MIA
This had to be a prank.
Highly upsetting. Terribly unfunny. If I had to guess—Zo’s idea. She never meant badly, but sometimes she took things too far.
The alternative was almost impossible for me to comprehend: Fabi lying to me for over a decade about her name.
Her identity.
Her fiancé’s identity.
She was not getting married to Cosimo Ferraro. No way. That man was the heir to the Ferraro family empire. The family who were responsible for my uncle’s death. The family who were at the top of my father’s tough-on-crime crusade.
It was too crazy. “This is a joke, right?” I scanned her face, looking for a tell.
“I wish.”
The light crack in her voice. The shiny, green eyes. The way she gnawed on her bottom lip.
Shit. She wasn’t that good at pretending.
I pressed my hand against the side of a polished white column. “You’re seriously telling me you’re a mafia princess?” Rafaele Messero—the man Fabi claimed was her brother—was the don of another major mob family in the state.
Fabi’s eyes jumped to my hand. “Oh God, Mia. Are you feeling faint? Sit down.” She pulled me toward the bench by the front door. “I should have asked you to sit before I told you. I’m not thinking straight.”
I scanned my body for any signs of an impending episode.
No nausea.
No flash of heat.
No dark spots in my vision.
A small relief. Vasovagal syncope was an annoying condition to live with, and the last thing I needed right now was to spontaneously lose consciousness.
I had so many questions. “Wait, so—’
“Shit,” Fabi cut me off, her gaze flicking to something above me. “Don’t look up. There’s a camera right there. We can’t let them see you.” She slid off the shawl she had wrapped around her shoulders and tossed it at me. “Here, take this. Wrap it around your head.”
“What? Why?”
“Because every single person your dad wants to put behind bars is out there, right this second, in my brother’s backyard,” she whispered urgently. “The name Morales isn’t exactly popular around here. How do you think they’ll react if they know his daughter is on the premises?”
My stomach bottomed out. I was on enemy territory.
Oh boy. My lack of an invitation to this party was starting to make a lot more sense.
I fumbled with the shawl, hands shaking. I’d gotten this whole thing wrong. But how could I have gotten it right?
Fabi’s family had always been a mystery. I only knew her twin sister, Elena, who went to the same boarding school, but she had her own friend group and never really hung out with us. No one had ever visited the twins at Valais Academy and there were only vague mentions of a brother. I remembered Fabi’s father died a few years ago. She’d confided that he’d been abusive to her mom, but nothing more.
Even if I’d suspected her and Elena were hiding something about their family, I would never have suspected this.
“Give me.” She snatched the shawl back, wrapped it over my hair, and reached into her clutch. A pair of oversized sunglasses appeared, which she promptly slid onto my face. “We need to get you inside. Now. Some people are running late, and they might arrive any second. We can’t risk anyone recognizing you. Are you okay to stand?”
“Yes.” This was exactly the kind of situation that usually triggered an episode, but it seemed like my body had decided to have mercy on me.
“Head down, don’t look at anyone, and for the love of God, do not look at the cameras. There’s the one above you and one in the lobby. Let’s go.”
Fabi corralled me through the front door, her hand pressed firmly against my back. We power walked through the house. It smelled like roses and a hint of masculine cologne. I kept my gaze on the floor, watching it change from pristine marble, to hardwood, then to a plush blue rug as we entered a room and stopped.
A door clicked shut behind me.
“You can take it off now,” Fabi said.
I slipped off the shawl and the glasses and tossed them onto a four-poster bed. We were in a guest bedroom with a small window that faced the backyard.
Fabi rushed over to it and pulled the curtains closed. “I’m so sorry. I wish you didn’t have to find out like this.” When she turned around, her eyes were glistening. “The last few months were impossible, Mia. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t know what you’d think.”
“Start from the beginning,“ I said, trying to stay calm.
“Hold on.” She took a buzzing phone out of her clutch and pressed it to her ear. “Yes, she’s really here. Go inside from the back, take a right, and walk until the third door. We’ll be waiting.”
As soon as she hung up, she flung herself at me. “God, I missed you. I missed you so much, you have no idea.”
I gave her back a few tentative pats. Warring emotions were battling it out inside my chest. I was hurt, confused, and a little scared. I wasn’t ready for a heartfelt reunion. I just wanted the truth.
“Can you please explain what’s been going on?”
She pulled back, her expression all guilt. “I will. Trust me, I will, if you just—’
The door cracked open, and Nina stepped in.
The hurt surged forward, flooding my entire body. Nina knew, and she didn’t say a word.
Nina’s gaze connected with mine. She was wearing the red off-the-shoulder dress I picked out for her weeks ago. She’d said she needed it for a charity gala she was attending this month.
“You lied to me,” I accused, looking between her and Fabi. “Both of you.”
Fabi’s lips wobbled. “I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to go on for so long.’
“I know you’re pissed,” Nina said, raising her palms. “But we can’t do this here. We need to get you out.”
My chest tightened with indignation. “I spent the last hour since I received that text freaking out. Imagine finding out your friend’s having an engagement party when you didn’t even know she was engaged. I thought I did something to upset Fabi!”
“Oh, Mia,” Fabi sobbed. “It’s not you. It’s me. I’ve made a horrible mistake.”
Nina sighed, grabbed a box of tissues from the nightstand, and shoved it into Fabi’s hands. “Don’t cry. You’ll ruin your makeup.” Then she turned to me. “We owe you an explanation—I’m not saying we don’t. But you know who’s out there, right?” She pointed at the window. “Someone’s going to start wondering where the bride-to-be has gone off to, and they won’t wait long before coming to find her.”
God. If they found her, they’d find me. I was easily recognizable thanks to the news coverage of the campaign.
Cold fear wrapped around me. The few safety trainings I’d received from my dad’s security team definitely hadn’t covered what to do if you accidentally crashed a mob party.
I was out of my depth.
And even though I didn’t like what Nina was saying, I couldn’t argue with her logic.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll talk later.”
“Go, Fabi,” Nina commanded. “I’ll handle this.”
Fabi grabbed her things off the bed, gave me a final, anguished look, and slipped out of the room.
Nina’s expression was grim. “I’m calling you a cab.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed. “An Uber might be faster.”
“We don’t need a digital record of you being here,” she countered, already dialing.
She had a point. I gnawed on a fingernail as she spoke to the dispatcher. Questions clawed at me, and I was so desperate for answers, but I wasn’t going to get any right now.
Nina hung up. “Fifteen minutes.” She moved to the door. “Once the cab arrives, I’ll come and grab you.”
“Where are you going?” I asked, alarmed.
“I’m going to scope things out. Make sure the path is clear and that no one’s hanging around the entrance.”
I didn’t like this—not one bit—but I nodded anyway. What other choice did I have?
“Just stay put until I get back,” Nina said before slipping out.
Nerves prickled beneath my skin as I moved around the room, familiarizing myself with my surroundings. I peeled back the curtain just enough to get a glimpse of the party outside. The backyard was packed with men in crisp suits and women in glittering cocktail dresses, their laughter and conversation drifting through the night air.
From here, they looked so…ordinary.
But it was a facade, at least according to my dad. The mob families had tried for years to clean up their reputation, and they’d succeeded to some degree. Many of them owned legitimate businesses, some of which even traded on the stock exchange. But my dad said that beneath that polished veneer, they were still ruthless. Still dangerous. The same people flooding the streets with drugs and orchestrating crimes that made them far richer than any legal business ever could.
I swallowed and let the curtain fall back into place.
While I waited for Nina, I slipped into the en suite to use the bathroom. At the sink, I washed my hands and dried them on a towel monogrammed with the letter M. That must have—
CRASH.
My heart slammed into my ribs. I froze, fingers gripping the edge of the sink, breath caught in my throat.
Someone had just barged into the room.
And neither of the voices coming from out there belonged to Nina.
