Slow.Deliberate.Certain.
Every hair on my body rises.
No. Not now. Not here. Not after I finally did the one thing that might spare them.
I scan the street. A shuttered shop. A locked gate. An alley choking on trash bags and rancid water. No lights. No witnesses.
Of course.
“Keep walking,” I whisper to myself. “Don’t run. Don’t—”
The van edges ahead and stops.
Right in front of me.
Doors click open before it even settles.
Three men step out.
Not kids. Not junkies.
Boots. Gloves. Faces carved from stone. The men whose bodies already know how this ends.
My heart detonates.
The closest one moves toward me. Rain beads on his shaved scalp. His jacket falls open just enough to flash the crest stitched into the lining.
The crown.
The fist.
My father’s last sight.
I take a step back.
“Wrong girl,” I say, flat and brittle. “Try again.”
He smiles. It doesn’t touch his eyes.
“Pia Moretti,” he answers. “Giovanni’s little ghost.”
Ice floods my veins.
Run.
I spin.
I don’t make it in three steps.
An arm hooks my waist and rips me backward so hard I lose my breath in a broken cry. A gloved hand slams over my mouth,rubber and rain and sweat. I bite down. Taste it. Feel it give. He curses.
“Little bitch,” he hisses in my ear.
I fight—heel to shin, elbow to gut, nails tearing at his wrist. For one insane second I think I’m going to make it. My shoulder twists. Fire flashes down my arm.
Then, the third man steps into my view like he’s offering me a light.
White cloth between his fingers.
