Jocelyn
The ghost of Isabella’s perfume, a cloying cloud of tuberose and arrogance, clings to the hallway. I walk past the dining room, its crystal and silver mocking me from the shadows. My victory over her was silent, internal. She thinks she broke me with a necklace. She has no idea she just handed me the whetstone to sharpen my resolve.
In my bedroom, I shed the silver dress. It pools on the floor like a dead thing. I need to move. I need to act. The rage is a clean, cold fuel, and it’s time to light the first fire.
I find Logan in his study, a glass of amber liquid in his hand. He looks up as I enter, his expression softening into that familiar, infuriating pity.
“Sera. I’m sorry about Isabella. She can be… blunt.”
“It’s alright,” I say, my voice a carefully constructed whisper. “She was right. I am pale. This house feels so dark lately.”
I run a hand along the sleeve of his jacket. “I was thinking. Maybe I could go out tomorrow? Just for a little while. To a boutique. I’d like to buy a dress. Something… cheerful.”
He smiles, a genuine, relieved smile. This, he understands. A broken wife seeking solace in fabric and fripperies. It fits his narrative perfectly.
“Of course, my love. Anything you want. I’ll have Antonio drive you. He’ll take good care of you.”
“Thank you, Logan,” I say, leaning in to kiss his cheek. The scent of his scotch is sour. “You’re too good to me.”
He has no idea.
The next morning, I dress in beige. A colour for women who wish to disappear. Antonio, a thick-necked brute with more muscle than sense, holds the door of the Bentley for me. He is one of Logan’s newer men. He is loyal to a paycheck, not to a memory.
“Where to, Mrs. Pierce?”
“Valentina’s on Via Montenapoleone,” I say, naming the most outrageously expensive boutique in the city. A place for trophies to adorn themselves.
He nods, navigating the city with brutish efficiency. I watch the streets pass by, a city that was once mine to command. It will be again.
We arrive. Antonio opens my door. “I’ll be right here, Mrs. Pierce.”
“Thank you, Antonio. I won’t be long.”
Inside, the air smells of money and French perfume. A saleswoman with a plastic smile approaches. “Good morning, Mrs. Pierce. How may we help you?”
“I’d like to see your new collection,” I say, my voice soft. “In the private salon.”
I follow her back into a plush, secluded room. Gowns in a rainbow of colours line the walls. I touch a bolt of yellow silk, letting the fabric slide through my fingers. All for show.
“Could I have a glass of water, please?” I ask, pressing my fingers to my temple. “I’m feeling a little… faint.”
“Of course, right away,” she says, hurrying from the room.
The moment she’s gone, I move. There’s a service exit at the back of the salon, one I made sure existed when I helped the owner secure her lease two years ago. It opens into a narrow alley.
I slip out, the heavy door clicking shut behind me. The air here smells of garbage and rain. Freedom. I pull a simple grey scarf from my handbag, wrapping it over my hair. I melt into the lunchtime crowds, just another anonymous woman in a beige coat.
Ten minutes and one untraceable cash taxi ride later, I’m in a part of the city Logan’s Bentley would never enter. The Pierce family owns a dozen shell corporations, but this one is the most forgotten: a dusty archive for paper records from before the syndicate went digital. It’s a graveyard for old deals and obsolete soldiers.
I push open the door. The air is thick with the smell of decaying paper. A single man sits behind a large metal desk, his head bent over a crossword puzzle. He doesn’t look up.
“We’re closed,” he says, his voice flat with boredom.
“Are you, Leo?”
His head snaps up. Recognition dawns, followed by confusion. His face is leaner than I remember from my past life, the lines around his eyes deeper. This timeline has not been kind to him.
“Mrs. Pierce?” He stands so quickly his chair scrapes against the concrete floor. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong?”
“That depends on you,” I say, my voice losing its fragile edge. It’s still quiet, but it’s the quiet of a blade being unsheathed.
“I don’t understand.”
I walk closer, my heels clicking in the silence. “Your daughter, Sofia. Is her asthma any better with the new inhaler?”
He stiffens. His hand instinctively goes to the worn holster on his belt. “How do you know about that?”
“I know a lot of things, Leo. I know you were my father’s most trusted man. I know you were supposed to be head of my security detail before Logan reassigned you here to count paperclips after the… incident.”
“With respect, Mrs. Pierce, I don’t see what…”
“You need to leave this building,” I interrupt, my voice sharp. “Right now. Do not go to your car. Do not pass go. Walk out that door and don’t look back.”
His brow furrows. “Why? What’s going on?”
“Vito is sending a welcome party. Not for you. For your replacement.”
The name hangs in the air. Vito. The capo who laughed at me at dinner. It connects. Leo’s face hardens.
“Vito and I have no business.”
“He’s making it his business,” I say. “He owes Riccardo a favor. Getting rid of a loyal man from the ‘old guard’ and blaming it on a drug habit is a neat little gift. Convenient, don’t you think?”
He stares at me, his eyes searching my face for the woman he used to know. The fragile doll from the rumors isn’t standing in front of him.
“How could you possibly know this?”
“Does it matter?” I counter. “Go to your car. The blue sedan at the end of the block. Check the rear driver’s side wheel well. You’ll find a little package taped there. About a kilo of pure heroin, I imagine. Then ask yourself how I know.”
I can see the war in his eyes. Doubt versus a primal instinct for survival. For a second, I think he’s going to refuse, to call my bluff.
Then he nods, a single, sharp jerk of his chin. “Wait here.”
He walks out, his back ramrod straight. I listen to his footsteps fade. The silence of the archive is absolute. Minutes stretch into an eternity. He could be walking into a trap. My information could be wrong. This is my first move, my first gamble in a war no one else knows I’m fighting.
My heart is a steady, cold drum in my chest.
The door opens again. Leo stands there, a small, tightly wrapped brick in his hand. His face is pale, his expression a mixture of shock and fury.
“It was there,” he says, his voice a low growl. “Exactly where you said.”
“I know,” I reply, my voice calm.
He strides toward me, stopping just a foot away. The confusion is gone from his eyes, replaced by a burning intensity. “Who are you?” he asks, and it’s a real question. “You’re not the woman they talk about. The broken one.”
“That woman is a ghost,” I say. “A story they tell themselves so they can sleep at night. I am what’s left. I am a memory they should have buried a lot deeper.”
I meet his gaze without flinching. “They left you here to rot, Leo. To fade away. They were about to put you in the ground. Logan, Riccardo, Vito… they are not the family your father and my father built. They’re rotten. And I’m going to cut out the rot.”
He watches me, his breathing heavy. He’s putting the pieces together. The woman in front of him is the Ice Queen from the stories. The strategist. The leader.
“What do you want from me?” he asks, his voice tight.
“What I’ve always wanted. Your loyalty. Not to Logan. Not to the Pierce name. To me. I’m building something new. In the shadows. I need soldiers I can trust. I need my first soldier.”
I hold out my hand. Not in supplication, but as an offer. An invitation to war.
He looks from my hand to my face. He sees the promise there. The certainty. The vengeance. He spent a year in this dusty tomb, forgotten and discarded. I’m offering him resurrection.
Slowly, he places the brick of heroin on the desk. He looks at his own hand, then places it firmly in mine. His grip is like iron.
“I swore an oath to your father to protect his line,” he says, his voice raw with emotion. “That oath never ended.”
He lets go of my hand and takes a step back, his posture shifting. The bored clerk is gone. A soldier stands in his place.
“What are your orders, boss?”
A cold smile touches my lips. It’s the first real smile I’ve had in a year. “Your first order is to disappear. Let them think their plan worked. Let them find an empty office and a missing man. You are a ghost now, Leo. You answer only to me.”
I reach into my handbag and pull out a small, black burner phone and a thick envelope of cash. “This is for you. For Sofia. Find a safe place. Lay low. This phone is for my ears only. Memorize the number and then destroy the paper it’s on. I will call you when I need you.”
He takes the phone and the cash, his movements precise, efficient. The man I remember is back.
“And the package?” he asks, nodding toward the heroin.
“Leave it,” I say. “Let them find it. Let them wonder what went wrong. Let Riccardo think Vito’s men are incompetent. Confusion is a weapon. We’re going to give them a lot of it.”
He nods, understanding perfectly. “I’ll be ready.”
“I know you will,” I say. I turn and walk toward the door.
I pause, my hand on the handle. I look back at him. “It’s good to have you back, Leo.”
“It’s good to be back, Jocelyn.”
I step back out into the grimy alley, leaving my first soldier in the shadows. Antonio will be frantic. The saleswoman will be confused. Logan will be annoyed, then dismissive.
Let them. They’re all playing their parts in a play I’ve already written. And the curtain is just beginning to rise.
