Chapter 5 – Serafina
Undisclosed Safe House, Lazio Countryside
The house is too big.
Every room echoes—even with the windows open and Bianca’s voice trailing like music down the marble hall.
She’s already claimed the upstairs bedroom with the window seat and the painted ceiling.
“Like a castle,” she’d whispered when we arrived, palms pressed to the glass like she was trying to hold the sky.
Now she’s skipping barefoot over the polished floors, curls bouncing, laughter chasing behind her.
It’s the safest place I’ve ever seen.
Perimeter security. Unmarked fencing. A dozen exit strategies. It feels more like a clean prison than a home, but at least I know no one can reach them here.
Tony stands near the door, scanning messages on a secure tablet, his expression unreadable. When Bianca bounds into the hallway and tugs on his sleeve, he glances up and manages a small smile.
“You want to go see the olive grove?” he asks her.
Her eyes widen. “There’s trees here, too?”
He nods solemnly, as if trees were a rare and honorable thing. “Let’s go find the biggest one.”
She gasps like he’s offered her gold and reaches for his hand.
“Don’t run too far,” I say, voice soft but clear. “Stay where I can see you.”
She throws a grin over her shoulder. “Okay, Mama!”
They disappear around the corner, her giggles receding down the corridor.
I release a slow breath.
The silence that follows isn’t peaceful. It’s heavy. Like everything I haven’t said is still vibrating in the air.
Mama stands near the tall windows in the kitchen, arms crossed, watching the wind ripple through the hills. Her scarf is draped loosely over her shoulders, salt-and-pepper hair twisted into a knot, posture straight in the way women carry themselves when they’re afraid but unwilling to show it.
I join her.
The countryside stretches wide—dry yellow fields, rows of olive trees, a garden bed already sprouting green.
“She’ll be safe here,” I say, quietly.
She doesn’t answer at first. Then, softly: “You’re leaving.”
I nod.
She exhales. “How long?”
“Two months,” I reply. “If everything goes as planned.”
Her eyes narrow. “And if it doesn’t?”
I look down at my hands. I don’t answer.
She turns toward me fully. Her face is calm, but her mouth is tight. “What do you need from me?”
“Homeschool her,” I say. “Keep her off systems. No enrollment. No movement tracking. Keep it analog.”
“Of course.”
“She has workbooks in the blue bag. Art supplies, too. Keep her busy.” I hesitate, then meet her gaze. “Don’t take her off the property. Ever. Not even for a walk.”
My mother studies me. “Is this classified?”
I nod once.
Her voice drops. “Don’t tell me anything else. I don’t want to lie for you.”
I nod again.
She takes a small step closer, her fingers brushing mine briefly. “But Serafina…let this be the last one.” Her voice cracks on the edge. “For Bianca’s sake. Please. We can’t lose you.”
I stare at the stone tile for a long moment. My throat is dry. I close my eyes, the sound of my mother’s words dragging me back through years I thought I’d hardened over.
She had been disappointed when I told her I was pregnant.
I still remember the silence in the kitchen, her hands frozen around a mug of coffee, her eyes searching mine as though they could rewind time.
But she hadn’t screamed. She hadn’t cursed.
She’d simply sighed, set the mug down, and touched my cheek with trembling fingers.
“You’ll still be my daughter,” she whispered. “And this child will still be loved.”
When Bianca was born, she looked down at the tiny bundle in my arms, her face soft and sure in a way I hadn’t expected. “I’ll take care of her,” she said, her voice steady. “Pursue your dreams, Serafina. Don’t bury yourself too early.”
So she did. My mother became Bianca’s world when I couldn’t be. While I pushed through the grueling steps —fitness trials, language immersion, combat training, endless psychological evaluations—my mother was there. Feeding Bianca. Teaching her to walk. Holding her when she cried at night.
I told myself it was temporary. That one day I’d balance it all—motherhood and the badge. And when my first undercover assignments came with Isla by my side, I started paying my mother money every month. A way to pay back the countless nights she had given up her own sleep for my daughter’s.
Now, as her plea echoes in my ear, my throat tightens. For Bianca’s sake. She’s right. Every dangerous step I take is another chance Bianca loses her mother, and my mother loses her child.
Still…I can’t stop. Not yet. Because stopping would mean accepting that Isla died for nothing.
Then I nod. “I hear you.”
She leans in and presses her lips to my temple, then turns back to the window.
Tony’s voice drifts in before his footsteps do. “We found a lizard with no tail. She’s naming it Carmelo.”
Bianca appears a second later, breathless and glowing. She runs straight for me. “Mama!”
I kneel before she can crash into me and catch her tight against my chest. She’s warm from the sun, smelling like rosemary and sunbaked grass. Her arms lock around my neck.
“Sweetheart,” I murmur, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear, “Mama has to travel for a little while.”
Her body stills.
She pulls back to look at me, blinking up with wide eyes. “Can I come?”
I shake my head, slowly.
Her lower lip trembles, just a little. Then she nods. “Okay, Mama. I’ll be good with Grandma.”
I press my forehead to hers and hold back the sting rising behind my eyes.
“Of course you will,” I whisper. “You’re my brave girl.”
She kisses my cheek. “I love you, Mama.”
“I love you more.”
I stand, swallowing hard, and smooth the shoulders of her little dress. She runs back to my mother, who gathers her close with both arms.
They wave at me from the doorway. Bianca is smiling again.
I step beside Tony.
He doesn’t say anything.
We just watch them together—my mother’s arms curled protectively around her granddaughter, their silhouettes framed in gold light as the wind stirs the trees.
****
The car glides along the countryside road like it’s moving through another country entirely—one too quiet to be real.
The tinted windows throw my reflection back at me in broken patches. Loose strands of my hair curl around my collar. I tug my blazer tighter. My palms haven’t stopped sweating.
Tony sits beside me in the back seat, legs crossed, one arm propped against the window ledge.
He holds a file on his lap, unopened for now.
His face is unreadable—less like the man who comforted my daughter this morning, and more like the handler who’s sent people into places they didn’t always come back from.
The driver up front is stone-silent. Standard bureau chauffeur. No eye contact, no names.
The trees outside are thinning now—rustling pines and patchy farmland giving way to faded industrial yards and old gravel depots.
Rome is still far behind us, but the scent of the airport is already in the air—jet fuel and hard coffee, the invisible clock that ticks louder the closer you get to your gate.
“You still have time to back out,” Tony says finally, breaking the silence.
I glance over.
He lifts the file from his lap, then offers it to me without looking directly. “This isn’t like your last assignments, Serafina.”
I take the file and open it slowly.
Inside: a printout of my alias profile. Fake references. Clean utility bills. Domestic service background. No photos. Just names, numbers, and placement details.
My eyes scan the last line.
Household Placement Target:
Cristofano Vittorio Bellarosa
Age: 36
Head of the D’Angelis Syndicate – Melbourne Division
I blink.
“Bellarosa,” I repeat aloud. “Haven’t heard that name on an ops file in years.”
Tony nods. “He inherited the estate seventeen years ago. His father—Don Vittorio—used to run the old Palermo corridor. They shifted the syndicate to Melbourne to expand shipping operations. Port access. Fewer regulations. More political loopholes.”
“And I’m going in as?”
“Live-in maid. Name’s Elia Rosetti. They think it’s a domestic placement flagged for discreet placement. Your cover was planted six weeks ago through a shell agency in Queensland.”
I flip the page. There’s no photo of him.
I frown. “Why no image?”
Tony exhales through his nose, then leans his elbow against the armrest. “Because this operation doesn’t officially exist. The FBI’s taken over the original task force.
They think we’re out. So I buried the real mission inside a fabricated cyber smuggling case.
If anyone pulls our strings, they’ll see an illegal auction ring we’re supposedly cracking out of Singapore. ”
“And they bought it?”
“They bought it enough not to look closer.”
I close the folder slowly.
Tony watches me. “This man, Serafina—he’s not just powerful. He’s insulated. Loyalists. Private security. Legal buffers. His hands look clean. But we’ve had bodies. We’ve had money trails. Now we need proof.”
I shift in my seat, eyes narrowing on the horizon. “Which is where I come in.”
Tony nods once, then reaches beneath the seat and pulls out a small matte-black box. He sets it in my lap. The lid clicks open with a soft snap.
Inside: three button mics, a frequency scanner, a micro-lens camera disguised in a hairpin, and a flash drive coded to auto-encrypt upon extraction.
“I need paper,” he says. “Proof. Shipment logs. Inventory discrepancies. Financials. Anything that ties their ports to narcotics traffic.”
I nod, closing the box. “I’ll get it.”
He doesn’t smile. But his voice lowers. “You shouldn’t have to.”
I look out the window. “I made Isla a promise.”
He watches me quietly. Then reaches into his coat pocket and slides a slip of paper toward me. “Address for your arrival. Small motel just outside Melbourne. You’ll check in under Rosetti. The rest of the briefing will be waiting for you there.”
I glance down. An ordinary scribbled name: Hollingwood Lodge – Room 6
The car slows.