Chapter 6 Chapter Six
LILA
The secret safe felt like a heartbeat under my fingertips. It was cold metal hidden behind warm wood, a pocket of silence in a house screaming with secrets. I didn’t try to open it yet. In a house full of wolves, you don’t howl until you know where the exits are.
I slid the satellite phone into the hidden compartment and closed the false bottom of the drawer. My heart was a drum against my ribs, but I forced my hands to stay steady. I smoothed the red silk of the gown, fixing the way it draped over my hips. I had to look like the broken, exhausted bride he expected to find when he inevitably checked the cameras or walked back through that door.
I walked to the balcony glass. The wind was picking up, whipping the white curtains around like ghosts. The dawn was fully here now, a bruised purple and gold sky that made the Sicilian coastline look like a paradise. It was a lie. This place was a cemetery with a view.
I sat on the edge of the bed and waited.
An hour passed. Then two. My body began to ache—the adrenaline fading and leaving behind the reality of the bruises on my wrists and the raw scrape on my jaw. I stared at the door, memorizing the grain of the wood. If I was going to survive a hundred chapters of this, I couldn't just be a dancer. I had to be a ghost.
The lock turned.
It wasn’t Matteo. A woman walked in, older, with gray hair pulled into a bun so tight it looked painful. She wore a black dress and carried a silver tray with a bowl of water, bandages, and a plate of fruit. Two armed guards stood in the hallway behind her, their shadows long and thin.
She didn't look at my face. She walked to the small table and set the tray down.
“The Don says you are to be cleaned,” she said. her voice was like gravel. “I am Agata. I look after the house. You do not speak to me. You do not ask me for things. You just endure.”
I stood up, my legs feeling like lead. “Agata. Does he do this to all his wives?”
The woman paused, her hand hovering over the bandages. She looked at me then, her eyes clouded and weary. “There have been no other wives, piccola. Only women who thought they could stay. They didn’t.”
She signaled for me to sit. I obeyed. She began to clean the scrape on my cheek with an antiseptic that stung like a hornet’s nest. I didn’t flinch. I had spent years dancing on blistered feet and pulled muscles; pain was an old friend.
“He is angry,” Agata whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of the wind. “The hit tonight... it came from the inside. The Russo family is bleeding from a wound they cannot see. You are the only thing he has that isn't broken yet.”
“I’m the debt,” I corrected. “Not a person.”
“In this house, those are the same thing.”
She finished bandaging my wrists with efficient, clinical movements. She didn't offer comfort, but she didn't use unnecessary force either. When she was done, she pointed to the fruit. “Eat. He will be back for the evening meal. If you look weak, he will find a way to use that against you.”
She left as quickly as she had arrived, the door clicking shut and the heavy bolt sliding home.
I looked at the fruit. Grapes, sliced oranges, and a piece of crusty bread. I forced myself to eat every bite, even though my throat felt like it was lined with glass. I needed the energy.
I spent the next few hours pacing the room like a caged tiger. I counted the steps. Twenty paces from the bed to the window. Fifteen from the bathroom to the door. I memorized every creak in the floorboards.
Around noon, I went back to the drawer. I needed to see what was in that safe.
I knelt on the floor and pulled the drawer out completely this time, setting it on the rug. The false bottom was easy to trigger now that I knew where the latch was. I pulled out the satellite phone and set it aside, then focused on the safe.
It was a digital keypad. Six digits.
I thought about what Matteo had said in the dungeon. He stole my trust. My men died because of him.
I looked at the phone again. Six digits.
I tried a date from the video of my father—the timestamp on the dock. 06-12-24.
Access Denied.
I tried the date of the massacre Matteo mentioned, the one where my father allegedly saved his life. I didn't know the exact day, but I knew the year. I tried various combinations of the year 2005.
Access Denied.
I sat back on my heels, frustrated. I looked around the room, searching for anything Matteo might use as a code. His ego was his biggest trait. I looked at the painting of the ship on the wall. The SS Vittoria.
I tried the numbers associated with the ship’s hull.
Access Denied.
My eyes fell on the red silk ropes. Red. Blood. Debt.
I looked at my own hand, the bullet-casing ring glinting in the afternoon light. It was crude but heavy. I took it off and looked at the inside of the band. There were tiny numbers engraved there, almost too small to see.
03-00-00.
Three million. The debt.
I turned back to the safe and punched in 300000.
Click.
the door of the safe swung open an inch. My breath hitched. I pulled it open and found a small velvet bag and a stack of folded papers.
Inside the bag was a necklace, a delicate gold chain with a small, charred locket. I opened it. Inside was a photo of a woman who looked hauntingly like me, but with softer eyes. My mother.
My heart stopped. How did Matteo have this? My father told me her jewelry was lost in a fire when I was a baby.
I grabbed the papers. They weren't ledgers. They were letters. Old, yellowed letters written in a frantic hand. I recognized the script immediately. It was my mother’s.
“Enzo, he’s coming for us. The Russo name isn't a shield, it’s a target. If I don't make it, take Lila and run. Don't let the fire take her too.”
The fire. My mother didn't die in an accident. She died because of the Russos.