Mag-log inIn Sicily, forgetting a face can get you killed. I was born face-blind. Unless I recognized someone's tattoo or voice, I had no idea who I was looking at. Sometimes, I couldn't even recognize my own parents. But my best friend, Sofia Ricci, was convinced I just wasn't trying hard enough. She decided it was time to cure me of all that "drama." She even got my brother, Don Victor Lombardi, and my fiancé, Luca Marchetti, to play along. The three of them called it "extreme survival training." At the underground casino, they once abandoned me in a private room packed with strangers. At family banquets, they'd ditch the suits I knew them by and vanish into the crowd. I would be left wandering from person to person, asking strangers for help because I couldn't tell who was who. To them, it was survival training. Today, we were in an Old Town square crawling with lowlifes, negotiating a deal. I only left for a moment to wash my hands. When I returned, the three of them had vanished. They were supposed to be waiting outside, but the bodyguards were nowhere to be seen either. Meanwhile, our enemies were closing in from the street. I instinctively reached for my radio. Then it hit me. Sofia had taken my encrypted radio earlier and offered to "hold on to it" for me. I swallowed my panic and backed into a nearby bar. As soon as I reached the counter, the bartender handed me a note. I knew the handwriting. Sofia. "We've shown you twice what the enemies on this street look like. Pick them out and find your own way out. You've got this, sweetie! We'll have drinks waiting for you at the safe house." I looked out the window. A blur of unfamiliar faces was closing in. What a joke. They call this training? They're gambling with my life. But maybe being face-blind isn't such a problem after all. With a gun in my hand, I don't need to recognize anyone. Anyone who comes near me is the enemy.
view moreLuca looked at the row of gun barrels pointed at him and finally retreated to his car, humiliated.Natasha leaned against the sandbags and gave an amused whistle."Commander, I had no idea you were engaged this whole time."For the first time, I could talk about the past without feeling anything."He stopped seeing himself as my fiancé a long time ago, so there was no reason to mention it."It had happened three years ago at a family banquet.A capo had too much to drink and joked that Luca looked at Sofia with more desire than he'd ever shown his own fiancée.Sofia's eyes immediately filled with tears. She quickly stepped away from Luca."Hey, that's a nasty joke! Stop it! Isabella is my best friend in this family! I swore that even if I stayed at the bottom forever, I'd never steal my best friend's man!"Luca immediately stepped forward.In front of the entire family, he scoffed, "That was just a joke our elders made years ago after one too many cheap martinis. No one should take it
That night, the searchlights at the base swept over the empty land outside.Natasha didn't hold back as she tore apart Sofia's little game piece by piece."No real soldier would leave a comrade to die in a firefight, let alone string two men along at the same time. Everything she's done has been calculated. She used those two men to steal resources from you, keep you—the rightful heiress—under her thumb, and clear her own path to the top."I'd always told myself that Sofia came from nothing and simply didn't understand how our world worked. But Natasha's words finally shattered that illusion.Natasha cleaned her dagger as she warned me never to turn my back on someone that ruthless.Now that I finally saw Sofia for who she was, I felt sick.I logged into my family's internal network and sent Sofia an official top-level notice ending our friendship and cutting all ties between us. Then I froze her access to all supplies and resources.While I was at it, I banned Victor and Luca from set
The peace didn't last long.Carter called again on the encrypted line, his voice tense. "Isabella, the Don has formed a major alliance with the Corvino family aboard that cruise ship. To prove his sincerity, he's promised to make Portopalo a shared base."I snorted."He's probably too busy drinking and chasing women on that ship to remember where I draw the line. As long as I'm alive, no one is taking this territory from me."Two years ago, I'd tried to set up a private, heavily armed guard unit with my own money.Victor had done everything he could to stop me. "Girls don't need heavy firepower. It only attracts trouble."Then he'd taken my entire weapons allocation and given it to Sofia's private guards instead.All because he wanted her to feel "safer."Now he was doing it again—giving away my territory to strengthen his own position.I had barely finished speaking when another voice cut into the channel."Isabella." Victor's voice was cold and commanding. "You've made your point. No
Early the next morning, Natasha kept her word and took me straight into a real combat zone near the border.Along the way, she made me close my eyes and track people by sound. She also taught me to spot the marks rival families used to identify themselves.At a dimly lit underground market, Natasha gave me my first real test: find the enemy mole meeting a contact somewhere in the crowd.My palms were slick with sweat. Three times, I picked the wrong person and nearly took a bullet for it.Each time, Natasha covered me with calm, steady fire and got me out safely.On my fourth try, I spotted a man nearby pretending to read a newspaper. Half a snake tattoo peeked out from under his sleeve.That was him. I didn't hesitate.I fired once. He dropped, and the crowd scattered.Natasha whistled and gave me a hard slap on the shoulder."Nice shot! When I was training, I once shot a hole through my instructor's hat and had to run six miles as punishment."We both burst out laughing in the smoke-












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