echoing from the other room.
Raquel raised an eyebrow.
"Pirates of the Caribbean?"
Nairobi smirked.
"She used to love that movie, remember? I guess she's turning it into a war theme now."
Raquel nodded, lips twitching into a smile.
"Fitting."
The music swelled. Valentina, backlit by monitors and shadowed by ambition, looked like a conductor before a storm; baton raised, silence trembling. It was getting hard to tell the difference.
But she was ready.
And she had chosen the battlefield.
***
From the kitchen doorway, Carolina pressed herself against Raquel's leg, small hands clutching at the fabric of her mother's jeans like a lifeline. Her wide eyes flicked between the living room, where voices were rising, sharp, panicked, and her mother's tight, pale face.
She tugged gently at Raquel's sleeve.
"Mamá..."
Raquel didn't look down. Her gaze was locked on Sergio and Valentina, voices clashing like swords in the other room.
Carolina tugged again, voice dropping to a whisper: "Mamá... is... is Hungary in... Eastern Europe, right?"
Raquel blinked. Her lips parted, confusion flickering for half a second before understanding hit her like a slap.
"Oh, Dios..." Her hand came up to her forehead, pressing there like she could physically hold her brain together; she suddenly remembered the unhinged tarot reading from months ago.
Carolina stared up at her, whispering faster now: "Because... because if it is... maybe... maybe the pretty lady is there. Remember? The one from the shells. The one for Valentina."
Her voice trembled; not with hope exactly, but with the frantic, desperate stitching of a child trying to make the pieces fit.
Raquel squeezed her eyes shut.
"Ay, Carolina..." She knelt, pulling her daughter into her arms, holding her so tight it almost hurt. "Please stop. Please... just... stop." Her voice broke. "You don't have to fix this. You can't fix this."
But Carolina's tiny hands fisted in Raquel's shirt.
"But what if I can?"
From the living room, Valentina's voice rose, sharp as a knife: "I said I'm not a child. Stop talking like I'm already dead."
Raquel buried her face in Carolina's curls, wishing, for just one second, that the universe would stop spinning.
***
The tablet screen glowed in the dim light of Carolina's bedroom. The soft click-clack of her tiny fingers echoed as she typed, squinting at the autocorrected gibberish of words her brain had no idea how to pronounce.
"Hungarian dating site... women..."
"Pretty lady Hungary... girlfriend..."
"Lesbian dating Hungary..."
The search results blinked back at her, an explosion of confusing names with too many consonants and accents.
"Randivonal... Csajok és Pasik... PinkCupid..." She mumbled aloud, clicking the one with the most hearts in the logo. That had to be a good sign.
The registration page popped up.
Name: Carolina paused, biting her lip. She typed: Valentina.
Age: She hovered. Eighteen seemed rude. She typed Twenty. Nobody needed to know.
Location: She guessed and typed Budapest. Close enough.
Looking for: Woman.
Description: She stared at the blinking cursor. Then, her fingers started moving.
"Hi. My name is Valentina. I'm cool and very pretty. I like cats, music, and I'm a little bit sick but not contagious. I'm looking for a very nice lady who is pretty, probably scary but nice. Must like piano and books. Also maybe be from the shells. Please write back fast, it's important."
She clicked submit.
A wave of bright profiles flooded the screen. Smiling women, names she couldn't pronounce, bios that translated into strange poetry: "I like quiet mornings and loud laughter." "Looking for adventure and someone to read with." "I have a cat named Zsófi."
Carolina gasped.
"A cat... Valentina likes cats!" She clicked immediately.
Another profile:"I am an artist. Sometimes grumpy but loving."
"Scary but nice..." Carolina whispered. Perfect.
She scribbled the names in her notebook, a list titled in giant letters:
"PRETTY LADIES FOR VALENTINA"
Somewhere in the distance, the argument in the living room was still raging. Voices about heists, danger, and impossible futures.
But Carolina was too busy matchmaking. Because someone had to save her sister.
***
The next day Raquel bent down to pick up the pile of laundry from the floor, grumbling under her breath about socks that never matched and toys that somehow migrated into every room.
That's when her eyes caught the notebook.
Bright pink cover. Stickers peeling at the edges. The title scrawled across the front in thick, shaky marker: "PRETTY LADIES FOR VALENTINA"
Raquel blinked.
"Oh no..."
Carefully, cautiously, like defusing a bomb, she flipped it open.
Inside, written in blue pen and half-misspelled words, was a list. Names. Some with tiny hearts next to them. Others with question marks.
Katalin: has a cat named Zsófi. Likes quiet things.
Lilla: artist. Maybe grumpy but nice.
Anna: blonde but not scary. Maybe too nice???
Zsuzsi: scary but very pretty. Good.
Dóra: likes piano. Maybe her???
Next to each name were scribbled notes: "must like cats," "must not be mean," "can't be boring," "looks like the lady from the shells maybe."
A line was drawn under them, circled three times: "IF WE FIND HER MAYBE VALENTINA WON'T DIE."
Raquel sat down on the edge of the bed like someone had knocked the air out of her. Her fingers trembled as she flipped further; pages and pages of hand-drawn hearts, question marks, and little sketches of women holding cats or sitting at pianos.
A shaky laugh broke out of her chest, but it collapsed into something dangerously close to a sob.
"Ay, Carolina..." She whispered, wiping her eyes. "Mi amor... what are you doing?"
A shuffle of footsteps at the door.
Carolina stood there, frozen, wide-eyed, fingers twisting the hem of her shirt.
Raquel held up the notebook, not angry, just... shattered.
"Cariño... what is this?" Her voice cracked. "What... what are you doing?"
Carolina sniffed, lower lip trembling but trying to hold strong.
"I'm... I'm looking for her... mamá. The pretty lady. From the shells. From the cards. If... if we find her... then Valentina... won't..." Her voice broke completely. "She won't die..."
Raquel pressed a hand over her mouth, tears spilling before she could stop them. She pulled Carolina into her lap, arms wrapping tight around her tiny, shaking body.
"Oh, mi amor... oh, my brave girl..." Her voice dissolved into a whisper. "You shouldn't have to carry this..."
But Carolina buried her face in her mother's chest and whispered: "Someone has to."
And Raquel, for the first time in weeks, had no words left.