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Because my name is not Rico Hunter.
My name is Enrico Morelli.
And I officially died six years ago.
3
ISABELLA
Every nerve in my body was on high alert the rest of the day. I half expected Rico to show up and drag me out of class so that he could interrogate me some more. But he didn’t. So I did what I have been doing since the day I got here. I faked my way through every lesson, making sure to never perform well enough to draw attention and never poorly enough to stand out either. Everything I did was average. Always average.
But as I sit in my car, driving away from Blackwater University and towards the city, my mind keeps drifting back to that encounter this morning with the officially-but-not-really-dead mafia prince.
After I bumped into him outside the swimming pool, I immediately gathered all the information I could about him. Turns out that that wasn’t as difficult as I had imagined. Every single person on this entire campus knows who he is. Or rather, they know who hepretendsto be. Rico Hunter.
When I first arrived, I did of course hear about the infamous Hunter brothers. That the eldest, Eli, who graduated this summer, is seriously unhinged and has very little impulse control. That Kaden is an absolute psycho who might actually give Eli a run for his money in the unhinged department. That Jace is the out-of-control wildcard who spreads chaos everywhere he goes. And that Rico is the quietly powerful one who keeps them all in check.
I knew all of that from day one.
What Ididn’tknow, however, was that Rico Hunter was actually Enrico Morelli, the heir to the Morelli mafia family who, according to all official documents, was killed along with his parents six years ago.
Tightening my grip on the steering wheel, I grind my teeth in annoyance at my own foolishness.
My decision to go straight home after class and to never interact with anyone outside my year really came back to bite me. If I had just seen him, even from a distance, I would’ve known immediately that it was him. But I hadn’t expected to find him here, of all places. Which, in hindsight, is probably the reason why he is here. Just like me.
Shaking my head, I turn a corner and drive down a quiet street towards a parking lot that I picked out beforehand.
At least I’m reasonably sure that he believed me this morning. Well,reasonably suremight be a bit of a stretch. But since he let me go and also hasn’t hunted me down today, Ihopehe believed me at least.
Slowing down, I drive into the parking lot. It’s only half full, so I park close to the exit and then turn off the ignition. I flick a glance up at the rearview mirror, meeting my own eyes. My blue-gray eyes.
Because Rico has now seen me with that eye color, I couldn’t go back to wearing my brown contacts. That would’ve been too suspicious. So I went to class without them today. Only a few of my classmates noticed that my eye color had changed, and when they remarked on it, I went with the simplest explanation. Brown eyes are more common, so I figured it would be a better color for an assassin, but wearing contacts every day has become too much of a bother. They accepted that explanation without issue.
Blowing out a breath, I shove open my car door and climb out. After locking the car behind me, I start down the street and through a slightly rundown part of the city. Houses with flaking paint stare me down as I walk.
I heave another sigh and shake my head at how complicated my life has suddenly become. Because of Rico. Or Enrico, I suppose. But calling him that feels… wrong somehow. Maybe because I am the one who killed that person six years ago. Or maybe because if I call him Enrico, even just in my own head, I’m practically admitting that the very average student Isabella Johnson, who knows nothing of the Morelli tragedy, is not real. And one of the most important aspects of getting away with lying is to believe your own lie. So, Rico it is.
Quiet voices drift up from the street ahead where people are walking. Before I can reach it, I turn left into a deserted alley instead. The golden afternoon sunlight barely reaches in here because of how narrow the path between the two buildings is. A few empty bottles lie discarded by the gray concrete wall on my right, and the entire place smells of spilled alcohol and piss.
No one ever comes here. Well, except for the drunk college kids who sometimes pass through here when they drink the town dry during their initiation week. Or some such thing. Since I have never actually attended a real university, I’m not sure what it is that they do. I simply scouted out the alley for a couple of weeks to make sure that it was as deserted as a place could get inside a busy city.
I check over my shoulder before walking up to the door that is set into the red brick wall on my left. There is no one in sight, so I quickly get out my lockpicks and pick the lock on the rusted metal door. The hinges creak slightly as I pull the door open and slip inside.
Daylight barely makes it in through the grimy windows, but it’s enough to illuminate the space in part at least. I skirt around a pile of broken wood and make my way towards the metal box at the back.
By my best guess, this place has been abandoned for years. It looks like someone started renovating it, hence the wooden planks and bag of plaster and the scattering of mismatched tools, but then ran out of money before the project could even get off the ground.
Crouching down in front of the decently sized box, I unlock the padlock I put on it and open the lid. A black duffel bag takes up most of the space inside. My go-bag.
I unzip it and push aside the stacks of cash and passports and ID cards until I can reach my encrypted cellphone.
After I let Rico live six years ago, I descended into an absolute spiral of mad panic. I knew what the others would do to me when the news broke that the parents had been killed but not the son. However, to my complete shock, all the news crews reported that both the parents and their sixteen-year-old son had been killed. But I still feared that the truth might come out one day, so I started building my own network and recruiting my own assets separate from the ones that were provided by the Hands of Peace.
Sitting back on my heels, I scoff quietly to myself at that name while I turn on the cellphone.
The Hands of Peace. As someone who was born and raised inside that cult, I know firsthand that the last thing they bring is fucking peace. All that they, all thatwe, have ever left in our wake is death and destruction.
The screen lights up. I scan my thumb print and then type in my password. It takes another few seconds for it to load. Once it’s finished, I find a notification on our dedicated messenger app. Just like I expected.
