Chapter 3 - THE LION’S SHADOW
Within an hour, Amber’s entire life was erased. Fabiano’s men emptied her tiny apartment, paid off her landlord in cash, and transported her mother to a private, hyper-secure oncology wing at St. Jude’s. Amber was whisked away to the Pinto family compound—a sprawling, fortress-like estate hidden behind high walls and wrought-iron gates on the edge of the city.
She was placed in a guest suite larger than her old apartment building. But despite the silk sheets and marble floors, she knew it was a gilded cage.
That evening, Fabiano summoned her to his private study. The walls were lined with rare texts and antiquities. He was pouring two glasses of scotch as she entered. He handed her one.
"Drink. It helps with the shock," he murmured.
"I'm not in shock," Amber lied, taking a sip that burned brilliantly down her throat. "I want to know why I'm really here. You could have just given me a reward and sent me into hiding. Why bring me into your home?"
Fabiano smiled, a dangerous, magnetic curve of his lips. "Because Richard Sterling was a middleman. My men extracted enough information from him before he... lost his voice. Sterling didn't commission the forgery. He was hired by someone inside my own organization. Someone in my family is trying to bankrupt me and seize control of the syndicate."
Amber froze. "A family traitor."
"Yes. And I don't know who to trust." Fabiano stepped closer, crowding her space in a way that made her pulse race for reasons entirely unrelated to fear. "You are the only person in this city I know for a fact is not on their payroll. You proved your brilliance today. I need it again."
"I'm a Renaissance historian, not a detective," Amber protested, her back hitting the edge of a mahogany bookshelf.
"You understand the anatomy of lies," Fabiano countered softly, his hand resting on the shelf just inches from her head. "You see the invisible details everyone else misses. I need you to find the origin of that forgery. If we find the artisan who made the fake seal, we find the traitor."
Over the next two weeks, Amber and Fabiano worked side-by-side in the dimly lit study. They poured over ledgers, black-market auction records, and underground art dealer manifests. The invisible waitress was gone; in her place stood the fierce, sharp-witted academic she was always meant to be. And Fabiano watched her. Constantly. The icy shell of the mafia boss began to thaw, replaced by a lingering, heated intensity whenever she was near.
One late night, as rain lashed against the study windows, Amber found a discrepancy in a series of offshore transactions. "Look at this," she whispered, leaning over his shoulder. Her cheek was dangerously close to his jaw. "Three months ago, a shell company purchased a rare batch of untreated fifteenth-century vellum from a black-market dealer in Prague. The company is registered in the Caymans, but the routing number traces back to a subsidiary owned by..."
She stopped, the breath catching in her throat.
Fabiano looked at the screen, his jaw tightening into iron. "Marco."
May you like
His own cousin. His second-in-command.
Before Fabiano could speak, the heavy oak door of the study splintered open. Three men in tactical gear stormed in, weapons raised. Marco hadn't waited to be discovered. He had sent a hit squad.
