Chapter 6
Inside the darkened classroom, Leo and Mia were tucked away in the "Fort", the hollowed out space beneath Anna’s heavy oak desk.
?"Remember the rules,"
Anna whispered, her voice a soothing balm.
"Not a sound. Not even a breath."
?Mia nodded, clutching her bear in one hand, while Leo gripped her other hand.
Anna blew them a silent kiss and stood up.
The warmth left her face instantly, replaced by the clinical coldness of a woman who had spent years outrunning the devil.
?She didn't reach for a gun.
A gun left ballistics. A gun left a signature.
?Instead, she pulled out two burner phones.
On the first, she dialed the Rossi Syndicate, using a voice-changer to leak the Valenti scouts’ location.
On the second, she dialed 911.
?"I'm a teacher at St. Jude’s,"
she whispered into the phone, her voice trembling with a perfectly fabricated panic.
"There are men with guns in the parking lot. Please, send everyone. They're shooting!"
?She disconnected.
By bringing the police and a rival family to the same doorstep, she wasn't just creating a distraction, she was creating a vacuum.
The police would clear the grounds, and the Rossi men would provide the "mafia war" narrative the authorities expected.
?The first hitman entered through the window. He was fast, but Anna was a shadow.
?She didn't strike to kill.
As he rounded the corner, she pulled a thin, high-tension wire she’d strung across the doorway at ankle height.
He tripped, his heavy frame slamming into a stack of metal trays with a deafening clatter.
Before he could recover, she was on him, her hand pressing a cloth soaked in industrial cleaning solvent over his mouth.
?Ten seconds later, he was out cold.
She dragged his limp body into the closet and turned the lock.
One down. Zero blood spilled.
?Outside, the first sirens began to wail, mixing with the sudden, sharp pops of the Rossi family opening fire on the Valenti's.
?The second hitman kicked in the classroom door.
Ah Vico, she knew him.
He was a veteran, he didn't run in. He moved slowly, his rifle sweeping the shadows.
"Come out, little teacher. I know you’re the one who took Carmine."
?Anna stepped out from behind a bookshelf, her hands raised.
She looked small, fragile, and terrified.
She had even pinched her own arms to make the skin look bruised.
"Please," she whimpered.
"The police are outside. Just leave before they get in here."
?Vico sneered, stepping closer.
"The police won't move fast enough to save you."
?He stopped.
He caught the way she was standing, the way her center of gravity was perfectly balanced, her eyes tracking the movement of his finger on the trigger, not the barrel of the gun.
The memory hit him like a lightning bolt.
?"That stance..."
Vico’s voice became a ghost.
"No. You died in Rome. The Wraith is dead."
?Anna’s lip curled into a cold, predatory smile.
"Vico Vico Vico, I'm just a poor teacher. And you’re about to have an accident."
?As the police searchlights swept across the classroom windows, Anna moved.
She didn't snap his neck.
Instead, she used a specialized pressure point strike to the nerve in his neck.
Vico’s eyes rolled back as his nervous system buckled.
As he fell, she caught his rifle, easing it silently to the floor so it wouldn't discharge.
?"The... Wraith..."
Vico choked out, his consciousness fading as the blue and red lights strobed against the chalkboard.
?"I'm a ghost," Anna whispered.
"And ghosts don't leave bodies for the police to find."
?She dragged his unconscious body across the hallway floor and into the supply closet where Carmine lay.
With a sharp shove, she forced him inside and pushed a cabinet against the door, sealing it shut so no one would suspect a thing.
These two… she would handle them personally.
They had recognized her.
And that was a mistake.
It wasn’t time for the world to know she was alive.
Not yet.
?Aiden Thorne’s SUV shrieked to a halt, smoking and riddled with bullet holes.
He didn't wait for Marcus.
He jumped out, gun drawn, his heart hammering as he saw the sea of police cruisers and the black-clad SWAT teams swarming the school.
?"Leo! Mia!" he screamed.
?He burst into their classroom, heart in his mouth.
He had expected blood.
Expected silence.
Expected to walk in and find his children gone… and their teacher dead.
Instead
He found Anna.
She was sitting on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, shoulders trembling as if the world had just shattered beneath her feet.
Her eyes were wide. Glossy. Frightened.
Convincing.
Too convincing.
Aiden stilled.
There was something wrong with the picture.
Something beneath the fear, buried deep in her gaze.
Not panic.
Calculation.
It was faint. Almost invisible.
But he had survived this long by trusting the smallest shift in a room.
The quietest lie.
The softest twitch before betrayal.
His instincts had never failed him.
And right now, they were whispering.
She’s not what she seems.
He would figure her out.
But not now.
Not when two tiny bodies suddenly scrambled out from beneath a desk.
“Daddy!”
Leo and Mia launched themselves toward him, their small arms wrapping tightly around his legs.
Aiden dropped instantly, pulling them into his chest, scanning the room even as he held them.
They were safe.
His jaw tightened.
But someone had tried to make sure they wouldn’t be.
And Anna…
Anna was still watching him.