Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
A clean slate. A fresh start. A world of open doors.
All I have to do is walk away from the only person who’s seen me—really seen me—since the night my parents died.
All I have to do is leave behind the man who killed for me.
Who sat through six days of nothing but machines and hope.
Who gave me the one thing no one else ever has:
A choice.
And I’m not going to waste it.
It would be criminal to waste it.
EPILOGUE
Spreadsheets. Inventories. Shipment schedules.
The office feels sterile after the hospital. Efficient. The way it should be.
The restaurant won’t open for another four hours—just enough time to reestablish order. Rico’s disappearance has left gaps, and gaps invite questions. The LaRiccias are animals, but they manage their chaos well. Without Rico, certain arrangements have become… precarious.
My phone vibrates. Father. Again.
I let it ring three times before answering. Never the first. Never the last. Power is a rhythm, and rhythms must be controlled.
“Giovanni.”
“Your cousin is missing.” No greeting. No preamble.
“So I’ve heard.”
I shift a document one inch to align it with the edge of my desk.
“Three days now. His credit card was used for a private charter to Thailand. All his men went with him. His girls too.”
I make a sound that could mean anything. Agreement. Disinterest. Containment.
“He didn’t tell anyone. Not his father. Not me.”
“Rico has always been impulsive.” I check my watch. “Perhaps he needed a vacation.”
Silence. My father measures tone the way other men measure pulse.
“You saw him last,” he says finally. “At the estate.”
“Briefly. He was hosting a party I had no interest in attending.”
Another silence. He’s weighing what I’m not saying.
“If you know something—”
“I know Rico LaRiccia thinks rules don’t apply to him.” I study my fingernails. Perfect half-moons. “He always has.”
“Luca is asking questions.”
Of course he is. Rico’s father. The man who once ordered my kidnapping.
“And what answers are you providing?”
My father’s breathing shifts—shorter, heavier. Contained anger. “The truth. That his son is an impulsive piece of shit who decided Thailand was more important than family obligations.”
I almost smile. “And he believes that?”
“For now.”
The phrase lingers. For now means we have time. Time to make the story real.
“Let me know if there’s anything I should do.” The obedient son. The practiced voice of neutrality.
“Stay in Riverview. Handle your business. Let me worry about the LaRiccias.”
I end the call and open my laptop. Rico’s phone still pings from Bangkok every twelve hours. His social media is active—photos with women whose faces are conveniently blurred. Pre-death content, reworked with AI and queued to post automatically.
A dead man living his best life on Instagram.
I close the laptop.
Outside my window, Riverview continues its mundane existence.
People who have no idea how close they came to becoming collateral in a quiet war.
A war I may have started anyway.
My phone vibrates. Not my father this time.
Patient discharged this morning. Private transportation arranged as requested.
I delete the message.
She’s gone. As she should be.
I return to my spreadsheets. Order. Control. The only things that matter.
Luca’s suspicion is like a gas leak—silent, invisible, fatal if ignored. Four people know the truth.
Dom won’t talk. Ricky won’t talk. I certainly won’t.
And Emmaleen Rourke is—
A knock.
I look up.
Time stops.
She’s standing in the doorway like a glitch in the simulation. Not in. Not out. Hovering between intrusion and invitation.
Another thrift-store tragedy: lavender cardigan with two different buttons, a floral dress in a color that can’t commit to peach or pink, combat boots that have survived things most soldiers haven’t. A canvas tote with a faded slogan about saving something—bees, trees, humanity—something destined to die anyway.
It’s a performance of carelessness so deliberate it borders on strategy. Every mismatched thread a manifesto. Every scuff, a declaration of defiance.
Her hair is in that same disobedient knot, strands escaping like they have better places to be. Freckles in full rebellion. Skin pale, translucent under the office lights, blue veins tracing a map of things I shouldn’t be looking at.
And the wound.
A precise, medic’s row of stitches—still red, still raw. Six days is not long enough to heal what was done.
Six days was only long enough for me to bury her.
“You left me money,” she says, voice steady despite the tremor in her fingers, “but neglected to leave clothes. Had to bribe a nurse for scrubs.”
She gestures down her body with a sweep that catches on a dangling thread. “Then, because I’m broke, I went to the thrift store. Yes, I’m aware this isn’t your aesthetic. Tragic. Deal with it.”
“Broke?” I snort. “You’re not broke.”
“I am broke.” She lifts the case like it’s evidence. “I didn’t spend a penny of this. Won’t spend a penny of this. You know why?”
“Let me guess—you’re about to tell me.”
She walks in—uninvited, of course—and slams the case onto my desk. The metallic echo fractures the stillness. My papers shift. My order fractures.
“Because,” she says, leaning forward, palms flat, nails bitten to the quick, “I’m not for sale.”