Maybe I could rent a place cheap enough not to impact my budget too much and further delay my dreams of opening my own vet clinic.I also have to pay back my student loans as fast as possible.Unlike Chiara, I don’t have a trust fund waiting for me and I have to scrape for every dime.This is also the reason I endure staying at my father’s house.At least he isn’t expecting me to pay any rent.
He merely tolerates me while Daria loathes me, but I endure.I know that one day I can leave it all behind like a bad dream and start living my real life.The life fate has intended for me.
The car pulls up in front of the Bianchi mansion’s gate and I get out, thanking the driver.
I greet the guard at the gate and walk inside.I head straight to the shower, needing to wash away tonight’s events.I’m chilled to the bone, my hands won’t stop trembling and the champagne I drank is crawling up my throat.
It feels like hours of scalding water pouring over me until I feel better enough to walk out and wrap myself into a soft towel.My body is numb but at least the chill has subsided
I stand over the sink, my eyes unseeing, my mind blank.
Despite the warm air lingering from the shower in the bathroom, shivers run down my spine.Tonight I encountered the devil, and even though on the outside nothing has changed, I sense that my life has taken a turn today.
What have I gotten myself into?
From the rumors I’ve heard about how things go in thefamiglia, I shouldn’t have been able to walk out of that office alive.You can’t witness what I saw and walk away, pretending to forget.I crashed into the shadows, and now I have nowhere to hide from the monsters lurking in the darkness.
After a while, I wipe the fog off the mirror with my shaky hand and take in the reflection looking back at me.The woman in the mirror looks haunted, her pale skin making her eyes look huge, underlining the shadows underneath.
This woman is me… I am her.
‘Run, Lily.’
“I got this,” I whisper, trying to find new resolve in the mirror.
Chapter Four
Damiano
Matteo, my enforcer, walks into the room and takes in the body on the floor.He looks up at me and frowns.
“Did he say anything?”
I run my hand through my hair with a frustrated sigh.“Not much.Said he was contacted by phone, didn’t know the fucker who called him.Payment went through an offshore account, no doubt untraceable.”
Luc chimes in, “He blabbered about a warehouse.Had to drive a van from a warehouse on the docks to an abandoned house downtown.But that’s it.He was asked to stay inside and not to look out.Says he saw nothing.He just assumed that there were women in the back of the van from the sniffling and crying he heard.I will have men pay those two places a visit.”
Teo lets out a breath.“Goddammit!How can they move around like ghosts right under our nose?”
I keep asking myself the same damn question, over and over.It’s been a month, four weeks of chasing shadows, running in circles, grasping at scraps of intel that lead nowhere.We follow every lead, every whisper, and still come up empty.Girls are vanishing off our streets, young, innocent, gone without a trace.One moment they’re here, the next they’re ghosts.And we have no fucking idea where to look.They are being taken right under our noses…and we are no closer to the truth than when we started.
“It has to be the Mancini,” Luc seethes.“They are acting shady as fuck and they have ties with the Bratva.”
I shake my head.“Without proof, there is nothing we can do.Confronting them now would let them know we are investigating them.Let them get bold.They will eventually slip up and then we can take them out.”
I go on, “Luc, you investigate the warehouse and the drop-off location.Teo, I want you to look at every transaction on this fucker’s account and through his phone.Put your men on the surveillance cameras on the streets, there has to be footage of the van.Fuck, set up cameras on the places in case they come back.”
I look with disgust at the form on the floor and my mood sours even more.A perfectly nice jacket ruined.
“And have a team clean up this mess.”
They both nod grimly and file out.
My gut tells me it has to be one of the families.A traitor is among us.They have always been a step ahead of us.Every time we thought we were closing in on them, we grasped fucking air.
Could it be the Mancini?They have been our rivals for generations.They resent the fact that the Santaluccia are at the head of the Boston families, and they never hide their contempt.Couldn’t I just wipe them out?I let out a breath.Contempt is not reason enough to wipe out a family, unfortunately.Why can’t things be that fucking easy?
My mind drifts back to those green eyes, brave and unblinking.Lips full and soft-looking, made to tempt.Her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths, drawing my attention like a magnet.But it wasn’t just the body.It was the fear in her gaze…laced with defiance.
