Friday, 22:00. Room 4B.
Security Rotations: 15-minute intervals. Back entry codes attached.
My breath hitches. This isn't just a status report. This is a blueprint for an assassination. He wants me to hand him the Brotherhood leadership on a silver platter. He wants me to kill the man who is currently sleeping in the next room.
Then I open the second file.
It’s a video. My heart stops.
The footage is grainier than the last one, taken from a hidden camera in our family home in Sicily. It’s Laura. She’s playing with her dolls on the rug in the sunroom. She looks so small, so innocent, her dark curls bouncing as she talks to her toys.
But beneath the footage, there’s an overlay. A red dot—a real-time GPS tracker—pulsing right over her heart. And below that, a countdown clock.
72:00:00…71:59:59…
Oh God. No. No, no, no.
I drop the phone onto the rug as if it’s white-hot. I’m hyperventilating, the air in the room suddenly feeling like it’s being sucked out by a vacuum. My vision blurs, the red dot on the screen burned into my brain like a brand.
He’s tracking her. He’s showing me exactly where he’ll strike if I don't cooperate. He’s not just motivating me anymore. He’s counting down to her death and I’m sitting here falling in love with the target.
"Laura," I whisper, a sob breaking free. "I'm so sorry, Sweetie Pie. I'm so sorry."
I scramble for the phone, my hands slick with cold sweat. I delete the files, my thumbs flying over the screen in a panic. I can't look at it anymore. I can't see the red dot over her heart.
I have to do something. I have to give him something, or he’ll pull the trigger. But if I give him the summit details, Rafael will die. Everyone will die. And I'll be the one who pulled the trigger.
I pace the room, my mind a frantic, jagged mess.
Think, Gia. Think. Give him a crumb.
I pick up the phone again. My heart is a drum in my ears, echoing the countdown on the screen.
Summit location confirmed: Villa d'Este. Timing delayed by two hours due to security sweep. Entry codes being updated. Will provide new ones once verified.
It’s a small lie. A delay. It’s not much, but it might buy her a few more hours. It might stop the clock from hitting zero.
I press send and collapse onto the couch, pulling my knees to my chest. I’m terrified. Of my father, for my sister, and terrified of the man sleeping in the next room—the man I’m currently betraying with every breath I take, even as I crave the heat of his skin against mine.
I love him. And I’m leading him right into a grave.
I stay there in the dark, watching the door, waiting for the world to end.
CHAPTER 32
GIA
"Honestly, Isabella, I was expecting Enzo to teleport and snap that guy’s neck," Bianca giggles, her voice bouncing off the marble walls of the foyer as we spill into the house. Her shopping bags clatter against her shins, the expensive tissue paper rustling with every step, but she’s too busy laughing to care about the luxury she’s swinging around.
Isabella adjusts her sunglasses, a smirk playing on her lips as she kicks off her designer pumps. "The poor boy was just trying to give me a loyalty card. He didn't realize that in this family, 'loyalty' has a very different price tag. And a much higher body count."
"He was definitely staring," Alessia adds, leaning against the archway as she unzips her boots. She looks refreshed, the afternoon sun having brought a glow to her face. "I saw him check out your ring."
"He was brave," I chime in, trying to shake off the lingering chill of the morning that always seems to follow me like a stray dog."But that is just another word for not knowing you're about to die. Or at least get your jaw re-arranged by a jealous Sicilian."
We all laugh, a bright, defiant sound that feels like a shield against the heavy, oppressive silence of the estate. But the laughter dies a quick, quiet death the moment we round the corner into the main salon.
The men are already there. It’s like a tableau of concentrated power and possessiveness.
