I settled into my chair and pulled up the camera diagnostics, fingers flying across the keyboard with practiced ease. The familiar click of keys grounded me as I scanned the feeds, looking for the problem. Again. I'd reset the damn thing twice already and it still wouldn’t show shit.
My body still hummed with adrenaline from earlier. Sabine's shocked face flashed in my mind—her wide eyes when I'd kissed her, the way her breath caught when Kara stepped in behind her. I could still feel her pulse racing under my fingers.
"It was necessary," I muttered to myself, isolating the camera feed and running a deeper diagnostic. "She needed to understand."
The system returned an error code. I frowned, digging deeper into the hardware specs. Sabine had looked so terrified between us, but she hadn't broken. Even with her world crashing down around her, learning I was Domenica Bellante, she'd held my gaze.
I glanced at the monitor showing her bedroom. She was sitting on her bed, propped up on pillows, reading a book
"Focus," I told myself, returning to the camera issue. Kara had known exactly what I needed without words. We'd done this before, shared women. It was nothing new. Nothing special.
The diagnostic finally pinpointed a hardware failure. I grabbed a replacement module from the drawer, relieved to have something concrete to fix.
But Sabine's scent lingered on my skin, and I couldn't shake the feeling that this time, I might have broken something I couldn't repair.
My eyes flicked back to the monitor showing Sabine's bedroom. The fingers of one of her hands traced the hem of her nightgown. My throat tightened.
Why her? Because I couldn't trust a soul in my family's world. Moles everywhere. The cops were bought. The FBI had leaks. I'd seen it firsthand when my father got tipped off about raids three times in one year.
I needed someone clean. Someone already circling the truth.
When I first spotted Sabine at a press conference, firing questions that made my brother Lorenzo sweat, I knew. I watched her for weeks after that. Followed her to coffee shops where she interviewed sources. Tracked her bylines. Read everything she published. Her persistence, her intelligence, her refusal to back down—all of it confirmed what I already knew.
She was perfect.
I set up this safe house long before her article went live. Assembled my team. Created contingencies.
The camera feed was still dead, and I forced myself to focus on the diagnostics again. My brother’s Scorpions were hunting her. If they found her, they would kill her, but not until they'd extracted every piece of information first. They'd want the name of her source. They'd want my name. I couldn’t have that.
My stomach churned. The fear tactics with Sabine were necessary. Better to fear us enough that she stayed put, far away from the Scorpions. I told myself it was practical concern, nothing more.
They would never suspect me anyway. The baby sister. The grieving daughter who still visited her mother's grave every Sunday. I was hiding in plain sight on my mother’s favorite property, using my father's own training against him. The irony almost made me smile.
My father had taught me everything, thinking I'd protect the family. And I had, until he betrayed my mother. When they killed her, I knew I wouldn’t rest until Matteo and the Bellante family’s crimes were exposed. I had become better than any of them. Better than what the military taught my team. My brothers wouldn't look in my direction until it was far too late.
I met Kara, Ellie, and Cam when we all enlisted fresh out of high school. They were raw talent, but I'd already been trained since I could walk. My father made sure of that. While they sweated through basic, I noticed things they missed, corrected their form when the drill sergeants weren't looking. I showed them how to disassemble a rifle blindfolded because that's how my brothers taught me.
I could have shown them how to flay the skin off a man too, but somehow we’d never gotten to that.
They went Special Forces together. I finished my service and returned to the family business, watching them from afar.
Years later, when Kara started her security company, I knew exactly who I wanted protecting me. The Bellante money paid their salaries, but my father never questioned it. "Smart girl," he'd said, patting my cheek. "In this family, we protect our assets."
I learned that lesson better than he had, I guessed.
Kara became more than my second-in-command. She was the first person who saw me, not just the Bellante princess. The night I told her my plan to bring down my family, she didn't hesitate. "We're in," she said, speaking for all of them.
The diagnostic finally pinpointed the issue with the camera. I replaced the blown component, and the feed flickered to life. The south gate appeared on screen, clear and secure. A small victory.
I stood and stretched, feeling the familiar weight of responsibility settle back onto my shoulders. These women were my real family now. I wouldn't fail them.
I padded into the living room at two in the morning, expecting emptiness. Instead, I found Cam crouched on the Italian carpet that had cost more than most cars. A scraggly calico cat lay curled beside her while three kittens tumbled across the floor like animated dust bunnies.
"Come on," Cam murmured, her voice softer than I'd ever heard it. She held out a can of tuna, patient as the smallest kitten batted at it suspiciously.
I leaned against the doorframe, watching. The black and gray ink covering her forearms shifted as she carefully scooped tuna onto her finger for the hesitant kitten. Her long black hair fell forward, obscuring her face, but I caught the gentle smile that would have shocked anyone who'd seen her break a man's jaw last month.
One of the bolder kittens attacked her bootlaces while another scaled her leg like a mountain. I lowered myself to the floor nearby. The little orange kitten abandoned the tuna quest and approached me, tiny claws catching onmy tactical pants as it climbed into my lap. Its fur tickled my palm as I stroked it automatically, and a rumbling purr vibrated against my fingers.
