Chapter 7
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" Aiden gasped.
"We played the Library Game, Daddy!" Mia chirped.
"Miss Anna told us to stay in the fort. Some men were loud in the hallway, but then the police came and made them go away."
Aiden looked past his children at Anna. She was standing up now, looking every bit the frazzled, innocent teacher.
"It was so scary, Mr. Thorne,"
Anna said, her voice shaky.
"The police said it was a gang shooting in the parking lot. One man tried to come in here, but he tripped and knocked himself out on the doorframe. He.. he he's in the closet."
Aiden looked at the closet, then at the bruise on Anna’s arm.
"Are you okay? Your arm..."
"I.. I.. I'm fine" Anna said giving him a small, watery smile.
He looked at the classroom, which was suspiciously clean for a war zone.
"Tripped and knocked himself out...," Aiden repeated, his eyes narrowing.
Yeah right
For the first time, Aiden realized he wasn't looking at a victim.
He was looking at a woman who had managed to scare off the most dangerous men in the city using nothing but the police and a well timed "slip."
"Thank you, Anna," Aiden said, his voice thick with a new kind of respect. "For keeping them... safe."
"It's my job, Mr Thorne," she replied.
"Now class is dismissed." She murmured to herself, a lethal smirk settling on her lips.
............xxxxx..............
Aiden Thorne sat in his office, the glow of three monitors reflecting in his dark eyes.
"Run it again, Marcus. Every single day of her life."
"Sir, we’ve gone back fifteen years," Marcus sighed, rubbing his temples.
"Anna Vincent was a scholarship student. She taught in London, then Rome, then here. Her records are pristine. No debt, no traffic tickets, no social media. She’s a saint."
"That’s the problem," Aiden hissed, tapping a heavy gold pen against his desk.
"Nobody is a saint. Not in this city. She handled those kids with a calmness that didn't come from a teaching degree."
He looked at the footage of Anna reading to his children.
"If her record is this clean, it’s because someone professionally scrubbed it. Most people have a past, Marcus, run it again."
"Yes sir"
............xxxxx..............
Anna Vance lived in a neighborhood that didn’t exist on luxury maps.
Her apartment wasn’t minimalist for style, it was engineered for exits.
Clean counters. Bare walls.
Nothing sentimental enough to slow her down.
?Every morning at 5:00 AM, she moved through a silent routine of calisthenics in the dark.
Her body was a well oiled machine that remembered the tension of a garrote even as she mentally prepared to teach basic math.
Her kitchen held one mug, one plate, and a spice rack where the "Cumin" jar actually hid a specialized electronic toolkit.
?Her neighbors knew her as the quiet teacher who always helped the elderly Mrs. Gable carry her groceries.
They saw a woman with kind eyes and soft cardigans.
They didn’t see the way she checked her door seals for hair thin fibers every time she returned home, or how she scanned the rooftops for optics every time she pulled her blinds.
She was a ghost hiding in plain sight, waiting for a past she had abandoned to finally catch up.
A ghost.
Not dead.
Just waiting.
And ghosts didn’t panic.
They prepared.
That night, she stepped out of her apartment dressed in black, nothing dramatic, nothing suspicious.
Just practical. Hair tied back. Gloves tucked into her pocket.
The streets were quiet.
By the time she reached the school, the world had settled into its comfortable illusion of safety.
She didn’t use the front entrance.
She never did.
The hallway lights hummed softly as she slipped inside. Calm. Controlled. Invisible.
The supply closet door was exactly as she had left it.
She moved the cabinet aside without hesitation.
Inside, Carmine and Vico were beginning to stir, confusion replacing unconscious stillness.
Their eyes widened when they saw her.
Recognition.
Fear.
“Please...” one of them started.
She tilted her head slightly.
That was their mistake.
“You shouldn't have come after the kids,” she said quietly.
No raised voice. No anger.
Just fact.
What followed was precise.
Efficient.
Professional.
No chaos. No evidence.
No noise beyond what an empty building already whispered at night.
She cleaned what needed cleaning.
Removed what needed removing.
By the time she was done, the closet was empty.
And Carmine and Vico?
Gone.
Not a drop.
Not a trace.
Not a whisper.
Just two men who would never make it home.
Pietro ?Valenti smashed a crystal glass against the wall.
"How? How does a Rossi hit squad arrive at the exact moment our men breach the school?"
?"It’s a setup," Lorenzo rasped from his chair, his voice like dry leaves.
"The Rossi family didn't do this on their own. Someone played us. Someone who knows our timing better than we do."
The words settled over the room like smoke.
Timing.
Routes.
Extraction points.
Who would dare?
A rat?
They had no idea what was coming.
Something was already in motion.
And it was heading straight for them.