Tears burned my eyes and I blinked rapidly to stop them from falling. “Thank you.” I reached into the envelope, hand sliding past the money to pull out the other items I had requested from Carmen. The passport felt heavy in my hand, filled with the possibilities of a new life. Flipping open the pages, I stopped when I came across a picture of my face staring back at me. This was taken months ago. My face was gaunt and hair shorter than it was now, the Mia of a past life. The details next to the image were completely fake. The name Mia Griffin would no longer belong to me and it would be easier for me to hide.
Carmen had assured me that none of this would be difficult for her to achieve. She hailed from a family of business moguls and had inherited more than a pretty face. Her skills, and that of her family, lay in technology and surveillance, and my survival was single-handedly thanks to her expertise. She’d almost relished in proving that there was more to her than the title of Emilio’s wife.
I stuffed the passport back into the envelope alongside the money, papers and tickets and looked up at her.
“It’s a shame,” Carmen said quietly, stroking the soft fluff of hair on Javi’s head. He had fallen asleep somewhere in our exchange with no concern for what was happening around him. “You were proving to be a good friend.”
“In another life,” I replied.
In another life, in an alternate timeline, my days would be filled with people I loved. My father would be alive and happy, there would be no deaths resting on my conscience, and I would not be embarking on this journey alone. But life had other plans and it did me no good to waste time away thinking of what could have been. I had to focus on my future, and that meant letting go of everything from my past.
“You truly weren’t meant for our world,” Carmen muttered sadly.
Every time I heard that phrase, my stubborn spirit wanted to prove them wrong. It wanted to dig its heels in and show them I could fit the mold as well as the rest of them. I wasn’t able to, though. I’d failed to keep a lid on my emotions and let grief coax me away, and although the pain had faded and the fog that once clouded my mind had lifted, the damage was irreversible.
Carmen stayed a while longer. Neither of us spoke any more about the envelope or its contents. Instead, she told me about the nightmare visit from her family and how Marcus De Salvo was due to get married in October. By the time Carmen left, following lingering hugs on the doorstep, the midday heat had shown some mercy and an unsettling feeling of anxiety and loneliness haunted my every move.
I swept my book off the coffee table and settled onto the couch again. A bag sat partially packed at the foot of my bed in the bedroom. In a few hours, I would fall asleep in this apartment for the last time before starting a new life. I pushed the thoughts from my mind and tried to focus on the words in front of me, but they grew blurry with unshed tears.
The sound of deep voices drifted through the paper-thin walls. Probably another tenant arguing with the landlord about a late payment. I blinked the tears away and shifted my position on the couch. It was increasingly difficult to be comfortable these days. Every sensation was heightened, and all my movements were a little slower. It wouldn’t be long before things returned to normal.
The voices outside suddenly ceased and then there was a sharp knock on my door. I froze at the sound and waited. This was not Carmen’s knock. It was heavier and had no rhythm.
“Stop!” Carmen’s voice came through the barrier.
My heart thudded in double time behind my breastbone and the hairs on my arm stood to attention.
“Force it open,” a deep voice demanded.
No. No. No.
I tossed the book to the side and pushed myself off the couch clumsily. I didn’t know who was outside with Carmen, but I didn’t want to find out. I scrambled toward the kitchen where the fire escape would make for a quick exit. As I made it to the doorway, the front door was kicked open, wood splintering with the force as the lock broke, and I wrapped my arms around myself protectively, unsure of what I was about to face.
“Mia?”
I opened my eyes slowly to be greeted with the familiar figure of Dante. My brain struggled to accept that he was standing in front of me after so long apart, but there was no denying it was him. Hair slightly disheveled, shirt partially untucked, Dante forever looked like he’d been in a rush to get to you, when the reality was he rarely hurried for anything that wasn’t food. He strode into the space and looked directly at me, his eyes moving from head to toe.
“Mia, I’m so sorry!”
Looking past Dante, I saw Carmen standing with a furious Emilio as she apologized. Behind them were a litany of men dressed in black, Gio absent from the small crowd, who were no doubt under Emilio’s orders. My head spun at the scene. This was it. This was how my life was going to end.
Dante’s disbelief brought my attention back to him as he said, “Are you pregnant?”
Chapter Four
Dante
“I’m grateful. You and Carmen are bound to be busy with Javier and the rest of the family.”
A phantom sickness had allowed me to travel down to Emilio following the news that he had figured out where Mia was. Lying to Luc was not something that I made a habit of, and lying to Vittoria made me pray that this would be worth the risk. If either of them found out what I’d been up to, then I could kiss goodbye to my life.
“Yes, well it seems my wife has managed to keep herself preoccupied, since she was obviously not busy enough with pregnancy and birth.” His words were tight and clipped with distaste. Seemed like Emilio and Luc both had a weakness for women who couldn’t care less about traditional protocol.
Carmen and Emilio had been an unlikely pairing that we’d all watched with a vested interest, like an accident that you couldn’t quite pull your eyes away from. Emilio with his criminal history had set his sights on a beautiful heiress and somehow locked her into our world, where she had flourished. Between the pair of them—the connections, the money—they were an untouchable golden couple. But the price Emilio paid was that Carmen did not fit perfectly into the mold that was set out for wives. She had her own plans and ambitions and it seemed as if everyone else be damned if they disagreed with her.
“Yeah, I can see that,” I agreed, not wanting to weigh in on the domestic situation. Alliances were difficult to keep without walking into the murky waters of marriage.
We watched quietly, twitching every time the door to the complex swung open to emit yet another tenant out into the sweltering summer heat. Just as my faith in Emilio started to waver, never to be voiced in his presence, the door opened again and this time a pram was pushed onto the street followed by the beautiful figure of Carmen and the hulking form of Giovanni.
