6

Chapter 6: Behind the Mask

MAYA

They dressed me like a bride while I sat there feeling like a corpse.

Three of the best designers money could buy moved around me with needles between their lips and measuring tapes hanging from their necks, adjusting the dark emerald gown until it hugged every curve they apparently believed needed displaying. One woman worked on my hair while another fixed tiny diamonds around my neck, and a third kept muttering about how pale I looked, as though makeup could hide the fact that I had watched the only woman who truly loved me get murdered

The wedding preparations had been rushed so badly that the entire estate had barely slept, and had it not been for some ancient mafia tradition demanding a grand celebration before a Rossi marriage, Lorenzo would probably have dragged me straight to the altar the morning after locking me in that cell.

He did not care whether I grieved, agreed, or could even stand without shaking. He only cared that I remained useful, breathing, and permanently tied to his family.

So I kept quiet while they powdered my face and painted my lips.

I did not argue when they pulled my hair into an elegant knot, leaving several curled strands around my cheeks and arranging the red streaks so they stood out beneath the black lace mask I would wear later. I did not complain when they tightened the gown until breathing became an optional luxury, and I barely reacted when someone called me beautiful.

People often dressed the dead before burial too.

Tonight’s party was masked, crowded, loud, and filled with enough criminals to make hell look understaffed.

It was also my only real chance to escape. If I failed, the wedding would happen, and once it did, Lorenzo would bury me inside this family forever.

I would work until my mind broke, building weapons and systems for people who saw me as nothing more than a useful machine, and every time I resisted, Mara and Clara would become the knives held against my throat.

I could not allow that.

I had to escape, then return for the twins when I had enough power behind me, because running without protecting them would only leave them to suffer in my place. I also wanted revenge, although the word felt too small for what burned inside me whenever I remembered Rosa falling into my arms, blood spreading across her chest while Lorenzo watched without the smallest trace of regret.

I wanted every Rossi to feel what it meant to lose everything.

But revenge required power, and there was only one man I knew who might possess enough of it to drag me out of Lorenzo’s hands without asking permission.

Ace Morello.

My mother’s ex husband and former stepfather.

Even thinking his name made something complicated tighten inside my chest because I had not seen him in years, not since my mother betrayed him and abandoned the Morello family for Matteo Rossi.

Her betrayal had weakened the Morello empire while giving the Rossis information, territory, and allies they had no right to possess. Ace had lost influence, men, and perhaps parts of himself because of her, while the Rossi family rose from the damage she helped create.

He had every reason to despise anything connected to my mother and that included me.

Still, once upon a time, Ace had treated me like I mattered. He had listened when I rambled about computers, bought me my first advanced coding system, and never once told me to stop being strange.

Whenever my mother complained that I spent too much time reading, he would simply glance at her and say that intelligent children were not inconveniences, only foolish parents treated them that way.

For a while, I had believed he loved me like a daughter.

Now I could only hope some small piece of that bond had survived.

“There,” the lead designer finally said, stepping back to admire her work. “Perfect.”

I stared at myself in the mirror without recognizing the woman looking back at me. The gown was beautiful, the shade deep enough to make my eyes look almost unnaturally green, and the black lace over my shoulders matched the mask resting on the table. My freckles had been softened but not hidden, while my lips were painted a dark red that matched the streaks in my hair.

I looked expensive, elegant and very much trapped.

“Could I have a moment alone?” I asked quietly.

The designers exchanged glances, clearly unsure whether prisoners scheduled for marriage were allowed privacy, but before any of them could answer, the bedroom door swung open and Lucy walked in without knocking.

Apparently, manners had also died in this family, although unlike Rosa, no one had bothered holding a funeral for them.

Lucy wore a silver dress that shimmered whenever she moved, and the bandage had finally been removed from her face, revealing faint redness around her cheek and hairline. The cake had not caused any serious damage, which I had known from the beginning, but she had behaved as though I had carved her face apart with a kitchen knife.

The designers bowed their heads and hurried out, leaving us alone except for the guards outside and the cameras hidden in the corners.

Lucy waited until the door closed before looking me up and down with a smug smile. “You clean up surprisingly well.”

I turned back toward the mirror and adjusted one of my earrings. “And you still look surprisingly alive. I suppose the doctors managed to save you from that deadly chocolate frosting.”

Her smile tightened.

“You think you’re funny?”

“Only around people I’m comfortable with,” I said, meeting her eyes through the mirror. “So no, this is actually me being miserable.”

She walked closer, heels clicking sharply against the floor. “You should be grateful. At least Lorenzo is allowing you to marry into the family instead of throwing you into the streets where you belong.”

I almost laughed because the entire problem was that Lorenzo refused to throw me anywhere.

“He needs your brain,” she continued, leaning against the dressing table.

“That’s all this is, Maya. Don’t start imagining anyone suddenly cares about you. Whichever brother Father chooses will tolerate you because he has been ordered to, but he’ll still look elsewhere for what you can’t give him.”

My fingers paused over the earring.

Lucy smiled when she noticed, thinking she had finally found something sharp enough to cut me.

“You were never enough for Luca. You buried yourself inside those computers and expected him to spend the rest of his life waiting for you to remember he existed. Men like Luca need real women, not awkward little girls hiding behind giant glasses.”

I turned slowly and looked at her properly.

For years, Lucy’s words had been able to reach inside me and uncover every insecurity I worked hard to hide. She had always known exactly where to strike because she had spent our entire childhood studying my weaknesses while I foolishly tried to earn her affection.

But something had changed.

Maybe it was Rosa’s death, Luca’s betrayal or maybe I had simply run out of pieces for people to break.

“A real woman?” I repeated softly. “Is that what you call someone who climbs onto her sister’s boyfriend while he’s tied to a bed?”

Her eyes flashed. “He wanted me.”

“Yes, I noticed. The performance was very convincing.”

“He chose me over you.”

I pushed my glasses higher and gave her a tired smile. “Lucy, a man who cheats with you will eventually cheat on you. An unfaithful man is not a prize you steal from another woman, he’s a disease you volunteer to catch.”

Her mouth fell open slightly.

I stepped closer, lowering my voice. “There’s an old saying that a woman who celebrates finding a snake in another woman’s bed should not cry when it crawls into someone else’s. So enjoy Luca while you can. Feed him, praise him, tie him up again if that helps his confidence, but don’t ever confuse possession with loyalty.”

“You bitter little bitch,” she hissed.

“No, bitterness requires emotional investment, and I’m currently saving mine for people who matter.”

Her face reddened. “You think you’re better than me because you can build a few stupid machines? Look at you. In two days, you’ll be married to one of the most pathetic men in this family. Michael will humiliate you with every woman he sees, and Carl would rather share a bed with his driver than touch you. Either way, you lose.”

That one struck harder than I wanted it to, but I refused to let her see.

Instead, I picked up the lace mask and held it delicately between my fingers.

“At least neither of them has spent four years pretending to love me. Somehow, honesty makes monsters easier to tolerate.”

“You’ll regret speaking to me this way.”

“I already regret wasting this much time on the conversation.” I gestured toward the door. “Fuori dalla mia stanza.”

She stared at me.

I smiled without warmth. “It means get out of my room, although I assumed a future Donna would know enough Italian to understand basic instructions.”

Lucy released a furious scream that probably frightened every bird within ten miles of the estate. She cursed me, my face, my intelligence, my glasses, and several body parts she insisted no man would ever desire, then stormed toward the door while threatening to make my married life unbearable.

The door slammed behind her.

I stood still for several seconds, listening to her heels fade down the corridor before releasing the breath trapped inside my lungs.

My hands were shaking, and I hated that they were, but courage was apparently not the absence of terror. Sometimes it was insulting your sister while quietly wondering whether the cameras had recorded enough to get you killed.

“Maya?” Clara’s voice whispered through the tiny device hidden beneath the dressing table.

I moved quickly, lifting my hair as though checking the back of it in the mirror while pressing the nearly invisible receiver deeper into my ear.

“I’m here.”

“Lucy’s gone downstairs,” Clara said. Her breathing sounded unsteady. “The corridor is clear except for the two guards outside your door. Mara is ready.”

My pulse quickened.

This was it.