❝Being alone is easy, it's the loneliness that'll kill you.❞
❝I can deal with the noise. I don't mind the noise. The quiet is a different story.❞
In which both Mara Reyes and Steve Rogers have no fucking idea what they're doing with t...
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PROLOGUE
MARA REYES DIDN'T ask to be born.
She didn't ask to be born into one of the 7 families that made up part of the biggest international crime syndicate in the world, Maggia, with her mother as the head of the Reyes clan. And she didn't ask to have the only person who made being in her family worthwhile vanish without a trace.
She lay in her bed, turning her head to her nightstand to see it was 11:59. She watched as it hit midnight and she instantly threw her blanket off her. She was already dressed – wearing an old maroon hoodie with dark jeans. She swung her legs off the side of her bed, slipping her feet into old black sneakers.
She was 18 now and the excitement was minimal.
Most teenagers got money, clothes, a new phone or maybe even a car for their birthdays. But when you turned 18 in the Maggia what you got was the lead in the biggest crime currently planned – whether that was gambling, grand theft auto, regular theft, scamming, loan-sharking and in Mara's case, it was murder and a house robbery. It was supposed to be a rite of passage. It was a way of saying you were no longer a kid and you were given a key into the world of crime with no more training wheels.
But Mara wasn't going to take that key. She was going to vanish just like her brother did when he turned 18. The thought of him spurred both longing and anger inside her. She missed him but she also hated him. She didn't hate him for leaving. She hated him for leaving without her.
She looked down at her backpack and double checked she had everything she needed. A spare change of clothes, toothbrush, money – you know, all the essentials. But what she hadn't packed yet were her weapons.
In the world of crime, not knowing how to use any form of weapon would get you instantly killed. Mara had been particularly good with guns – especially a shot gun. A shot gun meant she had a weapon but she was also far enough away from the action.
She had never killed anyone but she had given people a few shot warnings – all flesh wounds so nothing serious.
She crouched down and reached under her bed, pulling the case out. She flipped the lid off and pulled out a silver python along with an extra clipping of ammo. She shoved it down in her bag then hesitated as she looked at the belt of silver Smith and Wesson SWTK10CP throwing knives.
Before the experiment her mother had forced her into, she had never been good with knives. They made her nervous. She was always afraid she was going to cut herself and the lightness of them always threw her off – she never used to hit her target. But now she couldn't miss.
Hoping that by some miracle what had been done to her had completely left her system, Mara slid one knife out – the cool metal between her fingertips as she tapped it against her leg.
