Chapter 12
As the final bell rang, a rusted, unmarked truck bypassed the service entrance and rolled into the pickup lane.
?"Stay in the SUV, kids. I forgot my notebook," Anna said, her voice a calm melody. She slipped out, melting into the crowd of students.
?The driver was a mess, eyes wide, knuckles white. He wasn't a professional, he was a desperate Valenti debt slave rigged with a dead man's switch or a cargo of accelerant.
?Anna didn't draw a weapon. Moving with the brisk energy of an annoyed teacher, she "tripped" by the driver’s window. In one fluid motion, she jammed a ceramic shard into the ignition wiring and severed the fuel line.
"Rough day?" she asked the panicked driver, her eyes flashing a lethal promise.
"Drive away now, or the next thing I severe won't be a wire."
Terrified by the sheer void of fear in her gaze, the man slammed the truck into reverse and tore out of the zone.
Anna stepped back into the Thorne SUV, smoothing her skirt as if she’d done nothing more than pick up a stray pencil.
The twins never even looked up from their tablets.
While Anna was playing guardian at school, the "Three Clowns" were losing their grip at home.
Elena, fueled by a week of simmering resentment, finally snapped when Leo accidentally tipped his juice box onto the freshly polished marble.
The liquid spread like a stain on her pride. She lunged, her fingers digging into the boy’s small arm with a bruising, violent force.
?"You little brat!" she hissed, her face contorting as she shook him.
?Leo let out a sharp, pathetic whimper of pain, his eyes welling with tears.
Elena never saw the shadow move. She only felt the bone shattering impact of a tactical heel driven into her ribs.
The force was astronomical, launching her across the kitchen and into the marble countertop with the sickening, dry crunch of snapping kindling.
?She collapsed to the floor, gasping for a breath that wouldn't come.
?"Floors can be slippery, Elena," Anna said.
Her voice was flat, a terrifying void of emotion as she stepped over the writhing woman. Without a second glance, she tucked a wide eyed, trembling Leo against her side and ushered him away, leaving the maid to choke on the silence.
An hour later, screams erupted from the nursery. Sofia, desperate for dominance, had cornered Mia and was yanking her hair to "fix" a bow. Mia’s muffled cry cut short as Anna intervened without warning, seizing Sofia’s wrist with precise, agonizing pressure.
Crack.
Sofia shrieked as her radius gave way.
"The next time you touch her," Anna whispered into Sofia's ear as the woman sobbed on the floor, "I won't stop at the bone. I'll take the nerve."
Aiden sat in the clinical blue glow of the monitors, the footage paused on a predator in a cardigan. He didn't see accidents, he saw the terrifying, calculated precision of a professional neutralizing threats.
?Instinctively, he pulled open his heavy desk drawer. With a rare, tingling nervousness, he withdrew the manila envelope and slid out the contents.
?The photo hit him first. It wasn't the patient teacher, but a woman with eyes of cold flint, face smeared with soot and blood against the unmistakable backdrop of the Roman villa.
The day of the blast.
?His breath hitched as he scanned the redacted lines, his grip crinkling the paper. He leaned back with a shaky exhale. The "little teacher" was the shadow present when his world ended.
?He locked the folder away, his chest heavy with conflicting urges to scream at her or thank her for the broken bones of those who had dared to touch his children.
?Adjusting his jacket, he bypassed the bar and the bedroom. He headed straight for the roof, ready to confront the ghost who had been holding his heart together with bloody hands.
Midnight brought a biting wind. Atop the roof, Anna adjusted her rifle’s windage, her eyes locked on a suspicious black sedan idling two miles away.
"Is that how you taught them math, Anna? By calculating the trajectory of a .338 Lapua?"
?Aiden’s voice cut through the silence like a gunshot. He stood by the chimney, hollow and weary, his coat billowing in the wind.
?Anna didn’t flinch, her eye never leaving the scope. "It’s a cleaner science than your business, Aiden."
?"Asset name: Wraith," he continued, the words cold and heavy. "Specialty: Deep cover protection and high value neutralization. You weren't just a shadow assigned to my wife’s detail, you’re the most dangerous assassin in our world."
Anna finally pulled back, sitting up and meeting his gaze.
"I saw the secondary device," Anna said, her voice a low vibration in the wind. "I tried to damp the blast, but I was two seconds too late. I’ve spent three years trying to pay back those two seconds by guarding what you have left."
?Aiden looked at the rifle, then at the woman he had begun to love. The pieces of the last year finally clicked into place.
?"The kidnapping attempt a year ago," he realized, his voice strained. "The men were found shot dead before my guards even reached the scene. That was you? How long have you been stalking our lives?"
?"I've never been far," she admitted.
?"You didn't just come here to teach," Aiden whispered, his heart breaking and singing all at once.
?"I came here to make sure they live," Anna countered, finally standing up to face him.
"Even if it means you have to kill me now that the truth is out."
Aiden took a slow, deliberate step forward, the wind howling around them, but his focus never wavered from her eyes.
?"I don't want to kill you, Anna," he said, his voice dropping to a raw, aching low. "I want to know why you waited until I fell in love with a ghost to tell me you were the one who haunts me."
?The silence that followed was heavier than any secret. Anna looked at him, the lethal Wraith flickering behind the eyes of the woman who had tucked his children into bed every night.
?"Because the ghost could love you back," she whispered. "The Wraith isn't allowed to love anyone."