Chapter 1 1.

Elena Moretti

Elena is tied to an armchair, blindfolded and gagged. She is confused but remains calm.

Her captors used a thick, suffocating fabric that smelled of damp concrete and old motor oil. All she could see was darkness though not absolute.

Elena’s breath came in ragged, shallow hitches, each one caught by the coarse grit of the cloth tied between her teeth.

She tried to move her wrists. But the bite of the plastic zip-ties was immediate, digging into her skin until it felt like her pulse was hitting a wall.

How? The word screamed in her mind.

All she could remember was being at the gala, the flashbulbs that burned into her retinas. She remembered the smell of expensive perfume, the weight of the silk gown, and then the sudden, icy shock of a hand over her mouth in the parking garage.

"Is she awake?" A voice echoed through the room. It sounded with grave interest or none at all.

"Does it matter?" another replied. The voice sounded younger than the first.

"The boss is on his way. He wants to collect his debt tonight."

Elena’s heart hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. The debt? She was a journalist and a public face. She surely didn’t owe anyone anything.

"Check the ID again," the first voice said. "The informant said our target would be wearing a red dress."

"She’s wearing red, isn't she? Look at the heels. Those cost more than my car. It’s her."

Elena shook her head violently, and the movement was muffled by the blindfold. She made an attempt to scream, but only a low, desperate hum escaped her throat.

“You have the wrong person. Please, look at me.”

Twelve hours earlier, her world had been different.

Elena sat in the back of a black town car, scrolling through her feed. Her own face stared back at her. Emma Moretti: The Voice of Florence. It was a title she had worked years to earn… a shield of respectability to hide the cracks of a crumbling childhood.

"You’re overthinking the interview, Em," her best friend, Lucia Santino, said from the seat beside her. Lucia was fiddling with the clasp of a gold necklace. "Please…Just put this on. It’s for luck, please…for me."

Elena looked at the delicate chain. It had a small, heavy pendant. "I don't need luck, Lucia. What I need is a source who isn't afraid of their own shadow."

“Who isn't afraid of the truth.”

"Just wear it. For me."

Elena sighed, turning around to let Lucia clip the necklace around her neck. Little did she know that the pendant held a GPS chip, a safety measure Lucia had insisted on ever since Elena started digging into the city’s local corruption.

"My father called again today," Elena said, her voice dropping.

Lucia paused. "Did you answer?"

"No. I haven't talked to him in three years. Not since he gambled away the last of my mother’s inheritance. He’s a ghost, Lucia and really I want him to stay that way."

Elena had spent her life running from the shadow of a man who broke everything he touched. Poverty had been a cruel teacher, but it had made Elena very sharp. She had built a life out of nothing, a pristine, public life where no one knew about the bruises of her past or the nights spent hiding under kitchen tables while debt collectors pounded on the door.

"Tonight is about the foundation," Elena whispered, more to herself than Lucia. "Nothing else."

But as she stepped out onto the red carpet at the Palazzo Pitti, she hadn't noticed the black van idling at the edge of the light and neither had she noticed the men watching the woman in the red dress.

The heavy metal door at the back of the basement groaned open and the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"He’s here," a younger voice whispered.

She heard the footsteps of someone approaching. They were heavy, deliberate, and carried the weight of absolute authority. Elena felt the air shift as someone stopped directly in front of her.

Then suddenly, a cold hand with gloves reached out. Her blindfold was ripped away.

Elena blinked a couple of times, her eyes stinging from the sudden overhead bulb. She looked around a little and confirmed that she was in a warehouse somewhere.

Through the blur, she saw him. She saw a man quite older than her but he looked younger than she expected, with features carved out of granite and eyes the color of a winter sea. He wasn't a thug but a predator in a tailored suit.

He looked down at her, his expression unreadable. Then, he looked at the man standing to his left. Elena looked around once more and saw a terrified girl slumped in a second chair, one she hadn't seen because of the darkness.

"Which one is it?" the man in the suit asked. His voice thundered.

"The one in the red, Don Romano," the gravelly-voiced man said, pointing at Elena. "She's the debtor’s daughter."

Salvatore Romano leaned down, his face inches from Elena’s. He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look at him. He studied her face carefully

“Why does she look familiar, like I've met her before?”

“This mark on her chin makes it more believable.”

"You," he said quietly. "What is your father’s name?"

Elena struggled against the gag and he ripped the cloth away.

Elena gasped, coughing as air flooded her lungs. "My name is Elena Moretti," she hissed, her voice raw. "I don't know who you've mistaken me for but you’ve made a mistake. A massive, public mistake."

Salvatore Romano's eyes widened at such audacity. He pulled a photograph from his inner pocket and looked at it, then back at Emma. A small, dark smile touched his lips.

He turned his gaze to the other girl. She was way younger, perhaps nineteen, wearing a cheap crimson cocktail dress. She was already sobbing uncontrollably.

"Please," the girl wailed. "My father... he said he would get the money! Please, Mr. Salvatore!"

Salvatore didn't even look at the girl but turned at his subordinate. "You were told to bring me the daughter of the man who stole from me and you brought me a journalist."

"Boss, we saw the dress—"

"You didn't look at the face?," Salvatore asked. He turned back to Elena with his hand still firmly on her jaw. "Do you happen to know who I am, Elena Moretti?"

"I know you’re a murderer," she spat, though her knees were shaking.

"I am a man of my word," Salvatore corrected. He stood up straight and pulled a silver pistol from his waistband.

Elena’s breath hitched. "No…please, Wait."

Salvatore didn't hesitate, he turned to the sobbing girl in the cheap red dress.

"Your father was warned," Salvatore said.

Bang.

Elena screamed, very terrified. The girl slumped forward, falling down in death. Blood pooled on the concrete, reaching toward Elena’s heels.

Elena closed her eyes, her entire body convulsing. "Oh God. Oh God."

"Open your eyes," Salvatore commanded.

"No," she sobbed.

"I said..Open them!."

She opened them, her vision swimming with tears. Salvatore was standing over her, the barrel of the gun still warm. He used the tip of the weapon to lift her chin back up.

"She was the daughter of a thief," Salvatore said. "You, however, are a complication."

“But she didn't do anything wrong”

"You should think about yourself first. I can't let you go alive…You’ve seen my face and you've witnessed my work."

"I’m a public figure," she pleaded. "People will be looking for me. My friend... she knows."

Salvatore reached out and brushed a stray hair from Elena’s forehead. "Then I suppose I should make you comfortable…Miss Moretti.”

He turned to his men. "Clean this mess up. Bring this woman to the estate, lock her in the north wing."

"What about the press, Boss?" the younger man asked. "She’s all over the news."

Don Salvatore looked at Elena one last time. There was a flicker of something in his eyes it was absolutely not mercy, but something that looked like curiosity.

"Let them talk," Salvatore said. "By the time they find her, I i would have put her exactly where she belongs."

He turned and walked toward the door.

"Wait!" Elena shouted, her voice breaking. "Why are you keeping me? If I'm not her, why keep me?"

Salvatore stopped at the door, his shadow stood tall and imposing against the harsh light of the hallway. He didn't turn around.

"Because, Elena Morett—i,"

Don Salvatore's phone rang.

“Boss, we've picked a trail on the next debtor, the one that betrayed your family years back.”

“He's outside the city, his name, Michael Moretti and we've gathered enough info on him.” the person on the other side of the line said holding a file.

“Sure, prepare my Van because we have a visit to

pay.”

Wait—

“What did you say his name is again?”

“Michael Moretti, sir” Rafaelle” Rafa” De luna repied.

“Michael Moretti” Don Salvatore shouted out loud.

“M—Michael?” Elena’s eye shone.