Chapter 2

Home is a Lie

Elisa

Naples felt different under the cloak of night, the familiar chaotic energy seem muted, replace by a stillness that mirrors the turmoil churning within me.

My escape from Calabria had been a blur of adrenaline and fear, the image of Antonio Romano’s knowing smile seared into my eyelids.

My shoulder burned, but I kept driving ,my pace steady as I approach the Bianchi villa. The weight of failure clings to me, pressing into my ribs like an iron vice.

Antonio Romano should have been dead by now, but Instead, I was the one who ran.

I push through the pain, ignoring the faint tremor in my fingers as I entered the estate grounds. The villa looms ahead, a fortress of stone and blood, standing tall against the night. This was home or at least, it was supposed to be.

But something is wrong with the picture I was seeing.

The front gate is open, the usual guards that was always at the gate were missing. A whisper of uneasiness slithers down my spine, Pietro wouldn’t be this careless, not after sending me on a mission that was so dangerous.

I kill the engine of my car a safe distance from the entrance, the sudden silence amplifying the frantic beat of my heart.

My hand instinctively went to the spare Glock I usually kept beneath the driver’s seat of my car. Moving with caution, I slip out of the car, melting into the shadows that clung to the edges of the property.

The air around the compound was heavy with an unusual silence. No barking dogs, no hushed conversations between guards, just the whisper of the wind through the cypress trees, It was a silence more menacing than any gunfire.

I approached the main house slowly, my senses on high alert. The front door, usually a formidable barrier of reinforced steel, was also slightly open, a sliver of light spilled out into the darkness, a beacon into the oppressive stillness.

Drawing my weapon, I push the door open wider and step inside. The grand foyer which was usually bustling with the activity of the household staff, was also eerily deserted, the opulent furnishings stood like silent witnesses to some unseen drama.

“Papa?” My voice is a low whisper, barely audible in the vast space, there was no response. A knot of dread tightened in my stomach, something was terribly wrong.

I pressed forward cautiously, my instincts screaming, the grand doors to the family sitting room was opened. I slip inside, my senses on high alert, the air smelled different, gunpowder, sweat, and something heavier, there was a sense of finality in the air.

And then, I saw him, Antonio Romano sitting in the grand parlor like he owned it.

He was so calm, his posture relaxed in the high backed chair my father Pietro favored, a glass of whiskey cradled in his hand.

His dark eyes shifted to me, sharp and unreadable, as if he had been expecting me all along, and his lips curved into that same chillingly knowing smile I had seen in Calabria. It was as if he had been waiting for me.

My heart hammer against my ribs, How? How had he found us so quickly? How had he manage to infiltrate our supposedly impenetrable home?

I reach for my gun...

“Don’t,” a voice warns.

I freeze, now noticing that the room was full of men, Romano soldiers standing like statues. Their weapons were drawn but they ready for anything. Behind them, My father, sat in an armchair opposite Antonio, his face pale and drawn, his hands bound behind his back.

Several of Romano’s men, the same hulking figures I had seen in the restaurant, stood guard, their weapons trained on the various members of my household, the cook, the maids, all held captive, the guards were dead on the floor.

A knife twists in my gut.

No, Pietro was a Bianchi, they were never known to surrender. But right now, there was no fight in his eyes, No fire, just the dull realization that this was probably how it ended for him.

I turn back to Antonio, my pulse hammering, “Let him go.”

Antonio doesn’t answer right away, he swirls the whiskey in his glass, considering me, dissecting me, and then, with the faintest smirk, he speaks.

“Elisa.”

My breath catches, he knew my name, I hadn’t introduced myself in the restaurant. I hadn’t breathed a word of it during my escape.

How did he know my name? This just keeps getting worse.