I didn't exactly choose to be stolen at four years old.
But the French underworld isn't big on consent.
One minute I was Donatella Acardi, Mafia royalty. The next? Just another stolen kid bleeding in someone else's basement.
That's where I met Ami...
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Donatella POV:
We were *this* close.
I mean skin-to-skin, breath-to-breath, *he’s right fucking there* close to getting caught.
Leonardo was *in* the damn office. We heard the keypad. I saw the damn handle start to turn. And then, like the good little suicidal maniacs we are, Amir and I made a desperate gamble—we pressed up against the wall behind that giant bookshelf and *thank fucking God* Amir’s elbow accidentally nudged the edge of what looked like a molding crack. A door. A secret goddamn door. I wanted to kiss whoever built this place a hundred years ago with all their dramatic castle bullshit. We slipped through it with seconds to spare, dead silent. The door closed, the wall blended back in, and we were gone—ghosts—just as the door creaked open and Leonardo walked in.
I couldn’t even *breathe* until we were halfway down the passage.
“Tell me again,” Amir whispered harshly behind me, “whose genius idea was this? ‘Oh, let’s break into my brother’s private mafia vault, what could go wrong?’”
I rolled my eyes as I adjusted the USB in my bra. “You act like we’re not the most elite assassins in the world. Have some damn faith in your ride or die.”
“I *would* have more faith if you didn’t keep almost getting us *killed* on missions like we’re in a spy movie directed by Quentin fucking Tarantino.”
I smirked at that.
Eventually, we made it through the narrow, dusty-ass corridor that popped out behind one of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves in the library. Amir peeked out first like the paranoid owl he is, and once the coast was clear, we dashed up the grand staircase and bolted for my bedroom like two kids who got caught skipping school.
Once we were inside, I slammed the door and locked it with the speed of a caffeinated raccoon.
“Okay,” I huffed, ripping open my laptop. “Let’s see what this baby’s hiding.”
Amir flopped beside me on the bed, a little out of breath but still eyeing me like I was the cause of every migraine he’s ever had. “This is gonna go well,” he muttered sarcastically. “This is totally not gonna backfire in the worst way possible.”
“Shut up,” I snapped, plugging in the USB with way too much flair. “We’re about to find the French Mafia’s dirty laundry and air that shit on a flagpole.”
He snorted. “If we survive long enough to post it on Craigslist, sure.”
I clicked the icon.
Nothing happened.
Not a loading bar. Not a popup. Not even the polite *ding* of ‘device detected.’
