Chapter 4 - The File Under the FloorboardsThe guest suite Marius assigned to me on the third floor of his mansion was larger than my entire apartment. It was filled with mahogany furniture, silk sheets, and massive arched windows overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. But to me, it felt like a silver-plated cell.
It was 2:00 AM. I couldn't sleep. The adrenaline from the restaurant, the revelation of Julian’s betrayal, and the lingering heat of Marius’s hand on my skin kept my blood boiling.
If Marius thought he was going to lock me away like a princess in a tower, he had severely underestimated the woman he’d hired.
I slipped out of my heels, pulled on a dark wool cardigan, and crept out into the dimly lit hallway. The mansion was quiet, save for the faint, rhythmic footsteps of guards patrolling the outer perimeter of the estate. I knew the layout of this house better than anyone—I had managed the security upgrades myself two years ago.
I knew where Marius kept his private archives: behind a hidden mahogany panel in his ground-floor library.
Slinking through the shadows like a ghost, I slid down the grand staircase, avoiding the squeaky third step. The library door was unlocked. I slipped inside, closing it softly behind me.
The room smelled of old leather, paper, and pipe smoke. I rushed toward the far wall, pressed the hidden release behind the third leather-bound volume of Dante’s Inferno, and watched as a section of the bookshelf clicked and swung open, revealing a heavy steel wall safe.
I entered the code—his birthdate backwards, a detail I had remembered from his passport paperwork years ago.
Click.
The safe door swung open. Inside were stacks of untraceable bearer bonds, fake passports, cold-storage crypto wallets, and a single black leather folder marked with a crest I didn't recognize: a crest featuring a silver viper wrapped around a broken rose.
The Moretti family crest. The syndicate Marius had annihilated five years ago to take control of the region.
I opened the folder. Inside were yellowed newspaper clippings, police reports, and medical records dated twenty years ago.
I scanned the top document, and my heart stopped.
Subject: Marco Rossi. Lead Financial Accountant, Moretti Crime Syndicate. Status: Deceased (Execution by firearm). Surviving Kin: Elena Rossi (Wife), Bianca Rossi (Daughter, Age 5).
My hand began to shake violently. Bianca Rossi.
That was my real name. My mother had changed our last name to Vance—the same name as Julian's fake company—when I was six years old, telling me my father had died in a car accident in Rome.
I flipped to the next page. It was a signed execution order from 2006. The signature at the bottom was written in dark blue ink, bold and unmistakable.
Authorized by: Don Vito Orlov. (Marius’s father).
And beneath it, a handwritten note added in crisp, modern script:
Target’s daughter tracked to Milan. Do not harm. Provide full academic funding anonymously. Protect at all costs. — M.O.
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My father wasn't an accountant who died in a car crash. He was a mafia bookkeeper murdered by Marius’s father. And Marius hadn't hired me out of chance.
He had hunted me down. He had orchestrated my entire life.
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