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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Third person:
The castle was silent when she slipped inside.
Donatella moved like a ghost, swift and practiced. Her injured hand stung as she gripped the edge of her nightstand, yanking open drawers. She didn't stop to look at the pictures. She didn't pause at the mirror. She packed in silence. Just one bag-nothing more. One change of clothes, her weapons, cash, the flash drive hidden in the heel of her boot, and the little necklace she never wore but never threw away. Everything else stayed.
This wasn't a goodbye. It was a severance.
The end of something she should have never allowed to begin.
She didn't cry. Not one bit.
Not when she glanced at the photo tucked in her nightstand drawer, the one she never showed anyone. The one with her and Amir, blurry and smiling, taken on a whim during one of their rare moments of peace. She didn’t even flinch when she tossed it face down on the floor and left it behind.
She couldn’t afford sentiment now.
Not when everything depended on her leaving this house without a trace.
The silence of the castle gnawed at her as she slipped down the halls in worn boots, hoodie zipped, bag strapped to her back. No goodbye. No second thoughts. No final glances.
By the time she was outside, the night air slapped her in the face. Crisp, cold, sharp with coming rain.
She kicked the stand off her motorcycle and swung her leg over. The engine roared to life under her like an old friend. It echoed off the cobblestone like thunder.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
---
It was nearly dawn when she arrived at the hospital.
She parked across the street, hidden in shadow, her helmet still on. No one saw her slip through the side entrance. No one questioned her fake badge or the steady, emotionless stare in her eyes.
The nurse at the desk didn’t even lift her head.
Just nodded and gestured toward Amir’s room. “Still asleep,” she murmured. “You his sister?”
Donatella gave a tight, cold smile. “Something like that.”
The room was dark. Quiet. The monitor beside the bed gave a soft, rhythmic beep-steady, calm. He was sleeping. Peacefully. Not a single line of pain on his face.
It would be the last time she ever saw him like
that.
Donatella stood in the doorway, her hands clenched so tightly at her sides her knuckles were white. The hospital's white light made her black leather jacket look darker, more menacing. Her curls were pulled back, jaw locked, back stiff. In her eyes-ice. The kind that burned.
