Chapter 2 The Pawn’s Resolve
The coffee shop was wrong for this.
Too bright. Too loud. Too full of people who had no idea how fragile their normal lives really were.
Alessia sat in the corner booth with her hands wrapped around a cup of black coffee that had already gone cold. She hadn’t taken a single sip. Her eyes kept drifting to the door, then the windows, then the reflections in the glass. Every movement registered. Every stranger was assessed and discarded in seconds.
She hated that she couldn’t turn it off.
Old habits didn’t die. They just burrowed deeper.
Marcus Thorne slid into the seat across from her four minutes late.
Exactly four.
He always did that—arrived just late enough to remind her who controlled the pace, who held the leash. It wasn’t subtle. It didn’t have to be.
He looked like exhaustion dressed in authority. The suit was neat but worn, the lines in his face etched by years of decisions he’d justified to himself and never fully believed. His wire-rimmed glasses reflected the overhead lights, giving his eyes a cold, distant sheen.
“Alessia,” he said.
“Thorne.”
No pleasantries. No wasted breath.
“I heard about the Council’s ultimatum.”
She let out a quiet, humorless breath. “I’m sure you did.”
“Bodies tend to get attention.” He leaned back, studying her the way he always did—like she was a chess piece he’d moved too far up the board to retrieve. “This is it. The opening we’ve been waiting for.”
Her jaw tightened. “Marrying the O’Sullivan heir wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Plans adapt.”
His fingers laced together on the table. Calm. Controlled. Detached. “You’ll be inside both families. Living with them. Watching everything. This is deeper cover than we could’ve ever manufactured.”
“It’s reckless,” she snapped, keeping her voice low. “Liam O’Sullivan isn’t stupid. He’s suspicious by nature, and he already hates me. How long before he starts asking questions?”
“Then don’t give him answers.” Thorne’s gaze sharpened. “You know how to disappear inside a role.”
“This isn’t a role,” she hissed. “This is my life. I’ll be sleeping next to a man who would kill me without hesitation if he knew who I really was.”
Thorne leaned forward, his voice dropping. “Good. Let that fear keep you sharp. Because if you fail, it’s not just you who pays. It’s every agent tied to this case. Every victim these families have left behind.”
Her hands started to shake.
She pressed her palms flat against the table, grounding herself, breathing through the surge of panic and anger clawing up her throat.
For a moment—just a moment—Thorne’s expression softened.
“I know this isn’t what you wanted,” he said quietly. “But it’s what we have. And you’re the only one who can do this.”
She turned toward the window.
Outside, people walked past carrying groceries, laughing into phones, living lives uncomplicated by lies and double meanings.
“What about my father?” she asked, barely above a whisper.
Thorne didn’t hesitate. “What about him?”
Her throat tightened. “He’s the reason I’m here. He’s the reason my mother is dead.” Her voice cracked, and the sound of it made her stomach twist. “If I’m trapped playing house with Liam O’Sullivan, when do I get justice?”
“You dismantle the operation first,” Thorne said. “Accounts. Routes. Power structures. Your father is part of that system. When the time comes, we deal with him.”
“And when is that?” she snapped. “How many more years do I have to watch him breathe like he didn’t kill her?”
“As long as it takes,” Thorne said, final as a slammed door. “Do your job. Get close to Liam. Earn his trust. Feed us everything. And when we’re done, both families burn.”
He stood, already reaching for his jacket.
“You’ll have forty-eight hours after the wedding,” he added. “Use them.”
She looked up at him.
“And Alessia?” His eyes were cold again. Empty. “Don’t get attached. The moment you care, you’re compromised. And I don’t protect compromised agents.”
Then he was gone.
Alessia stayed where she was, staring at the untouched coffee until the noise of the café felt unbearable.
She didn’t go home.
Instead, she drove to a storage unit in Queens—anonymous, quiet, and forgotten. The kind of place meant for things people couldn’t face every day.
Her unit was small and immaculate.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of lavender.
Against the wall sat a shrine.
Nothing dramatic. Just a table. A photograph. A candle. A few items preserved with care bordering on obsession.
Her mother smiled out from the photo.
Sofia Scarpetti—warm eyes, soft smile, hair just like Alessia’s. She was laughing, reaching toward the camera.
Alessia had taken the picture.
She was nine.
A year later, her mother was dead.
She knelt and lit the candle, her hands trembling.
“I’m doing this for you,” she whispered. “I promise.”
Beside the photo lay the police report. Accident. Fall down the stairs. No witnesses.
A lie.
She remembered the scream. The sound of bone. Her father’s face at the top of the stairs.
“You saw nothing,” he’d said, gripping her shoulders until they bruised. “If you say otherwise, they’ll take you from me.”
She had nodded.
She had survived.
And she had waited.
“I won’t fail you,” she said softly.
She returned to the estate just after midnight.
Her father’s study light was still on.
“You’ve decided,” he said.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“No,” he agreed.
“The wedding is in two days,” he continued. “You’ll move in immediately. You’ll keep him close. And you’ll tell me everything.”
Of course he would use her too.
“Understood.”
He opened the safe and handed her a velvet box.
Inside lay her mother’s pearl necklace.
The one Sofia wore the day she died.
Her breath hitched.
“Wear it at the wedding,” her father said. “It’s tradition.”
She closed the box with shaking hands.
“Thank you.”
She barely made it to her room before collapsing.
The vomit came hard and fast.
Later, she stared at herself in the mirror, eyes red, jaw clenched.
“You’re going to burn,” she whispered.
She set the necklace on the counter.
She would wear it.
She would marry Liam O’Sullivan.
But she wouldn’t be anyone’s pawn.
Not anymore.
She would survive this.
And she would destroy them all—her way.
She looked at the necklace one last time.
