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Hopping on her toes, she exclaims, “Of course!”
I notice a notebook and pen in her hand and nod at them. She hands them to me.
“Here is my phone number. We can work out a time, so we can discuss your complete list of roles and responsibilities, benefits, and salary.” I hand the notebook back to her.
“Thank you.” She reaches out for a handshake.
I shake her father’s hand before heading to the car.
“That was a good call,” Bo says, walking next to me, looking proud.
“I have a good feeling about Lili,” I reply.
“Her father is a good man. Dedicated but not greedy or too ambitious. Nice work.”
I wink at him before getting into the back seat of the SUV with one of the Cosa Nostra soldiers in the driver seat. Nico insisted I take some of his men with me in case something went wrong. While I argued it would make me look weak, he wouldn’t budge, so we compromised, and they agreed to wait outside. Marriage.
I let out a breath as we drive off. I can’t believe it. Just a few months ago, I was just a college student, barely living and pretending to be somebody else. Now I’m the Triad leader, wife to the Cosa Nostra consigliere, and Anya again.
Grayson
Bacon sizzles. The aroma fills my kitchen as I pour myself a large cup of coffee. Between my odd hours at the bar, and all the time I spend training for my illegal underground fight matches, I bleed caffeine. I can’t stop working, though. I need the money the bar and my fights get me. Taking odd jobs as a P.I. or security guard to make ends meet, my body is going to shut down before I turn forty. You’d think after ten years of serving one’s country, you’d be afforded some sort of luxuries, but that’s not the case.
I’ve been waiting to hear about my application status with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I’m more than qualified, but they can be assholes sometimes. Once I get in, I’ll have a stable job with benefits.
Pulling the bacon off the griddle, I place them on my plate that already has eggs and toast on it and make my way to the dining table. I take a deep breath and open my laptop after avoiding it for weeks. I knew they weren’t going to answer my application right away, so I set it out of mind instead of obsessing over it. But now’s a good time to look, just in case. If they happen to email me, I don’t want to be a jackass and respond too late. That would just look bad.
I’m about to take a sip of my coffee when my hand stops midair as soon as I read the two pop-ups on my screen. I go to set my cup down, but I’m so out of it I miss the table entirely, and the glass shatters, coffee spilling everywhere. I’m in too much shock to care. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.
Two alerts I’d never thought I’d see in my life. One time-stamped two weeks ago, the day after I decided I’d boycott my laptop, and the second came in yesterday morning.
It didn’t matter how much I scoured the internet—there was nothing on them. For almost two decades, it was dead-end after dead-end. It was as if they never existed. I do rememberhername, though. I grew up hearing it all over the place. Working in the military and as a private investigator, you learn a few tricks. I was obsessed with learning about my roots. I set up alerts for certain keywords and names, but nothing ever came through, so I had forgotten that I’d even had those alerts enabled. Until now.
I didn’t know much, just her name, and she’s been dead for two decades. Or so I thought. Blinking my eyes, I make sure what I was seeing wasn’t a trick, but the subject lines remained:
SUBJECT: Anya Meilin Liu - Change of Status
SUBJECT: Anya Liu Mentioned Page Six Article
I click the first pop-up and there it was, blinking in big green letters:
Anya Meilin Liu Status: Alive
Anya Meilin Liu Name Change: Anya Meilin Liu-Delucci
Alive. This can’t be right. I open up the old database my old buddy from the military taught me how to hack. I’m not a genius hacker or anything, I just know the basics. A simple virus or firewall could lock me out, but it helps me with my P.I. cases, and it’s how I have access to the status change alerts. It wasn’t always legal, but I don’t get paid if I don’t get results, and I’m in no position to pass up funds.
I look her up in the database, and there she is. Everything that wasn’t there before. Where she grew up and went to school. It’s like I imagined her death and made it up in my head somehow. I scan the information they had on her. Born on October 17, 1997 in Chicago, Illinois. Private school. NYUandColumbia Law. Manhattan. Jesus. I definitely got the short end of the stick as far as lives go. No death certificate, truly as if it never happened. I notice one other thing, though. Her parents’ names are not listed as if they never existed, either, and she was born out of thin air.Interesting.
I remember there’s a second pop-up. I close out of the tab and open up the next one. There’s a link to an article from some gossip column. How did she go from nothing to being mentioned in a gossip column? Before I could analyze further, the headline and photo loads:
“New York’s Most Eligible Bachelor and Notorious Bad Boy Engaged”
Sorry, ladies. Nico Delucci, second-born son of global logistics magnate Giuseppe Delucci is officially off the market. If you live under a rock, the Delucci’s are one of the most influential and wealthiest families in the world. Boasting a combined familial net worth of $42.3 Billion, Nico doesn’t do too badly for himself, either, quickly becoming one of the hottest nightclub and restaurant chain owners in the country as well. We won’t mention their rumored ties to organized crime (oops!).
He’s been tight-lipped about his dating history though he’s rarely photographed with the same woman twice, so it’s safe to say this one played the field for some time. However, all of that is about to change. The happy couple just announced upcoming nuptials but aren’t sharing venue details or even a wedding date, though rumor has it the two eloped in secret months ago! According to a source close to the family, Mr. and Mrs. Delucci freaked out when they found out, so they’re holding what we can only assume will be the hottest event of the decade. Isn’t that romantic?
Who’s the lucky lady that stole the heart of our wet dreams and turned him into a one-woman man? Here is everything we know:
