Chapter 2
Julietta
The sound hit me first. A wet, thick slap like a water balloon bursting against concrete. Then came the spray—warm droplets spattering across my face, my neck, my dress.
Miguel's skull bloomed open before my eyes.
I didn't scream. Didn't move. The ballroom erupted into chaos around me—women shrieking, men shouting commands, security guards drawing weapons—but I remained still, an island of calm in a storm of panic.
Blood trickled down my collarbone, soaking into silk. Miguel's blood. The man I was supposed to marry in less than two years. The man whose children I was supposed to bear.
The man who'd grabbed my ass under the dinner table and whispered what he'd do to me on our wedding night.
But before that—before the grabbing, before the whispers—he'd asked me a question.
"Do you ever wonder what we'd be like if we'd met differently?" Miguel had asked suddenly, his wine glass halfway to his lips.
I'd looked at him, surprised. His hand was still on my thigh under the table, possessive, but his eyes looked almost... sad.
"What do you mean?"
"If we'd met at university. Or a party. If your last name wasn't Altieri and mine wasn't Suarez." He took a drink. "If we were just... people."
For a moment, I saw something human in him. Something that might have been kind in a different life.
"We'd probably never have met at all," I said quietly.
He laughed, bitter. "You're right. We're not people. We're alliances. Contracts. Bloodlines." His hand tightened on my leg, fingers digging in. "Might as well enjoy what we're owed."
And just like that, the almost-human moment died.
I looked away, toward the windows, and wondered if anyone ever escaped what they were born into.
Then his skull bloomed open.
His body slumped at my feet, half his head missing, eyes still open in eternal surprise. I should have been horrified. Traumatized. Instead, I felt... nothing. A vast, echoing emptiness where shock should have been.
"Miss Altieri!" Strong hands gripped my upper arms. One of Father's security men—Dominic, I thought his name was. His face swam before mine, features tight with urgency. "We need to move. Now."
My feet remained rooted to the marble floor. Something made me turn, made me look out through the floor-to-ceiling windows toward the surrounding buildings. The sensation of being watched prickled across my skin—a phantom touch, intimate and invasive.
Someone was out there. Someone had seen me. Seen through me.
"Miss Altieri!" Dominic's voice sharpened. He didn't wait for a response this time, just wrapped an arm around my waist and half-carried me toward the service exit. My heels skidded across polished marble, leaving faint smears of blood in our wake.
"My father—" I managed, voice sounding distant and hollow to my own ears.
"Secure. We're taking you to a secondary location."
Of course he’d worried about himself first.
The kitchen was a blur of stainless steel and startled staff. The loading dock beyond smelled of garbage and cigarettes. A black SUV idled, engine running, back door already open. Dominic bundled me inside, climbing in after me.
"Go!" he barked at the driver.
The vehicle lurched forward, tires squealing against asphalt. I pressed my face to the window, watching the glittering tower recede into the night. Police lights flashed in the distance, more sirens wailing as they converged on the scene.
Miguel was dead.
The thought should have devastated me. We weren't in love—it was an arranged marriage, a business transaction between criminal empires—but he was still a human being. A life snuffed out inches from my face.
Why couldn't I feel anything?
The city blurred past, neon signs and streetlights smearing into watercolor streaks. My hands trembled in my lap, red-stained fingers looking like they belonged to someone else. I could smell him on me—Miguel's cologne mixed with the coppery tang of his blood.
"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice finally steadying.
"Secure hotel," Dominic answered, eyes constantly scanning the road behind us. "Your father's orders."
"I need to speak with him."
"After you're secure."
I turned back to the window, watching my reflection flicker ghost-like over the passing scenery. Blood speckled my cheek like macabre freckles. My eyes looked too large, too dark—belonging to some wild creature rather than the perfectly poised mafia princess I'd been trained to be.
The car swerved suddenly, taking a sharp turn down a narrow side street. My shoulder slammed against the door.
"We're being followed," the driver announced, voice tight.
Dominic cursed, pulling a gun from his shoulder holster. "Cartel?"
"Can't tell. Black sedan, tinted windows."
My heart hammered against my ribs, the first real emotion I'd felt since the shooting—pure, animal fear. I twisted in my seat, staring out the back window. Headlights appeared around the corner, gaining on us.
"Faster," Dominic ordered.
The SUV accelerated, throwing me back against the leather seat. We ran a red light, narrowly missing a taxi. Horns blared. My fingers dug into the seat cushion, knuckles white.
"Lost them," the driver announced after several more turns, his shoulders visibly relaxing.
Dominic kept his weapon ready, eyes never stopping their constant assessment of threats. "Stay alert. Take the underground entrance."
Twenty minutes later, we pulled into a private garage beneath a luxury high-rise—all glass and steel, anonymous among the city's skyline. Two more of my father's men waited, escorting us to a service elevator that required a keycard to operate.
"Suite 4502," Dominic told me as the elevator ascended. "You'll stay here until your father determines it's safe to move you."
"And when will that be?"
He didn't answer.
The suite was opulent—all cream-colored furniture and gleaming surfaces. Floor-to-ceiling windows offered a panoramic view of the city skyline, though the blinds were immediately drawn upon our arrival. A security sweep revealed no threats, no listening devices.
"Your luggage will arrive shortly," Dominic informed me. "Don't leave the suite. Don't contact anyone. For your safety."
"My phone—"
"Will be held for security purposes."
Translation: I was a prisoner. A well-kept, luxury-surrounded prisoner.
"When can I speak to my father?"
"When he contacts us." Dominic's expression softened marginally. "Try to rest, Miss Altieri. You've experienced a trauma."
Had I? I didn't feel traumatized. I felt... empty. Hollow. Like someone had scooped out my insides and left nothing but a pretty shell.
The door closed behind him with a soft click. I stood in the center of the room, blood drying on my skin, wondering why I couldn't cry. Why I couldn't scream. All I felt was a strange, unsettling relief.
I peeled off my ruined dress, leaving it in a heap on the marble bathroom floor. The shower ran scalding hot, steam billowing around me as I scrubbed Miguel's blood from my skin until I was raw and pink. It had gotten everywhere—under my fingernails, in my hair, between my breasts.
Clean but still hollow, I wrapped myself in a hotel robe and wandered to the window, parting the blinds just enough to peer out at the glittering city below. Somewhere out there, someone had put a bullet through Miguel's head. Someone had been watching me.
I pressed my forehead against the cool glass, closing my eyes. My mind drifted back five years, to my eighteenth birthday. The day my life as I knew it ended and this strange half-existence began.
Lorenzo Altieri—my biological father—sitting behind that massive obsidian desk, studying me like a specimen under glass. "You were born to serve this family, Julietta. Everything you are, everything you will become, belongs to us. To me."
I'd been raised by the Bennetts—wealthy, distant, but safe. Normal. Then with a single sentence, I learned it had all been a lie. I wasn't Julietta Bennett, beloved daughter. I was Julietta Altieri, asset. Property.
"Your marriage to Miguel Suarez will unite our organizations," Lorenzo had explained eventually, not bothering to soften the blow. "You have seven years to prepare for your role as his wife."
Seven years that had just been cut short by a sniper's bullet.
I turned from the window, my reflection catching in the mirror above the writing desk. I barely recognized myself—pale face, haunted eyes, wet hair plastered to my skull. Was this freedom? This numb emptiness where fear should be?
A knock at the door startled me. "Miss Altieri? Your luggage."
I opened the door just enough to see Dominic and another guard wheeling in two suitcases. They must have been packed while I was in the shower—clothes I hadn't chosen, necessities I hadn't requested.
"Thank you," I murmured, the polite response automatic.
"There's a guard stationed outside your door at all times," Dominic reminded me. "If you need anything, just ask."
After they left, I examined the suitcases.
Designer clothes in my size. Toiletries.
Jewelry—including the obscene diamond engagement ring Miguel had placed on my finger three months ago.
Tonight, at the gala, I’d been wearing my public ring; smaller but no less impressive.
I slipped the real one on, the weight of it suddenly oppressive.
Night deepened outside the windows. I couldn't sleep, couldn't even close my eyes without seeing Miguel's head explode in a spray of red mist. Not from horror, but from the strange fascination that accompanied the memory.
Who had been watching me? Why had I felt their gaze like a physical touch?
Just before midnight, I heard it—the squeal of tires on the street below, followed by the slam of car doors. My heart leapt into my throat. I pressed my ear against the suite door, listening for the guard's movements.
Nothing.
Then—soft footsteps in the hallway. Not the heavy tread of Dominic or the other guards. Lighter. Deliberate. My pulse hammered in my throat.
I backed away from the door, eyes darting around the room for a weapon. The footsteps paused outside my suite. I held my breath, waiting for the knock, the call, the splintering of wood.
Silence stretched, taut as a wire.
Then the footsteps retreated, fading down the hallway. I exhaled, my entire body trembling. Had I imagined it? Was the trauma finally catching up to me?
I crawled into the king-sized bed, pulling the duvet up to my chin like a child hiding from monsters. The engagement ring gleamed in the darkness, a cold reminder of obligations that might—or might not—still exist.
My fingernails dug into my palms, finding dried blood I'd missed in my frantic scrubbing. Miguel's blood. The man I was supposed to marry. The man whose death should devastate me.
"Am I mourning the man," I whispered to the empty room, "or the life I thought I had?"
Neither answer felt right. What I felt wasn't grief at all—it was anticipation. As if Miguel's death wasn't an ending, but a beginning. As if those eyes I'd felt watching me from the darkness had seen something in me that no one else ever had.
Seen me.
Outside the hotel, a black sedan idled across the street, its engine a soft purr in the night. Inside, a man adjusted a camera lens, zooming in on the forty-fifth floor. On my window. On me.
I didn't know it yet, but someone was coming for me.
And part of me was waiting.