Still.
And I wait.
Not helplessly—never that.
My mind is already working, running through every step, every exit, every blind spot.
I mapped this place out from the moment I stepped into it.
Counted doors. Watched patterns. Learned the guards.
By the time darkness falls... I’ll be gone.
Chapter 14
ELENA
The stolen Fiat roared north out of Lombardy, engine screaming as I pushed it past one hundred forty kilometers per hour on the narrow two-lane highway.
Old habits really do die hard.
Five years of running had refined this instinct down to muscle memory—different cars, different plates, different borders, all blending into the landscape as though I had never passed through them at all.
This one belonged to a middle-aged man who had made the mistake of trusting routine.
He had left the engine idling outside a gas station in Como, keys still in the ignition while he stepped inside to pay.
A perfect opening.
I had slammed myself into the driver’s seat, shifted fast, and pulled away before the pump even had a chance to stop.
No plates swapped.
No time for that.
No room for error.
The road ahead stretched like a black ribbon cutting through pine forest and moonlit hills.
The air was crisp, cold enough to sting through the cracked window, carrying the scent of trees and distant water.
Switzerland was less than forty kilometers away.
Close.
Close enough to taste.
My fake Schengen passport—Italian identity, clean, flawless, embedded with a biometric chip that would pass any scan—was tucked inside the lining of my jacket.
I had memorized every detail of that identity.
Date of birth. Place of issue.
Every lie layered so precisely that even I could almost believe it.
Once I crossed, everything changed.
Zurich.
