I sit back. "Let me get this straight. I either become a glorified chatbot for the Italian Mafia, or I stop being myself completely. I vanish off the face of the earth."
"Unfortunately, that's the cost of what you saw. Of what it could expose."
"I didn't ask to see it," I protest for the millionth time. "I didn't ask to be here. I didn't ask for any of this."
"That doesn't matter to the people who want you gone," he says. "The ones who'd find you and use you against me. We've already gone over this time and time again. Your preference is irrelevant to their motivations."
My mind races, frantically searching for a third option, a loophole, anything.
There's nothing.
"And if I say no to both?" I ask quietly.
"You don't get a third option."
I close the folder. My hands are trembling, but I keep my expression neutral. Don't give him anything. Don't show him how much this shatters me.
"I need time," I say. I need time to think. To plot. To find a way out of this impossible choice.
“You have twelve hours. After that, the people watching this situation will stop asking me what I plan to do with you and will start making decisions of their own.”
“The Black Scorpion assholes?”
“Yes.”
I rise too, pushing my chair back with a soft scrape. My legs feel a little shaky, but I hold myself tall. "Thanks for the meeting. Super enlightening. I'll be in touch."
I walk back to my room, each step heavy.
He's right.
There's no option that gives me back what I had. The carefree, narcissistic life of QueenNikki. That girl is gone. She vanished on the Amalfi Coast. Never to be seen or heard from again.
But maybe, just maybe, I can make him think I've picked one of his options. Long enough to stall. Long enough to find a real way out. Long enough to rewrite this script. I need to do whatever is necessary to buy myself time.
He doesn't know the things I've gone through in my life. The things I've pulled myself out of to get where I'm at now.
I'm not ready to give up yet.
A cold resolve settles in my chest, replacing the fear.
I’ll play along. Smile on camera, post on cue. But behind the scenes? I’m writing my own damn script.
And spoiler alert, Rafe Valentino.
You’re not the hero of this story.
I am.
CHAPTER 10
RAFE
Enzo stands by the door, arms folded. He knows not to rush me, not when I'm in the midst of a crucial calculation.
I close the folder she barely glanced at, a thin file containing twelve pages of meticulously prepared documents: forged passport, vanished identities, clean numbers, curated lies. Her entire future, reduced to a collection of bureaucratic necessities. It's the 'exit plan', the simple, clean solution I'd devised for liabilities such as her.
"You think she'll take the bait?" Enzo asks.
