Page 35 of The Assassin's Captive
My stomach drops.
I approach the folder slowly, as though it might explode if I move too quickly. My hands shake as I lift it from the table, feel the weight of whatever secrets it contains. The paper is thick, expensive. Government quality.
I open it, too curious to leave it, though I glance over my shoulder at the door to make sure I’m not being watched. I've seen some of these images before, but my morbid need to know everything won't let me put it down. I knew he was watching me, but this is worse than I thought.
The first image is a surveillance photograph of me leaving my apartment building three weeks ago. I am wearing the navy suit I reserve for court appearances, my hair pulled back in a severe bun. The photographer captured me mid-stride, briefcase in hand, chin raised against the morning wind. I look confident. Professional. Unaware that someone was watching.
The next photo shows me at a café near my office, sitting across from another prosecutor. We are leaning over casefiles, coffee cups forgotten between us. The angle suggests the photographer was sitting several tables away, using a telephoto lens. Professional surveillance equipment.
My hands tremble as I flip through more images. Me entering the courthouse. Me leaving late at night, exhaustion clear in the slope of my shoulders. Me buying groceries, mundane and domestic and completely unaware that my every movement was being documented.
Then the photographs change. My apartment building from multiple angles. My office window. The parking garage where I leave my car. Every location mapped, every routine catalogued. A complete picture of my life reduced to black and white surveillance photos.
My parents appear on page seven.
They are leaving their small house in Trastevere, my mother's arm linked through my father's as they walk to their car. She's laughing at something he has said, her face bright and unguarded. He's carrying a bag of books—probably heading to the university library where he still volunteers despite his retirement.
They look so innocent, so completely unaware that their adopted daughter has brought death to their doorstep.
The bile rises in my throat. I flip to the next page, then the next, finding more photos of my parents shopping, walking, living their quiet, academic lives while men planned their destruction.
At the bottom of the folder is a legal document with heavy paper and official seals. It's my birth certificate. But not the one I have seen before, not the amended version that lists my adoptive parents as my biological ones.
This is the original. The real one.
Father: Emilio Costa.
Mother: Elena Suthers. Status: Deceased.
The words swim before my eyes. Emilio Costa—the man Lorenzo takes orders from. The man who apparently ordered my death before discovering I carry his blood. And Lorenzo wasn't lying.
My father.
I am still staring at the document when I hear the front door open and heavy footsteps in the foyer. Lorenzo's voice is low and calm, speaking to someone named Victor—maybe Victor Costa. A million thoughts are going through my head, paralyzing me when I know better than to be in his office.
But I can't move. I can't fucking breathe, let alone process the reality of what I am holding in my hands.
Lorenzo appears in the doorway, his jacket slung over one arm. There is blood on his shirt cuff—not much, just a few dark drops that could be anything. Could be nothing. His eyes find mine immediately, then drop to the folder in my hands.
His expression hardens.
"That wasn't meant for you."
My voice comes out as a whisper. "My parents?" I ask, feeling fury building in my chest.
"Serena—"
"It wasn’t just me, then?" The volume rises, anger cutting through shock. "How long have you been documenting my parents' lives, planning to?—"
"Those files were meant for Costa's lawyers." He steps into the room, closing the distance between us. "You shouldn't have?—"
"Shouldn't have what? Shouldn't have wanted to know what you've messed me up in?" I think of how charming he was at the opera, how he smooth talked me into dating him. I knew better but damn it all to hell, I didn't listen to my gut.
He stops three feet away, his hands loose at his sides. Ready for violence. "You're looking at things you don't understand."
"I understand perfectly." I hold up the birth certificate, my hand shaking. "I understand that you're destroying my life now." My chest is heaving. "It wasn't enough to surveil me. You have to watch them too? And for what? You're going to eliminate them if I don't behave? Or what… You’re going to tell them their daughter is actually kin to a Mob Boss." I am so livid I could smack him, but I restrain myself. It was bad enough when it was just me—but this crosses a line.
"It's not that simple."
