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CHAPTER THREE

ARIANNA, 25 YEARS OLD

Why didn’t I just stay at St. Jean D’Arc?

As another round of gunfire and screams sounded, my reasoning behind the move to Yale felt incomprehensible. Taking online courses through Yale to get my graduate degree in astrophysics worked perfectly fine while I was still at

D’Arc. But no, I wanted to venture off instead.

And now it might cost me my life. And Francesca’s.

Why is it that my decisions always end up hurting everyone around me? I thought, my heartstrings pulling tight to the point of physical pain. But I forced those thoughts out. Stay present, Ari.

I pulled the hem of my green Gucci dress over my knees and hugged them tighter to my chest. Francesca and I were crouched underneath one of the desks in the library while chaos erupted all around us. I cursed my newfound independence and the joy that had washed over me when my parents finally agreed to let me study here, and I pressed my hand over my mouth to stifle my whimpers.

“Where’s the police?” Francesca, who was also my roommate here at Yale, whispered shakily. “They should be here by now.”

“They’re coming,” I assured her, but I’d been wondering the same. The first bullet sounded almost twenty minutes ago, but I had yet to hear any emergency sirens.

“I hope so.” She wiped at her face, wet with tears. “At least w-we look hot.”

I pursed my lips. We said the most idiotic things when adrenaline rushed through our veins. It couldn’t be helped. It was better than panicking and screaming, drawing the shooter’s attention.

I lifted my eyes and met her violet gaze, offering her any small ounce of strength I had left. She was four years younger than me, and I was determined not to let history repeat itself. Not today. Not ever again. I couldn’t protect Gianna years ago, but I could—would protect Francesca today.

“That’s definitely the priority,” I said, joining her in trying to make light of this fucked-up situation, but my own vocal cords failed me and I had to clear my throat to cover my sob.

My eyes lowered to the only means of defense I had: a gift from Matteo Vitale for my eighteenth birthday. He’d given one to Hannah too, but unlike her, I kept mine on me at all times.

Our baby sister’s kidnapping was only a glimpse into the risks of the life we’d lived, and I was smart enough to know that having some form of weapon on me—no matter how futile it might prove—was smarter than going around oblivious, which was my twin’s solution.

I’d come to terms with who my dad—well, stepdad was, but that was neither here nor there. The point was that I didn’t see any reason in dubbing him a bad guy. Morally gray, yes. But bad? Far from it.

A bad guy didn’t dote on your mother, making her over-the-moon happy. A bad guy didn’t take your side, regardless of whether you were right or wrong. A bad guy didn’t constantly save your twin sister and you from trouble and treat you like he did his biological kids. Not that I saw our other siblings as any less than… but still. I knew countless other stepdads who valued blood over commitment.

So yes, Nico Morrelli was a mob boss, but first and foremost, he was a father. My father. Another round of gunfire pierced the air, making us both flinch.

“That sounds close,” she said, echoing my sentiment as I clutched my knife. If he got close enough to us, I’d get to him too. I refused to go down without a fight, and while the knife might not kill him, it could hurt him enough to distract him while we run.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

Too close, I thought, wishing I’d paid better attention to St. Jean D’Arc’s training for these precise instances.

But I remembered being annoyed that week, frustrated that Hannah was content being Matteo Vitale’s shadow, which only compounded my desire to break free. Made me want to give a life outside of that protected campus fueled with mafia money a try.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, it seemed pointless now.

“Do you think we should run?” Francesca whispered. Her eyes were wide and her face even paler than usual. I shook my head. “We don’t know where the shooter is.”

There were two exits in the library. It was mid-summer, so the hallways were empty and every sound echoed through them, bouncing off the wall and making it impossible to judge where the gunfire was coming from. I wasn’t willing to risk Francesca’s life with a wrong decision.

I wished I had my phone, but it had died and was currently securely tucked away in my backpack clear across the empty room.

A movement drew my eyes back to Francesca’s mane of red hair. She was scurrying away from me and toward the doors that led to the hallway.

“Where are you going?” I hissed.

She glanced over her shoulder and blew a piece of hair out of her eyes. “I refuse to be a sitting duck, Arianna.”

Acting on instinct, I slid out from under the desk and crawled after her. Before she was halfway across the room, I yanked her hand and shoved her behind me.

“Follow me,” I told her, protective of her as if she were my own sister.

She huffed a breath. “If he pulls the trigger, the bullet will rip right through you and lodge itself into me. So it really doesn’t matter.”

I stared speechlessly at her for a minute before shaking my head and refocusing on the carpet beneath my hands and knees.

The library had rows and rows of towering bookshelves, and I mentally registered the ones that could be used as a shield.

God, please don’t let us die surrounded by dusty old books, I prayed silently.

St. Jean D’Arc offered lessons in self-defense, money laundering, and other criminal activities. The school had maximum campus security—superseding that of the White House tenfold—which meant that we were never in danger behind D’Arc’s steel-reinforced walls, and suddenly I missed that protection bubble.

I shuffled toward the exit that should lead to the back staircase but froze midway.

Francesca’s body plunked against mine, and I yanked her into a crawl space near the book return cabinet, tucking us both in the shadows. “What? Why did you stop?” she whispered.

But before I could answer, chaos erupted. The door to the room we were in opened, slamming into the wall behind it. The scent of blood hit my nostrils just as a man appeared, his clothes stained red.

“No, please,” one of the girls he’d stumbled upon cried.

A guy who looked too young to be holding a gun pointed an AR-15 at the students. Screams rang through the library that not even a million pages could muffle.

Blood splattered all around the library as the sound of bullets rang in my ears.

“Not a peep,” I hissed at Francesca, then turned my back to her, blocking her from sight. I looked up just as the gunman turned his attention my way, despair and something unhinged gleaming in his eyes.

“Who else is here with you?” he yelled, waving his weapon around. “You’d better come out now or I’ll have to come looking.”

My heart thundered in my throat, and the knife Matteo had gifted me cut into my palm. I tried so hard not to look at the blood pooling around the two girls, drawing images from my mind that I had long since buried, but it was impossible. Some mistakes would haunt us for as long as we lived.

I noticed crimson drops on the floor beneath my hand from where I was fisting a Swiss Army knife between bone-white fingers.

And it was exactly that thought that spurred me into action.

I took a step forward and so did he. The moment he was in arm’s reach, I lunged at him, slicing his forearm. He yelped, then swung his hand. Before I could react, he grabbed my wrist and twisted it until I had no choice but to drop the knife. It landed on the floor with a loud clunk, right along with my heart.

I immediately straightened, determined to keep his eyes on me and away from Francesca.

“Do you know the Vitale family?” I frowned at the unusual question while alarms went off in my brain. Something was off here. “Answer me, girl,” he yelled, causing me to startle. “Do you know the Vitales?”

I swallowed my fear as adrenaline rang in my ears.

“D-don’t kn-know them,” I stuttered, the biggest lie of my life bouncing off the walls. In the next breath, he trained the gun at me, and I was paralyzed by fear.

Incoherent images flipped through my mind. My parents dancing at their wedding. My twin sister announcing she’d marry

the boy with hazel eyes. My first trip to the planetarium observatory where I got to see the stars and planets through a telescope. Baking cookies with my family.

My first kiss. My last.

I wasn’t ready to die, but I knew I couldn’t compete with a gun. And as warm liquid trickled down my fingers, I took a deep breath. Likely my last one.

And then I heard that dreadful, deadly sound.

Click.