1
EVA
I didn’t grow up wanting to be a single mother on the run. But it’s become my life over the last four years.
I cradle Mirabella, my three-year-old daughter, against my chest as she falls asleep in my bed.
My eyes dart to the window for the hundredth time tonight.
The curtains remain drawn, as they always are, but I imagine eyes peering through the narrow gaps, hunting us.
There’s no specific reason to think someone is watching. I haven’t seen or heard anything tonight.
But my life now requires that I assume there’s always someone lurking.
It’s what’s kept me alive for the last four years, and especially the last few weeks since the Bratva found me.
Mirabella stirs against me.
My beautiful girl.
So innocent.
Sometimes, I think I should have placed her for adoption. She doesn’t deserve to live like this, running from danger.
But I couldn’t let her go. She’s the only thing that gives me purpose. She’s the tie to the one time in my life I was happy, even as she’s the reminder of what I threw away.
Adriano.
His face materializes in my mind. The hardened enforcer of the Dante family who somehow softened when he was alone with me.
I remember his strong, yet gentle hands when they held me and the way his body curved protectively around mine.
The memory is sweet until I remember that I’m to blame for everything. If he knew what I'd done, how I'd lied, safety is the last thing he'd offer me now.
I’d know his full wrath, the complete devastation that he’s capable of.
I think of my father and how simple our lives were until the Bratva came. To save him, I had to do the unthinkable.
At the time, I knew the danger but was willing to risk it for my father. But Adriano complicated things. In the end, I lost my father… I lost Adriano… I lost everything, except my sweet Mirabella.
A soft creak breaks the silence.
My body freezes. That wasn't the building settling. Not the wind. No. That was the apartment door.
Someone's inside.
I clutch Mirabella tighter, her small body warm against mine as my heart rate skyrockets.
Another creak, closer now, followed by the unmistakable sound of careful footsteps.
My eyes scan the dark corners of the room, searching for escape routes, but there are none. I rise from the bed, angling my body to shield Mirabella as I move toward the closet.
The footsteps pause. A floorboard groans under shifting weight.
I press my lips to Mirabella's hair, inhaling her sweet scent. If this is it, if they've found us, I'll die before I let them touch her.
The intruder moves again, drawing nearer.
