PlotlumeI grew up in a slum in Palermo.
From childhood, they trained me to be the perfect decoy for a Mafia family.
My instructor used to rap the butt of his pistol on the table and tell me, "Elena, move hard and value your life cheap."
"That way you'll never complain about taking a bullet for someone important."
He taught me how to take the blame for the heir, and how to play the wounded martyr and survive three days and nights in a rival family's interrogation room.
He told me the only value of my life was to be a stepping stone for the next Don.
On the day of the black-market deal, I wore a tactical vest hiding a dozen blades, ready to rush out and take a fatal hit for the legendary heir, Dante.
Instead, Dante walked in with the family's top brass, and they all knelt in a row in front of me.
He handed me the share papers for the underground casino with both hands.
He called me, respectfully, the Don's long-lost only heir.
So all those years of training, swallowing blades, biting poison capsules, and every fancy way of dying in someone else's place...
Was it all going to go to waste?
1
I stood there dazed, surrounded by kneeling made men.
The share papers in my hand felt hot enough to burn through my skin.
I'd been trained to defuse bombs, not to handle paperwork like this.
"Elena Rossi, the Don's daughter, our future leader."
Dante's voice was solemn, echoing through the warehouse that stank of gunpowder.
I looked at him, the man I'd been ready to die for, and he was pushing me up onto a stage I had never imagined, with a look I'd never seen before.
My mind went blank.
So who was all my dying-in-someone-else's-place training for, then?
"You've got to be kidding me!"
A rough voice broke the eerie silence.
A man with a scar across his face, Bruno, shot to his feet from the crowd.
He looked me up and down, sneering, the way you'd size up a crate of cheap goods.
"Dante, have you lost your mind? You want a gutter rat who only knows how to take bullets to lead us?"
Spit flew from his mouth and nearly hit my face.
"What can she do? Can she read a ledger? Or does she plan to sweet-talk the cops with that pretty face?"
Every eye in the warehouse, suspicious or sizing me up, locked on me.
The air reeked of cigars, rust, and gunpowder, pressing down until I could barely breathe.
I was used to pain and to death threats. I had never once been used to being the center of attention.
Decoys weren't supposed to be seen.
"A toast for you, Boss."
A waiter appeared out of nowhere, carrying a silver tray with a glass of blood-red liquid on it.
He offered me a glass of red wine with a bow.
But my decoy's instincts started screaming an alarm.
My instructor used to say real danger never shows its fangs.
The wine was poisoned.
My body moved faster than my brain. And it wasn't for myself.
I'd trained for over ten years. Protecting the "important person" had become pure instinct.
And right now, the most important person in this room was Dante.
The target wasn't me. It was him!
My body went limp all at once, and I played the part of someone who'd been scared out of her wits.
I pitched forward "by accident" and slammed my whole body into the waiter.
Crash!
The tray flipped to the floor, and the glasses shattered with a sound that scraped across the nerves.
The red wine spread across the floor and ran into the dark stains until you couldn't tell them apart.
"Sorry," I said, my voice shaking, my whole body trembling. It was the perfect reaction to being scared out of my mind. "I... my legs gave out."
Bruno let out a loud snort, dripping with contempt.
"See that? A useless girl who can't even hold a glass steady!"
He turned to the others, stirring up resentment.
"Her running the family? She'd blow through the family's money in three days!"
"Or she'd get scared and sell us all to the cops!"
Dante ignored his shouting.
He stood up, his handsome face cold as stone.
He glanced at the waiter, who was struggling to crawl away across the floor.
Then he drew his gun without hesitation.
Bang!
The shot deafened the room.
The bullet hit the waiter in the leg.