CHAPTER THREE

AVA'S POV

The blonde wig was a cheap, synthetic curse, each strand itching like a thousand ants parading across my scalp. It was misery, I had to suppress, hiding the unruly red hair I had beneath. I resisted the urge to scratch, focusing instead on the oppressive, magnolia-scented air that clung to the back of my throat like a noose. 

His house. Our dream house. 

The one we’d scratched on napkins at stanley diner when we were much younger, laughing over a bottle of stolen whiskey I'd stolen from my mother’s liquor cabinet. We’d argued over the details of what the house would look like-I’d wanted a tall ladder in the library, he’d insisted on a wine cellar he’d never use. Now, standing here, the blueprint of my stupid imagination had sprung to life with terrifying, thorough accuracy. Broad expanses of dark polished marble floor reflected the cold, modern lights. The furniture was all sharp angles and faint grey, stripped with violent, blood-red pillows and a single, massive abstract paint pinned to the left side of the wall. It was perfect. It was my dream and he brought it to life.

A voice, rough and familiar, snapped me back to the present. 

“Sophia Morales”

Kyle Boles walked in the arched hallway, his shoulders broader than I remembered, straining the fabric of his black henley. Time had shaped the boy I knew into a man of brute force and strong edges, his jaw razor sharp. But the glint in his eyes was the same unsettling mix- a part hungry wolf, part clown. Dante’s loyal comedian, all grown. 

“Mr Moretti’s waiting,” He said, his voice a low rumble . He jerked his chin toward a heavy oak door at the end of the hall. “But first, we test you, Standard procedure for new faces”. 

I followed him, my boots making no sound on the cold, hard marble floor. The silence was a void, filled with internal monologues. He doesn’t recognize me. Not a flicker, not a single memory. The realization felt like a blade was punched in my heart, I had both hoped and dreaded for it, and now that he couldn’t recognize me, the victory tasted like burnt coal.  

The room he led me to wasn’t an office. It was a concrete box, a cold storage area hidden within the lavish house. A single bare bulb hung from a wire, flickering steadily, casting my shadow across the tall walls. It was exactly as my father had warned; Dante’s version of trust exercise.

Kyle leaned against a scarred metal table, the only piece of furniture in the room, crossing his thick arms over his chest, the door clicked shut behind me, the sound final and isolating. 

“Name.” The word was a command devoid of warmth. 

“Sophia Morales” I answered fast, my tone pitched thin, higher than its natural register. An intentional choice, to conceal whatever resemblance to ‘Ava Cavallaro’ 

“Age?” 

“Twenty Four”

“Mafia ties?” 

“None”, Lie. Probably the biggest lie of my life. I forced a slight, nervous shrug. “Unless you want to count my uncle’s fish market. He takes his tilapia very seriously”  

Kyle’s lips twitched at my joke. It was quite a smile, but it was a crack in whatever tough boy show he was putting up. Got you. 

He grilled me with more questions for twenty relentless minutes.

“Parents?” 

“Tragically dead in a car crash” A half lie I had rehearsed a thousand times till it started to feel like my truth.

“Skills?” 

“Accounting, data analysis, fluent in lies”

“Loyalty?” 

“Bought, not born”. I spun each answer with the effortless ease of a woman who’d spent her lifetime pretending to be someone else, layering truth and lies into one inseparable poisoned sandwich. 

Then , the test changed. He reached behind his back and produced a Glock 19, sliding it across the table to me. The metal screeched sharply against the steel. 

“Show me you won’t piss yourself in a gun fight”he said, his tone flat, challenging. “We are not hiring a bookkeeper for some library.”

I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to taste blood, Oh Kyle. If only you knew what I’m capable of doing holding a gun. The gun was cold and heavy in my palms, an old, familiar lover. I’d been dismantling, cleaning and reassembling these models since I was twelve, long before he’d probably had his first thoughts. 

I didn’t hesitate. I raised the weapon in a perfect one handed-grip, My stance solid. I exhaled half a breath, looking down at the barrel at the small paper target. A crude drum, tacked to a sand bag at the end of the room. I pressed down on the trigger three times in quick, controlled succession. 

Crack. Crack. Crack. 

The reports,highly visible on the wooden barrel. Sharp smoke stung my nostrils

Bullseye. Bullseye. Bullseye. All three rounds had torn through the center of the targets.

The silence that followed was heavier than the gunshots .Kyle’s eyebrows vanished into his hairline. He stared back at the target, then back at me, his bad-boy bravado replaced by genuine respect. 

“Well, fuck!” he breathed, a low sharp whistle escaping his lips. He strode forward and my hand in his grip, his strong, warm and terrifyingly familiar. “Welcome to the clan, newbie, I think you would fit in just fine.”

His smile was wide, open and completely obvious. 

You have no idea what you’ve just let in, I thought, the ghost of a smile touching my lips as I squeezed the hand back. He had no idea at all.

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