Page 70 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
I gave my new name to every officer, every innkeeper, every suspicious pair of eyes that lingered a little too long. Elena Rinaldi.
Twenty-four. No criminal record. No family. No story to tell.
At first, I stayed in hostels.
Small ones. Cheap. The kind that didn't ask questions as long as you paid upfront and didn't bleed on the sheets.
My room was often no more than a mattress, a flickering fan, and a broken window latch that let in sea salt and rain.
I kept my things in a duffel bad that I never fully unpacked.
Slept with my passport under my pillow.
Ate when I could.
Watched my back every time I went out for bread.
But fear, like everything else, loses its edge with time.
After the first month, I found a rhythm.
I learned which neighborhoods were safest, which shopkeepers didn't stare too hard, which parks had benches I could sit on without drawing attention.
The money Luciana had sent with me—cash, all clean—was enough to last a little over two months.
I was careful. But not stupid.
I knew it would run out.
And when it did, I would need a way to live that didn't involve going back.
The job came almost by accident.
There was a restaurant tucked into the old district of the coastal town where I'd landed.
Not a grand one.
Nothing with stars or white linens.
It was the kind of place where the chairs didn't match and the walls were covered in handwritten menus that changed depending on what fish the harbor delivered that morning.
I'd eaten there twice.
Once, when I was too tired to cook.
Once, when I just wanted to sit near people and remember what it felt like to laugh.
The owner was a widow named Paola, sharp-eyed and iron-voiced, with graying curls and hands that moved like she'd never been afraid of work.
She caught me staring at a help wanted sign and asked if I'd ever washed dishes.
I lied and said yes.
She asked for my name.
I gave her the one on the papers.
She nodded once and told me to come back the next morning.
