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I allowed myself to be pulled far from my parents’ bodies and into the warmth of my bed.
I swatted at the phone ringing on my nightstand and immediately silenced it as I rolled onto my back and sighed.
It didn’t surprise me that the dream had chosen today to come. I took a deep breath to calm the rage that burned through my chest as I considered the family who had destroyed mine—the man who had killed my father and the loss that had destroyed my mother. I’d spent years yearning to make his family suffer, and at long last, it was time. I could finally get my vengeance, and Rocco Guerra wouldn’t see it coming.
Nobody would expectmeto destroy the Guerra empire.
***
I sifted through my purse to triple-check that I hadn’t left anything incriminating. I’d done the same with my car before leaving the compound. I thought back on how I’d replaced theplates, removed nearly a dozen concealed weapons, and cleaned everything thoroughly.
If I was going to go undercover, I wouldn’t leave anything to chance. I’d make my story as believable as possible.
I would do my job well—taking on the persona of a carefree and lighthearted woman that had little to worry about in this life. That was how I was going to fool them all into believing I was no threat. Putting aside everything that I’d been forced to become, including the burn of hatred that shoved down my throat each time I considered the Guerra family, I took a deep breath, and just like that, I was an ordinary New York woman going for a walk.
I strode two blocks down the street, eyeing the disposable phone I’d used to track him. When I neared the end of the block, I tossed the phone into a garbage can next to one of the busiest bodegas in the city—burying it under the already filled brim to make it less conspicuous.
I peeked into my purse as I turned down the alleyway, acting as if I was looking for something inside. Ahead of me, a group of men gathered together as they stood over something crumbled on the ground at their feet.
I acted as if I noticed nothing as I continued forward, sighing heavily to myself.
“Damnit,” I whispered under my breath. I knew this was about to get messy, even if I was going into this prepared.
Once they spotted me, they’d see a ditsy woman who didn’t have an inkling of her surroundings—caught in the crosshairs of a situation gone bad.
They saw what I wanted them to see.
I finally looked up, my steps slowing to an immediate halt as I made a show of taking in the scene before me. Blood ran from one man’s lifeless corpse. Another man sat on his knees before three towering men.
I didn’t miss the gun that one of the men hid beneath his clothes as I approached.
I wanted to laugh. What a fool. My eyes drifted to the man who stood to the left, and I recognized his dark face, even from beneath the shadow of his hood. He was the one I was here for.
Dante Guerra.
It took everything inside me to hide the rage within.
He didn’t even have the decency to show recognition in his eyes. His father had killed mine for a senseless vendetta, and he’d been targeting my stepfather since the day his own father went to prison, yet he had no idea who stood before him.
Pathetic.
“I—” I stumbled over my words intentionally, taking a slight step back out of feigned surprise.
I gave them time to see what I planned to do next, shifting a glance over my shoulder before waiting a moment and turning. I allowed my feet to stumble beneath me as I took off toward theentrance to the alleyway. It took only seconds before I felt the telltale breeze of someone at my back.
Rough hands grabbed the back of my shirt and whipped me backward, turning me and lifting me from my feet. I kicked, putting on the show of a lifetime as I opened my mouth to shout, but another hand covered my mouth as I allowed myself to be carried back into the depths of the alleyway.
I screamed into his hand.
I kicked back in the way an untrained woman might.
I “fought” the same way I would have before learning all the ways to fight and kill a man properly.
When he threw me down against the rough stone wall, I felt it pierce into my cheek and ground my teeth. I breathed through the shock of pain—needing to center myself as I stayed calm. Collected.
Control was the key to getting this situation to turn the exact way I wanted it to, but as the thin rivulets of blood ran down my cheek, I couldn’t contain the fury that had been simmering at the surface for years. At these men who were mere murderers disguised as simple gangsters.
I couldn’t get the image of my father’s dead body out of my mind. I couldn’t stop reminding myself of who had been responsible.
