LOGINSophia POVThe cold was the kind that lived in your bones.Not the clean, honest cold of winter air—this was damp and stagnant, the cold of a place that had never known warmth. It crept through the concrete floor and up through the soles of my shoes, working its way into my joints until every position was equally miserable.I pulled my knees tighter to my chest anyway. Not for warmth. For the thing I was protecting. Hold on , I thought, pressing my palm flat against my stomach. Just hold on. The basement was maybe thirty feet across, lit by a single utility light that cast everything in the pale, indifferent yellow of fluorescence. A drain in the center of the floor. Exposed pipes along the ceiling. A door at the top of a short flight of stairs that I'd already catalogued as my one exit and my one problem, given that there were at least two people on the other side of it.I'd been here long enough to map it twice and still feel no better about any of it.The rope Maria's men had us
Vito POVThe silence in the main hall was worse than shouting.Salvatore Romano sat at the head of the long table, his weathered hands folded over the carved handle of his walking cane, his dark eyes cutting through me with the precision of a blade. Around him, the family elders had arranged themselves in judgment—men who had watched me take this seat, who had sworn loyalty to my name, now watching with the carefully neutral expressions of people reconsidering their investments."You knew," my grandfather said. His voice was quiet. That was worse than loud. "You had suspicions about Maria weeks ago, and you let her remain in this house. ""The situation required—""The situation required you to protect your family." He struck the cane against the floor once, a sound like a gavel. "Instead, you protected a woman based on a debt you were never certain you owed."Around the table, no one spoke. They didn't need to. The silence said everything the elders had been too careful to say direct
Maria POVSophia.Not Isabella. Never Isabella. I'd finally been able to confirm three days ago through the private investigator I'd been feeding money to since she first arrived at the Romano estate. A medical student. A substitute. A girl who had walked into Vito's life wearing her sister's name like a borrowed coat and somehow — somehow — made herself indispensable.I studied her from the doorway without stepping inside.She was worse than yesterday. The rope had left marks on her wrists that had deepened from red to purple, and the dark circles beneath her eyes had the quality of bruises. Her head was bowed, her hair loose around her face in tangled strands. The small amount of water I'd allowed her — enough to keep her alive, not enough to restore her — had done its work of prolonged diminishment.This is what you get, I thought, for taking what isn't yours."Good morning," I said.Her head came up. Even now, even like this, there was something steady in her eyes that I found dee
Vito POVThe gunpowder scent still clung to the air, sharp and metallic. In the immediate aftermath of a gunshot, there is a very specific kind of silence—a split second where everyone forgets how to breathe—before the screaming and the chaos erupt.I sat perfectly still in my wheelchair. To anyone watching, I was the same broken man they always saw: the blind, paralyzed head of the Romano family, a lion with pulled teeth. But beneath the blanket draped over my useless legs, my hand was steady on the cold grip of the weapon I had just fired.Clark had been too slow. I had seen his hand twitching toward his waistband, a desperate move from a man who knew he was cornered. I didn't wait for him to draw. I had tracked his heat, his frantic heartbeat, and the slight rustle of his jacket. One shot. Precise. Final.Now, the warehouse was a cacophony of shouting men and scuffling boots."Secure the perimeter!" I commanded, my voice cutting through the noise like a blade. "Nobody leaves this f
Sophia POVThe first thing I felt was the bite of the rope. It wasn’t just tight; it was abrasive, the coarse fibers sawing into the delicate skin of my wrists with every heartbeat. Then came the cold—the kind of damp, bone-chilling cold that only lives in places where the sun never reaches.My head throbbed. The lingering fog of the sedative clung to my brain, making the world tilt and spin as I tried to blink my eyes open. My vision was a blur of gray concrete and flickering shadows. I was lying on a floor that smelled of mold and stale gasoline.The baby.The thought hit me like a physical blow. My breath hitched in my throat as I instinctively curled my body into a tight ball, my bound hands moving to shield the slight, precious curve of my stomach. I didn’t care about the pain in my shoulders or the throbbing in my skull. My only focus was the life growing inside me, the only piece of Vito I had left."Don't move too fast, Sophia. Sophia, am I right? You are not your sister Isabe
Sophia POVThe night air was biting, a sharp contrast to the suffocating warmth of Lucy’s guest room. I pulled my thin jacket tighter around my shoulders, my heart thumping a frantic rhythm against my ribs. Every shadow on the sidewalk looked like a lurking guard; every distant engine roar sounded like a Romano chase vehicle.I was doing something insane. I knew it. My medical brain was screaming at me, listing all the reasons why a pregnant woman who had just narrowly escaped a criminal empire should not, under any circumstances, walk right back into the center of the blast zone. But my feet kept moving."Just to the hospital," I whispered to myself, my breath hitching in the cold. "Just to see if he's okay. Then I'll figure out the rest."I reached the corner where Lucy said I could find a taxi or a late-night bus. The street was desolate, the yellow glow of the streetlamps reflecting off the oily puddles from an earlier rain. I checked my phone—no new messages. The silence was almo
Vito POVTony came in without knocking, which meant the news wasn't good.He set a folder on the desk and stood back. That was his way — put the information down, give me a second before I had to respond to it."Dr. Rosenberg," he said. "He was in Maine. A fishing village called Crayne's Point, abo
Sophia POVI eventually left the fishing village and came to Denniston, New Hampshire.The diner opened at six.I was there by five-forty-five, turning on the coffee machine and wiping down the counter the way Ruth had shown me on my first day — left to right, overlap on the seams, don't skip the e
Sophia POVI switched hotels three times in four days.The first one was too close to the highway. Too many cars coming and going at odd hours, too many people who looked at a woman checking in alone and decided that was interesting. The second was better, but the desk clerk had a habit of asking q
Sophia POVSomewhere in Vermont. Day four.The room cost forty-two dollars a night.I'd paid for two nights in cash at the front desk without making eye contact, and the man behind the counter had handed me a key on a plastic fob without looking up from his phone. The room was at the end of the gro







