Chapter 4

Chapter 4

ADRIA

My twin brother's voice nearly shattered my eardrum. I held the phone away from my ear, wincing.

"Hi, Adrian. Nice to hear from you too."

"DON'T YOU 'HI ADRIAN' ME! You disappear for eighteen months, no contact, no explanation, nothing, and you think you can just waltz back in with a casual greeting?!"

I leaned against the storage unit wall, closing my eyes. Adrian and I had been inseparable growing up. We'd shared a womb, shared a birthday, shared everything. Going no-contact with him had been the hardest part of becoming Adriana Chen.

"I know," I said quietly. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry? SORRY?! Mom cried for three months straight! Dad hired six different private investigators! Elijah nearly got himself arrested trying to hack into government databases to find you! And Sophia—" His voice cracked. "Sophia planned your funeral, Adria. She picked out your casket and everything because she was convinced you were dead."

Guilt crashed over me like a wave. My baby sister, planning my funeral at twenty-two years old.

"I had to do something stupid," I said, the words spilling out. "And I knew if I told any of you, you would have stopped me."

"Damn right we would have! What could possibly be worth—" He stopped abruptly. "Wait. This is about that boy, isn't it? The one who saved you when we were kids?"

I'd told Adrian about that night, about the necklace, about my promise. He was the only one who knew the full story.

"I thought I found him," I whispered.

Silence stretched between us, broken only by Adrian's heavy breathing on the other end.

"And?" he finally asked, his voice softer now.

"It wasn't him. The necklace was borrowed. I spent eighteen months turning myself into someone else, marrying a man who treats me like garbage, destroying everything I was, all for a piece of jewelry he can't even be bothered to return to its actual owner."

"Jesus Christ, Adria."

"Yeah."

"And now?"

I straightened up, looking at the boxes around me, at the life I'd packed away like it meant nothing. "Now I've learned my lesson. It wasn't worth it. Any of it. I'm coming back to reclaim my identity. Soon."

"How soon?"

"I have something I need to do first. I need to find out which of his friends actually owns that necklace. The real owner. Then I'm done."

Adrian was quiet for a moment. "You're going to find the boy who actually saved you."

"Yes."

"And then?"

"And then I'm going to burn Damien's world to the ground and take back everything I gave up for him."

Adrian laughed, sharp and bitter. "There's the sister I know. Okay, I'm calling Mikael and Elijah now. They'll want to know you're alive. And Adria?"

"Yeah?"

"If you disappear on us again, I will hunt you down and kill you myself. Understand?"

"Understood."

I hung up and stared at the phone for a moment, watching new notifications roll in. Then I became aware of something else—the prickling sensation at the back of my neck that I'd learned to trust during my years of Krav Maga training.

I wasn't alone.

I pocketed the phone and stepped out of the storage unit, my eyes adjusting to the darkness of the parking lot. Five figures detached themselves from the shadows, spreading out in a semicircle to block my path to the car.

They were professionals—I could tell by the way they moved, coordinated and purposeful. Not random muggers. Someone had sent them.

The one in the center, built like a tank with a shaved head and neck tattoos, stepped forward. "Ms. Chen. Our employer would like a word with you."

I didn't bother asking who their employer was. It didn't matter. What mattered was that someone had been watching me, tracking me, and had sent muscle to... what? Intimidate me? Kidnap me? Kill me?

"I'm not interested," I said calmly, rolling my shoulders to loosen them. My body remembered the movements even after eighteen months of forced docility.

Tank laughed. "That wasn't a request."

The five of them moved as one, closing in.

I didn't give them time to coordinate their attack.

My first strike caught Tank in the throat—not hard enough to crush his windpipe, but enough to make him stumble back, gasping. I spun low, sweeping the legs out from under the man to my left. He went down hard, his head cracking against the pavement with a sound that made me wince.

The other three rushed me simultaneously. I ducked under the first punch, drove my elbow into the second attacker's solar plexus, and caught the third with a knee to the groin that probably ended any chance of him having children.

Tank had recovered and came at me with a knife—amateur move, bringing a blade to close quarters. I caught his wrist, twisted until I felt bones grind together, and used his own momentum to slam him face-first into the hood of my car. The knife clattered to the ground.

The man I'd swept was getting up. I kicked him in the ribs—three of them cracked audibly—and he went down again, staying down this time.

The one I'd kneed was on his knees, vomiting. The one I'd hit in the solar plexus was struggling to breathe. Tank was unconscious, blood streaming from his broken nose. The last one, the smallest of the group, held up his hands in surrender.

"Tell your employer," I said, not even breathing hard, "that Adriana Salvadore doesn't take meetings she didn't schedule."

His eyes widened at the name. Good. Let whoever sent them know exactly who they were dealing with.

I stepped over Tank's unconscious body, got in my car, and drove away without looking back.

My phone rang again as I merged onto the highway. I answered without checking the caller ID.

"Where are you?" Adrian demanded. "I'm tracking your phone and it shows you at some storage facility. Are you okay? I'm hearing sirens."

"I'm fine," I said, checking my rearview mirror. No followers. "Just taking out the trash."

"Why do I feel like that's not a metaphor?"

"Because you know me too well."

He sighed. "Come home, Adria. Come home to the family estate. Let us help you with whatever you're planning."

I thought about it—about going home to the Salvadore mansion, to my parents and siblings, to the life of luxury and power I'd walked away from. It was tempting.

But not yet.

"Soon," I promised. "I have a few things to handle first."

"Like finding out who owns that necklace?"

"Among other things."

"And your husband?"

I smiled, cold and sharp. "He's about to learn that the pathetic, desperate wife he married never actually existed. And when I'm done with him, he's going to wish he'd never heard the name Adriana Chen."

"I almost feel sorry for him."

"Don't," I said. "He earned every bit of what's coming."

I hung up and drove through the night, leaving five broken men and eighteen months of lies in my wake.

The hunt for my real savior was about to begin.

And this time, I was doing it as myself.