LyraThree days ago.I did not expect to meet the Mafia Boss again. Since I failed to complete his task in Arcron, the worst-case scenario I expected was to be cornered and killed out of the blue—the best one being him forgetting I existed.No such luck.I was scribbling down my dream from the night before—which was insanely odd this time. How could a woman I had only seen once be featured in my dream? Anyway, putting aside how insane it sounded, I was just finishing up writing when I heard a knock on my window. I peeked out and my heart almost jumped out of my chest.I opened the window frantically. “What are you doing here?”The man squeezed into my room, looking comical as his huge suit-clad frame made its way through my window. “You’ve been away from work. This is the only other way I could think of.” He frowned.And who was to blame for my absence at work? I had taken a week off to give him time to forget about me. It turned out, that was useless.“If you’re going to sneak into

I had a million questions and Spider knew that. He didn't keep me waiting. "When I went to Arcron, I found out she was alive." He said. I wanted to slap the hell out of him. "You told me she was dead." "The Viper made me, okay? I didn't have much choice." He defended himself. You always have a choice, I wanted to tell him, but I hadn't been making the best choices either. "She was adopted by a wealthy family. They call her Eloise now. She works here to calm herself down after the craziness of her home and school life. The customers all love her." I could totally see that. She was speaking to everyone with a friendly smile and although there were so many of us, she managed to make sure everyone's needs were met. She returned to our table and once again looked like she wanted to bolt away. "Would you like anything on today's special menu? We have a buy one get one free cappuccino offer." "Put it all in one cup for me," I asked. I needed a humongous amount of caffeine to deal wi

We rushed to the hospital as soon as we heard the news, not because we cared about our father but because the whole family was under suspicion and no one wanted investigators crawling into their business. The only one crying about his death was Millie. It was s surprise. Didn’t she only want him for money? Was she heartbroken that there was no longer any chance of her getting any now that he was dead, or did she actually care about him? It didn’t matter. What mattered was what the doctor had to say to Giancarlo and me—he assumed us to be father’s closest relatives, being his eldest children and all. “He did not die from his injuries.” He told us when it was just the three of us in his office. “He had multiple new injuries but after looking into it, we believe they were inflicted post-mortem.”“Who would do that?” Giancarlo asked. The doctor studied us as if trying to gauge whether or not to tell us everything. “I have only heard rumors about this person before but…come with me.”

Angelica Things just kept getting more interesting. We all knew Uncle Nikov—or the man pretending to be him—was too young to be Spider’s grandfather and too old to be his nephew, half-brother or grandson. There was only one possible relationship between them. Spider was running himself crazy trying to figure it out. “Since when do I have an uncle? Why did he pretend to be Papa? What’s he gaining here?” “Maybe it’s similar to the situation with Uncle Robert?” I guessed. I knew I was grabbing at straws. This was not a situation where an uncle had to pretend to be a father to keep his nephew or niece safe. This man had deliberately tried to replace Spider’s father. The worst part was that if we didn’t find out the truth ourselves, he would never reveal it. While he paced a hole through his living room floor, I was going through a photo album I was thankful I had kept for all these years. It had pictures of both the Kastellanos and Giannelli families. I shook my head after studying a

Angelica The Viper must be getting to me. How else would I explain why I thought everything that felt like a trap was laid out by him? I had assumed he was hiring the hit on Autumn when it was Curtis all along. I didn’t know how long I had left to live but as soon as Curtis knew I had offered him advice on how to get through to me and then accepted his hit as though my advice had worked, I would be on my way to my grave. At least I got to enjoy the double incentive before that happened.I already knew a ton of things about Autumn and her husband including where they worked and their close friends. It was going to be a cinch. Although I had accepted Curtis’s hit, I didn’t intend to do it as he requested. I was going ahead with my plan. I spent the following week stalking him. I was certain Curtis wasn’t seeking a collaboration like he said he was. He was laying out a trap for me—for the Angel of Death—so I was thankful when Spider hacked into the security cameras across their street