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All Giana Sorrentino had thought about for six years was getting her freedom. Now she finally had it, and to her horror, had learned that freedom was more terrifying than she could have imagined. It also seemed to change from day to day.
Today, freedom tasted like the sludgy, bitter grounds at the bottom of a cup of Turkish coffee and smelled like the salty air of Bodrum. Giana tipped her tiny cup back, swallowing the last of the cold dregs. The caffeine was a welcome jolt, a sharp smack of energy she needed in the sun-drugged lethargy of the afternoon. She set the cup down on the scarred wooden table of the beachside café, her gaze casually sweeping the promenade.
It was a habit ground into her bones, as reflexive as breathing. Scan and assess. Identify threats. Map escape routes. It was like a twisted game she had learned to play with herself.
Exit one: the crowded promenade, a maze of sunburned tourists, laughing locals, and kids screaming and eating ice cream. A chaotic escape, but a viable one.
Exit two: the narrow, bougainvillea-choked alleyway beside the café, leading back into the labyrinth of the old town. Abottleneck. A trap. Giana shook her head. That way was to be avoided.
See, Rodrigo? I was listening to your lectures.
The thought ofhisname was an unwelcome intruder, sharp and cold. She had pretended to ignore him when he had drilled safety lessons into her, but they had been drilled so often that they had become second nature, just like he hoped.
Fucking prick. He just had to be right about that, too.
Giana pushed Rodrigo's ghost away, something that was harder than it should have been, and focused on the screen of her laptop. Lines of pristine code shimmered in the shade of the faded blue awning. A clean build. A new identity. A digital ghost in the machine, untraceable and unburdened. This was her work now. Herlife. Building firewalls for clients who paid well for paranoia, and occasionally, tearing them down for kicks.
The feeling of satisfaction was almost as good as when she finished a painting, but that artistic, dreamer version of Giana had gone dormant within her.
She had passed art school with decent marks, but the passion had faded. She had been more focused on computers and getting free of the Colleoni family by the end of it. Now shewasfree, and she still couldn't bring herself to pick up a paintbrush. The Muse refused to visit her, no matter how much she pleaded.
Giana stretched her arms and looked out over the ocean. This was what she'd craved for 2,190 days. The right to sit in a public place without a shadow stitched to her heel. The freedom to wear a simple T-shirt and linen pants instead of the curated armor of a Colleoni pet. The luxury of being no one. Just a girl with a laptop, a killer view of Bodrum Castle, and a past she was trying to outrun.
A warm breeze drifted in off the water, carrying the enticing smells of grilled fish and the sweet, cloying smoke from a nearby shisha lounge. The murmur of Turkish, English,German, and Russian blended with the gentle lapping of waves and the screaming of gulls. It should have been paradise. Itwasparadise.
So why did she keep turning around and expecting to see a familiar dark figure?
You can't possibly miss that asshole. 'Miss' was probably too strong a word for it, but there was a sense of absence.
For six long years, Giana had been watched. Every moment. Every breath. Under Gabriella Colleoni's orders, she had been kept in a gilded cage forged from a mother's ruthless love for her sons, and a cold, calculated revenge for the death of her husband at the hands of Giana's reckless father.
Gabriella had needed to keep Giana alive and controlled. Giana was the last Sorrentino and a loose end that she hadn't killed because it gave her power.
The Colleoni Family maintained their powerful mercenary army with information, protection for hire, and occasionally, by finding things that wereunique.
Giana had heard whispers during her time as a pet. Gabriella's cryptic meetings with men who spoke of holy and heretical relics, grimoires, and other artifacts traded through their own version of the dark web.Magic.
Giana had never seen it herself, but she knew the Colleonis operated in a world where the impossible was just another business expense.
Gabriella had known that Giana would be useful to her one day, and she never got rid of anything of value. She had shackled Giana to her youngest son, Leo, in a betrothal that had been a lie from the moment the ring was slipped on her finger.
Leo was meant to be the charming, reckless, beautiful distraction for her, but it had backfired on Gabriella. Not only was Leo the assassin who had wiped out her family in a single night, but he was also gay.
He had told Giana both things when Gabriella had tried to make him play happy families. He made sure that Giana knew he would never touch her and that she would never be forced to touch him.
Gabriella Colleoni had cared about her youngest son's feelings about as much as she had cared about Giana's, which was not at all. The criminal underworld saw a power match that Gabriella needed for leverage against her competitors.
Leo had managed to get away after a while, even with two bullets from Gabriella, but she had kept up the lie that Leo and Giana were engaged when she learned that Leo had lived.
Giana was the only one who got stuck in a cage, and her true warden had never been Gabriella or Leo.
It had always been Rodrigo.
The eldest Colleoni brother. The silent one. The strategist. The marksman with eyes that saw everything and a stillness that screamed danger. He was the unseen presence that had haunted the edges of her life. Her shadow.
Il Mostrowas what he was known as in the criminal underground. All the Colleoni men were killers. Leo was their hacker and assassin, Dario was their charmer who could make you laugh before he cut your throat, and Rodrigo was the strategist, the heir, and the one they only let off the chain when they wanted complete annihilation.
