Page 96 of Accidental Alliance

The thought settles like a stone in my stomach.

What do I do now?

My fingers tighten around the wheel while my mind turns over every possibility I can think of. I need to take Matteo and disappear again. That is the only real option. But without my uncle’s help, I have no idea how to secure new documentation. Not forged well enough to pass through border patrol, banking systems, school enrollment, and medical files like last time. I won’t be able to make them convincing enough to flee to another country without the Contis knowing.

I glance at Matteo and find him curled into the passenger seat, the oversized sweater wrapped tightly around him. His face is pale except for the red around his eyes, his lips parted slightly when he sniffles. He keeps looking out the windshield, then the mirror next to him, and then back again.

I close my eyes for a second, pressing my forehead against the steering wheel.

All I want to do is go back to our little blue house on the cul-de-sac. For one weak moment, I let myself imagine the life we were forced to leave behind. I want to return to them and forget all of this. I want to wake up tomorrow and pack Matteo’s lunch and complain about being late. I want him to roll his eyes when I tell him to grab a jacket. I want people to only know me as Marina Hayes, the quiet receptionist with a tired laugh.

I want the damn past to stay dead.

Suddenly, a memory flashes in my mind so quickly, my eyes snap open.

“I need a brilliant strategist like your father was to help me make moves against them. I know he taught you well, Isabella.”

His voice returns with startling clarity.

At the time, the offer had felt like a hand reaching up from a grave to wrap around my throat and squeeze the life out of me.

Davide Bianchi is a syndicate boss with blood on his hands and enemies knocking at his gates. A man desperate enough to track down Amos Russo’s daughter and ask for help against an encroaching family. He knows how to move people, hide them, forge documents, shift money, bury names, and he has the resources I don’t.

More importantly, he has reason to move against the Contis. If the family pressing into his territory is tied to the Contis, then Davide does not need much incentive to help me so long as I hand over everything I know about them.

My hand reaches down to the shifter, the other traveling to flick the headlights back on. The beams cut across the storage units ahead, bouncing off the metal doors of the units.

Beside me, Matteo shifts in his seat, a small sniffle leaving him.

“Where are we going?”

I turn and reach for him carefully, wiping the tear tracks from his cheeks with my thumbs. “We’re going to go see an old friend.”

His brow furrows. “A friend like Mrs. Keller?”

Despite everything, a broken laugh almost rises in me. Mrs. Keller, known for making terrible lentil soup and knitting scarves for half the neighborhood that never quite come out right, and whose idea of danger was once a raccoon getting into everyone’s trash bins right before the holiday season.

“Sort of,” I say before turning back to the road. “You’ll see when we get there.”

18

ISABELLA

The golden rays of the rising sun illuminate the fortified safehouse in a halo-like effect when we pull up to it, making it look almost holy.

The sky behind the estate is still bruised purple at the edges of the horizon, night still clinging stubbornly to the tree line while dawn splits gold across the stone walls.

The light catches on the upper windows first, turning the glass into sheets of fire, then rolls slowly down over the ivy-choked exterior, the iron balconies, the arched front doors, and the armed men patrolling the grounds with rifles resting against their chests.

Unlike the Conti safehouse, this one is much grander and looks more like a second home than a place to stay hidden while conducting business.

It does not have the sterile brutality of reinforced walls or the cold, functional layout of a house designed to contain threats. This place is older and prettier. And for that reason, it is much more dangerous.

I pull the car up to the front car port. Armed men move around the perimeter of the drive, spreading out with practiced ease as we approach.

One man lifts a hand toward his earpiece, talking into it for a brief moment while the others scan the road behind us.

Matteo lifts his head slightly to look out the window, his eyes slightly wide and afraid. “Are we there?”