Collapsing on the bed, she ate her sandwich in slow bites. She grabbed her cell phone, a half-formed idea bubbling up to the surface of her mind.
She wanted to know who she’d shot, and what the reaction to it was back home. There weren’t a lot of avenues to find that out, short of calling her father and asking…
Which she would never, ever do. If he found her…
She’d be bound, gagged, and on a plane back to New York before she could say kidnapping victim. And after that…
She shivered at the thought.
Still, she had one more trick up her sleeve when it came to eavesdropping on her old life.
Vi didn’t exactly do social media, Facebook and Snapchat and all that stuff. After all, the last thing she wanted to do was broadcast her face and current whereabouts online.
But in order to check in with the familia and monitor their goings-on, she’d made a fake Facebook account under the name Gianna Falconi. Using a photo she’d found online of a cute Italian girl, she built up a whole fake story.
Gianna was a distant relative of the Valettis, a happy New York native who worked at a bakery and had little to do with her mob-connected family, but didn’t judge them either.
Viola was shocked at how many of the Valettis had accepted her profile as genuine. Soldiers that worked for her father’s crew, cousins and aunts that Viola had been close with as a girl. On top of that, she’d friended tons of girls from high school, who’d greeted her enthusiastically and always told her happy birthday on Gianna’s made-up birthday.
All of them were seemingly unable to tell one cute brunette from another, giving Viola access to a treasure trove of information.
The men were a little less blatant, but the women… they posted about everything in their lives. Photos of family gatherings, death and birth announcements, who’d married and divorced. Not just in the Valetti family, but in any of the five major Italian families that dominated New York.
So when Viola needed to know something about the people who’d populated her old life, she went straight to Facebook. She only had to scroll through a few posts before she found what she was looking for.
A photo of her high school friend Mariella, holding hands with her boyfriend, a smiling man with the dark eyes and dark hair that were unmistakably Sicilian in origin. Mariella’s status said, “I will always love you Antony, you are the love of my life. Send prayers and thoughts pls.”
Viola looked at the tag on the photo. Antony Valetti.
“Fuck!” she muttered.
Yep. She’d shot one of the Valetti soldiers. Not only that, but she’d killed him. If Callum couldn’t track down that witness, there was no telling what he might tell the Valettis about her, and she couldn’t have that. Not after what it had cost her to leave her old life behind.
When Viola had run away, her father had put out a substantial reward for her forcible return.
A photo of her at age nineteen had been plastered in every damned pasta joint and mob bar in New York City and half of Jersey; she’d seen that for herself in the few days between leaving her father’s house and managing to get herself out of the city.
Viola touched her long blonde hair, biting her lip. A gift from her Grecian model of a mother, she had gorgeous naturally flaxen locks.
Distinctive locks. She’d only just got the courage to grow her hair out and stop dyeing it red this year, and she had to admit that she’d gotten quite vain about it. She really, really didn’t want to lose it…
But she’d also rather not be spotted, snatched off the street, and returned to her father so she could be forced to play third wife to one of his creepy old friends.
She’d have to get her hair on some dye and scissors, and sooner rather than later.
She walked her empty plate back out to the kitchen, finding the balcony and the rest of the loft vacant. If Callum was even here, she couldn’t tell.
Putting her plate in the empty dishwasher, she padded over to the front door. On impulse, she reached out and turned the handle, just testing.
Only it didn’t turn under her touch.
She grumbled a curse, rattling it. Her heart sunk in that moment, realizing that she was locked in.
Viola hated being trapped.
The last time she’d been captive, she’d still been living under her father’s roof, faced with the prospect of being forced into an arranged marriage.
She went through the apartment, checking Callum’s home gym first before working up the nerve to knock on his bedroom door. No answer.
She turned the handle, again just testing. It turned easily, but she didn’t try to open the door. If he was home, she had no idea what he might be doing just now.
She retreated down the hall to the guest bedroom on silent feet, contenting herself with watching TV on the enormous flat screen. She fell asleep watching some competitive cooking show, and when she opened her eyes again it was pitch black out.