Me: Thanks for waking me up. I'll be there. Don't text back; I'm going back to sleep. My phone is off.
I knew she would respond anyway. My mother could never resist having the last word. So, I did just what I said I would. I turned off my phone and watched the city lights blur past the window as we drove toward my apartment.
The divide in my life had never felt sharper than at that moment. In a few hours, I would wear a designer gown, have my hair perfect, my makeup flawless, and sit in a box seat at the Symphony Center while musicians played Tchaikovsky or Mahler. And my arm would throb beneath my dress, a secret reminder of who I truly was.
I closed my eyes and let the exhaustion wash over me.
The city will wake up to news of the Esposito massacre. Speculation would run rampant. And I will smile calmly through it all, just another pretty face in a world full of pretty faces.
But in the shadows, where I truly lived, my legend would grow.
CHAPTER 2
NICO
Pops of gunfireat four in the morning are never welcome, but after staying up all night, it didn't feel as sudden. The sound bounced off the warehouse walls and echoed through the empty streets, carried on the wind whipping between buildings. I stood at the monitor inside the surveillance truck, my breath visible in the cold air despite the heat from the surrounding equipment. This wasn't a Venosa fight. If the chance came, we'd join, sure, but then nobody would be safe.
As we watched the carnage unfold on the hacked cameras, I was struck by how organized and swift everything was. The feeds showed multiple angles of the warehouse, green-night vision capturing every move and each body that fell. I had sensed something different about the Carminatti family, but this eerie coordination and meticulous planning intrigued me. This wasn't the sloppy, rage-driven violence we expected from Vincent's crew. This was something entirely different.
"Hey, boss, something interesting is going on." Antonio walked through the door of the surveillance truck my men had parked down the block to watch the situation. Cold air rushed in with him, making the monitors flicker for a moment. Snowdusted his shoulders and clung to his dark hair. He was my right hand, my underboss, and the only person I trusted with everything.
"Anto, the Carminattis are taking out the Espositos with ease and almost grace. What could be more interesting than that? These fuckers have been a pain in my neck for years, and we don't need to lift a finger to take them down." I gestured at the screens showing the systematic elimination of our mutual problem. Bodies littered the warehouse floor like discarded toys. I loved Antonio like a brother, but sometimes he needed to focus more.
"No, Nico, look." He threw a tablet onto the desk in front of me, the device hitting with a solid thunk that made Giuseppe glance over nervously. "Watch that one." He pointed to a figure dressed in all black on the screen, his finger leaving a smudge on the glass.
I leaned forward, narrowing my eyes at the feed. Whoever it was, was noticeably smaller than the rest of the crew, not just in height but in build as well. The difference was stark as they moved past the other men, like a fox among wolves. The tiny figure moved with stealth, purpose, and grace. They resembled a dancer—sure-footed but capable of sudden violence. Every step was deliberate; every movement efficient. No wasted motion. No hesitation. As the gunfire shifted to sporadic pops and the chaos wound down to its inevitable end, the person stood and surveyed the carnage.
I moved closer to the screen, my eyes capturing every detail. The figure's tactical gear fit differently than the others, tailored in a way that made me pause. I watched the small man walk up to Diego Esposito and say a few words to him, leaning in as if he were sharing a secret, leaving a shocked expression on Diego's face before he dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
"Do we have ears in there?" I demanded, frustration seeping into my voice. We needed to hear what was said, to understand what could make a man look that shocked in his final moments.
"No, boss," my tech guy said without looking away from the screens he was staring at, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he tried to enhance the feed.
Whoever this was didn't leave the shadows. They melted back into them, as if they belonged there, as if darkness were their natural habitat. They stayed along the wall, out of the sight of most of the men in their own family. This person just took down the head of a family, and nobody seems even to know they're there. The other Carminatti soldiers moved around the warehouse, checking bodies, collecting weapons, completely oblivious to the killer in their midst.
I noticed the person's silhouette, and something clicked in my mind. That wasn't a man. The hips were too wide, the waist too narrow, and men didn't have a backside like that. I recognized that shape from my dreams. I'd been imagining it for the past year, creating fantasies around a woman I'd only seen from across crowded rooms.
When everyone but one man remained in the warehouse, the last two standing among the carnage lifted their hands and pulled the hat and mask off. Long, flowing brown hair tumbled down their back, catching what little light filtered through the warehouse windows, and my gaze narrowed on the person. The color reminded me of dark coffee, rich and warm against the cold industrial backdrop.
It was her.
My breath caught. The woman I'd been obsessing over, the mystery I'd been trying to solve, was standing in the middle of a massacre she'd orchestrated.
Looking up at Antonio, I raised my brow, and he nodded. His expression showed a mix of vindication and concern. "So,we've been right all along." It wasn't a question, but he nodded anyway, crossing his arms over his chest.
Turning my attention back to the screen, I couldn't look away. I watched the large man touch her arm and take something off the wall. The first aid kit, I realized. When he returned to her, he touched her gently, and my blood boiled. The way his massive hands moved over her arm was careful and familiar. How dare he put his hands on my woman? The possessiveness surprised me with its intensity. I clenched my jaw and forced myself to stay in the chair I was in, my knuckles white where I gripped the armrests.
When she turned, I saw a red streak down her arm, dark against her skin even in the grainy feed. She'd been hit. The sight of her blood made something primal twist in my gut. Methodically, he bandaged her arm, and whatever he said to her made her mad, because her facial expression changed from easy to tight, and I watched her clench her fist before she turned to the door. Even injured and angry, she moved with that same deadly grace.
"Giuseppe, that's all for the night. Take it home." I patted the man to my left on the shoulder, pulling myself away from the screen with effort. He was the tech guy on my team, and I knew he would meticulously wipe the drives of this vehicle and any others in the area. We'd been here, but there would be no evidence of it.
"Let's go, I have some research to do," I said as we left the truck and moved further up the street to my waiting SUV. The cold hit me immediately, snow swirling in the wind between buildings. If she'd occupied my dreams before, I would be an obsessed man now. The image of her standing over Esposito's body had already seared itself into my brain.
"What are we going to do, boss?" Antonio asked as he slid into the seat beside me, shaking snow from his coat. The interiorof the vehicle was warm, with heated leather seats fighting the December chill.
"We aren't going to do anything," I said, turning to look at him, my voice tinged with a warning edge.
“A woman is running the family, Nico. Forget that she's a woman. Nobody told you they had a new boss. Clearly, we've known but couldn't prove it. Now we can. We need to act.” His voice was strained, and I could tell he was trying his best not to show his irritation. His jaw was tight, his hands clenched on his knees. We had ways to handle this, and he wasn't wrong. This had to be fixed. The families had rules and protocols. She'd broken all of them.
