Chapter 1 - THREE BULLETS
Blood was the last thing I ever expected to spill across Gabriel Rossi's priceless Persian rug.
Especially my own.
For two years, I had survived inside the Rossi estate by mastering one skill better than anyone else.
Invisibility.
At twenty-four, I knew which floorboards creaked, which doors slammed in the wind, which guards liked their coffee black, and which rooms I should never enter.
I knew not to look at the men who arrived after midnight.
I knew not to ask why some of them left with bandages around their hands.
And I knew better than to react when I heard sounds from the basement.
The first rule at the Rossi estate was simple.
Keep your head down.
The second was easier.
Pretend you heard nothing.
Gabriel Rossi owned businesses across upstate New York.
Restaurants.
Construction companies.
Warehouses.
Nightclubs.
At least, that was what appeared on paper.
Everyone in the county knew there was another side to the Rossi empire.
A darker side.
Gabriel was the kind of man people lowered their voices around.
He never shouted.
He never needed to.
One look from his cold gray eyes could silence an entire room.
And somehow, despite all the stories about him, I had never seen him lose control.
Until the afternoon his son was shot.
Leo was six.
He had lost his mother three years earlier in a car fire.
After that, something inside the boy seemed to disappear.
He rarely spoke.
He didn't play with other children.
He spent hours building wooden train tracks in the sunroom or staring through the windows at the driveway.
I wasn't supposed to become attached to him.
I knew that.
Employees came and went.
Nannies came and went.
Housekeepers came and went.
But Leo remained.
And somehow, over time, he became the one person in the house I couldn't ignore.
One afternoon, I found him struggling with two wooden train pieces.
His nanny was asleep in a chair.
I checked the hallway.
Then I knelt beside him.
“Try turning this one.”
He looked at me.
I clicked the pieces together.
“Choo-choo.”
For the first time in months, Leo almost smiled.
“What are you doing?”
Gabriel's voice came from behind me.
I jumped.
“Cleaning the baseboard, sir.”
His gray eyes moved from me to the train.
“Leave it.”
Then he walked away.
I didn't understand what he meant.
Three days later, at exactly 3:15 p.m., the estate exploded.
The sound was so violent that the windows shook.
An SUV had smashed through the perimeter fence.
Three masked men jumped out.
They carried rifles.
The first bullet shattered the reinforced glass of the sunroom.
Leo screamed.
His blue paint splattered across the floor.
I looked up.
The gunmen weren't shooting at me.
They weren't shooting at the guards.
All three rifles turned toward Leo.
Something inside me moved before my brain could.
“LEO!”
I ran.
I slammed into him.
We fell together.
I wrapped my arms around his tiny body.
The first bullet tore through my shoulder.
The second struck my ribs.
The third hit my lower back.
Pain exploded through me.
But I didn't let go.
Leo was sobbing against my chest.
“Shh,” I whispered.
Blood filled my mouth.
“I've got you.”
Then gunfire erupted from inside the house.
Gabriel's men opened fire.
The masked attackers scattered.
Someone screamed.
Glass rained across the floor.
Then I heard Gabriel.
Not speaking.
Roaring.
“GET MY SON!”
Footsteps thundered toward us.
I felt hands pulling me away.
Gabriel dropped beside Leo.
He checked his son's face.
His neck.
His chest.
Leo was untouched.
Then Gabriel looked at me.
His expression changed.
I had never seen fear on his face before.
Not even once.
Now I saw it.
“Medic!”
One of his men shouted.
“She took three.”
Gabriel pressed his hands against my wounds.
My blood soaked his expensive suit.
“If she dies,” he said quietly, “you all die.”
Someone tried to move him.
He refused.
“Look at me.”
I could barely keep my eyes open.
“Sir…”
“Look at me.”
I did.
His gray eyes were locked onto mine.
“Do not close your eyes.”
I wanted to tell him I wasn't trying to.
Darkness swallowed me anyway.
When I woke, pain came first.
Then white light.
A monitor beeped beside me.
An IV ran into my arm.
There were no nurses.
No hospital hallway.
No smell of disinfectant drifting beneath the door.
Instead, two armed men stood outside.
I tried to sit up.
Pain ripped through my side.
A man appeared beside the bed.
Gabriel.
His shirt was still stained with my blood.
“This isn't a hospital,” I whispered.
“No.”
“Where am I?”
“My private medical wing.”
“Why?”
He didn't answer.
I looked at the locked door.
Then back at him.
“You're keeping me here?”
His jaw tightened.
“After what we found while you were unconscious…”
He leaned closer.
“You can't leave.”
My heart started pounding.
“What did you find?”
Gabriel stared at me for several seconds.
Then he placed something on the blanket.
A photograph.
It was me.
Taken two weeks earlier.
Walking through the Rossi estate.
I stared at it.
“I don't understand.”
Gabriel's voice dropped.
“The men who attacked my son knew exactly where he would be.”
He placed another photograph beside the first.
This one showed me entering the sunroom.
Then another.
Me carrying Leo's lunch.
Another.
Me walking through the east corridor.
My hands began shaking.
“You think I told them where he was?”
“No.”
Gabriel looked at me.
“I think someone inside this house has been watching you.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
He picked up one final photograph.
This one had been taken the night before.
It showed me asleep in my tiny room.
My bedroom window was clearly visible.
On the back of the photograph, someone had written four words.
SHE IS NOT WHO YOU THINK.
Gabriel looked directly into my eyes.
“Who are you, Elena?”
I stared at him.
May you like
Because for the first time in two years, the mafia boss knew my real name.
And I had never told him.
