The inverted stalking
The sound of the engine was faint but unmistakable.
A bike. The Dodge 8300. My favorite.
I stormed into the garage, Matteo and Lorenzo right behind me.
“Merda… MERDA!”
My eyes scanned the wall. Empty. She’d taken all the keys. Not just hers. All of them. So we couldn’t follow.
My fist slammed against the Dodge Challenger SRT with a dull thud. Pain shot up my arm. I didn’t care.
Behind me, Matteo exhaled, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“We have ways to track her. Eyes all over the island. Put them on alert. Cameras, customs, hotels, train stations… She won’t get far.”
But Lorenzo, silent until then, stepped forward slowly.
His tone. That abnormal calm. Cold, lucid.
“You won’t find her.”
I spun around.
“What do you mean?”
“Because you don’t know Hope. Not this version. I do. She can vanish if she wants. She can melt into a city, into a crowd, into the scenery. You think you can track her? She thought of that long before you.”
A tense silence. Then he went on:
“Once, in New York, she disappeared. No address. No trace. Just… gone. And yet she was still there, somewhere, in the same city. Months later she told me: ‘Lorenzo, if I don’t want to be found, even you won’t be able to.’ She meant it.”
Matteo frowned.
“There’s always a way. Nobody disappears without making a mistake.”
Lorenzo nodded.
“Exactly. You look for the flaw. The detail. The one thing too neat. Too clean. She’s brilliant but human. Acting on emotion, she sometimes leaves a loose thread.”
I stepped closer.
“She ever tell you how she does it?”
He nodded slowly.
“One day she said: ‘You know the secret to disappearing? It’s not hiding. It’s changing roles. Becoming someone you’ll never look for.’ She can stare you straight in the eye under another name, another look, another posture… and you’ll miss her.”
I growled, fists still tight.
“Then we find her… by looking for what she hates. We don’t track Hope Jones. We track the version she despises. Hope Walton.”
Matteo was already on his phone.
“I’m activating all contacts in Palermo and beyond. Gas stations, exits, hotels. She’s fast — but so are we.”
I was flying down the road, hair tucked under my helmet.
The Dodge 8300 roared beneath me, and I didn’t shake.
I was cold-rage steady.
I wasn’t running.
I was hunting.
Dario.
I had to get to him first. Surprise him.
To do that, I had to become the shadow again.
I had a name. A face. A memory. A target.
And this time, I was coming for him.
I parked in a narrow alley between two crumbling Palermo facades.
Engine off, helmet off, silhouette hidden under a black hoodie and cheap sunglasses.
No trace of Hope Jones.
Just an ordinary woman. Invisible.
I knew where to find him.
Dario.
Same habit as always: early morning at Ballarò market, perched in one of the hidden cafés up above, watching.
Never sat in the same spot twice. Always high ground, blind spots, places you could see without being seen.
I knew because I’d been the kid on his shoulders when I was five.
No phone. No smart watch. No credit card.
Just cash, a fake ID under the name Elena Caruso, and a mission.
I wasn’t going to confront him yet.
I was going to find him. Watch him. Follow him.
And choose the right moment.
“She hasn’t left Palermo.”
Matteo slid a photo across the table.
Security camera. Gas station. A figure on a bike, full helmet, black hoodie.
I stared at it like I could make it talk.
Lorenzo at my side, eyes sharp.
“That’s her. The posture. The neck. Even the way she turns her head. But it’s thin.”
“Not that thin,” Matteo replied. “We’ve got three stations in a 4-kilometer radius. Only one place where a bike like hers can blend in without a stir.”
I straightened.
“Ballarò.”
They both nodded.
Lorenzo turned to me, graver than ever:
“Don’t go there to drag her back. She has a plan. If you get there too early, you’ll blow it. And she won’t forgive you.”
I exhaled, jaw tight.
“I just want to… watch.”
I saw him.
Sitting at a terrace. Glass of limoncello. Dark shades. The same dry smile.
Dario Esposito.
My childhood. My target.
I noted everything: the man beside him. The gun under the jacket. The server’s too-quick glance.
They were ready.
But not for me.
I smirked behind my sunglasses.
And waited.
Because soon, I’d be the one writing the rules.