Chapter 3
FIRST GLIMPSE, HIS
CALISTA
When you’ve lived most of your life dodging men who believe you belong to them, you learn to feel eyes on you.
Even the covert ones—especially the covert ones. Because they have tells.
A breath too still. A shadow that doesn’t move when everything else does. A cold pinch at the back of your neck when someone’s watching too hard.
I felt the eyes for the first time while I was handing out bowls of soup.
One minute I am talking to Mrs. Mendoza about her son’s court date, and the next there’s a ripple in the room. There is no sound. There is no one to see. But I can feel the presence all the same.
I glance around without making it obvious. There’s no one. Nothing. Just fluorescent lights, a few tired volunteers, and the usual crowd of familiar faces.
But I know better than to trust what things look like.
I keep smiling. Keep doing what I do. But every time I move, I can feel the eyes on me. A weight I didn’t invite.
I know for sure when I step outside with the garbage bags. They’re heavier than usual, and I’m silently cursing Eduardo for forgetting to double-line the cans, again.
I open the dumpster lid, the cold December air stealing my breath, which isn’t a bad thing when you’re next to trash.
I can feel them. I don’t see them, but I know.
A chill runs through me, one that has nothing to do with the temperature.
I don’t turn around right away. That’s the mistake amateurs make—whipping your head around like you’re in a bad spy movie. Instead, I shift the weight of the bags in my hands, take a slow breath, and glance back.
I throw the bags in, and the lid closes with a loud noise. I brush my hands against my jeans and walk back to the shelter.
I glance at the reflection in the windows at the back of the building.
There. Just barely—broad shoulders, dark coat, standing still across the street near the corner lamppost like he’s part of the shadows of the night.
It’s a man. I’m sure of it. Tall. Still. Watching.
He’s good. Most wouldn’t notice him. But I’ve lived in shadows long enough to recognize one that doesn’t belong.
He thinks he’s invisible. He’s not.
Someone else may think it’s their mind playing tricks, but I know better. Something has shifted in the universe I left behind, I’m sure of it.
I stay in the shelter office longer than usual.
When I turn the lights off, I can feel the shadow. He’s still out there, and he hasn’t moved.
Not a mugger. Not a drunk. Not a lost tourist.
Someone so careful has to be a professional. Someone sent him, and I have a sinking feeling I know who.
I open the drawer where I keep burner phones. I’ll call from home, I decide, not wanting to put the shelter and the people who find refuge here at risk.
I walk home like I don’t know he’s following me.
If he wanted to kill me, he’d have done it by the dumpster, at the back of the building, where there was no one, and a cry for help would result in open windows, if there were any, being shut and locked tightly.
This wasn’t the part of town where a gunshot made enough noise to wake anyone up—it was just background.
As I walk, I know what has happened—I’ll have to make certain, of course, but I know.
There’s only one reason someone is watching me.
Giuseppe is dead.
When I was a child, I called him Nonno, but as I grew up and knew who he was, I stopped. When I left the family, he let me. My uncle would have married me off, but my grandfather let me escape. He protected me.
My uncle, Luigi, was killed a year ago. I’d read that in the Italian papers.
When you are in the mafia, life expectancy is unpredictable, but Luigi lived longer than my father and mother did. They were murdered—I suspect by my uncle, so he could take the mantle of heir—butchered in their beds while I slept two doors away.
I don’t have nightmares about that anymore.
With Giuseppe gone, Remo Morello, his heir, has probably taken over the family business—or as they call it in Italy, the Cosa Nostra.
Remo. The name makes my skin crawl.
The man who once wanted to marry me. The man I ran from. The man who vowed to kill me for the insult. The man I know is the reason I’m being followed.
My stomach turns violently.
Madre di Dio.
I’d hoped Remo moved on, that I could finally breathe. But breathing is a luxury that women like me don’t get to enjoy for long.
I go up the stairs in my building; the elevator hasn’t worked for years. I don’t mind. I like my life. It’s quiet. It’s honest. I give—making up for the sins of my father and grandfather.
I drop my bag on the kitchen counter, fill a glass of water, and walk to the window. I look out.
I can feel his presence, so I stay for a while, watching the shadows.
I go to bed without undressing.
I lie on the mattress covered in cheap sheets, my hand around the grip of my Glock under my pillow.
I’ll wake up early so I can make the call to Palermo.
But it’s moot. I don’t expect to sleep.
I hope tomorrow brings no more shadows.