Page 7 of Of Lies and Shadows

Francesca

Ipack my suitcase with shaky hands.

What I’m doing is basically a suicide mission.

Dante Forzi is ruthless, and if he finds out there’s a traitor in his home, he’ll kill me without question. No second chances. No conversation. Just blood.

No one in their right mind would have agreed to this. But I’m desperate enough to try.

Still, it stung to find out my father offered me up for the job like a sacrificial lamb. I always knew women held littlevalue in his eyes, but cannon fodder? That was new.

I pause, fingers curled around the zipper of my bag, and let my thoughts drift, just for a second.

I think about the life I could have. One outside the mafia. One I got a small taste of these past two weeks, hidden away in this tiny apartment, living as someone else.

Alice Winters.

I turn toward the mirror, staring at the stranger reflected back.

Francesca Mori is gone.

The long, honey-brown hair I used to brush out in soft waves each morning? Chopped into a blunt, dark-red bob.

My emerald eyes, one of the only features my mother ever praised, are now hidden behind warm brown contacts.

A softer jawline thanks to contour. A new wardrobe. A whole new story.

Everything about me has been rewritten.

I lied through my teeth in that office.

Well. That’s something I’m quite experienced with.

I’ve spent most of my life pretending that everything was fine, that my soul wasn’t quietly being crushed beneath the weight of this life.

But honestly? I’m not even sure I lied that much.

I have been grieving my mother my whole life.

It took me years to realize she wasn’t alive, not really, not in the ways that mattered.

And even longer to understand why.

It was him. It wasalwayshim.

My father. The man who calls himself a protector, a provider,a patriarch.

He took her light and left the shell behind.

“I won’t finish like her,” I mutter, slamming my suitcase shut with more determination than ever… even if it means walking straight to my death.

A notification pops up on my phone. My rideshare is here. Good. One thing to focus on. Just that. One step at a time.

I already did the hardest part: getting the job. At least, I thought that was the hardest part.

But living under the same roof as Dante Forzi? Smiling at his children, digging for secrets, trying not to get caught? That’s a whole different kind of battlefield.

I head downstairs, phone clenched in my hand, trying to ignore the way my heart is racing.

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