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“Mira, what is going on?” Magda asks.

“I-I—” I can’t tell her anything and I don’t even know what lie I would say. But the vibration of the burner phone in my hand stops me from talking to her.

“What’s wrong, Bella?”

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“I’m fine. What’s going on?” he asks, concern in his voice.

I rush out into the dining room, hoping Magda doesn’t follow. “G-Giancarlo called me. He threatened me. Aria. He said he would take her.”

Kilian doesn’t say anything and I know what I believe to be true is true.

“Did you kill my brother?” I ask him.

He sighs into the phone. “Yes.”

“Good.”

“Did Giancarlo tell you—”

“His head in a box? Yeah.”

“Look, Bella. I—”

“I don’t care. He deserved it. But you need to get out of here, Kilian. He will kill you.”

Kilian’s tone turns deadly. “I need you to tell me everything he said to you.”

So I do. I tell him the threat to Aria’s life and his. The way Giancarlo thinks that Aria can be used against The Partners. That he knows he is her father.

“Okay, I need you to calm down.”

“Kilian, he threatened our daughter!” I scream.

“Nothing is going to happen to Aria. I swear my life on that. I need you to call the school, tell them I am picking her up in an hour. I will be at the restaurant right after. When I call you, meet me in the alley. We’re leaving.”

“We can’t just run.”

“We aren’t running. I am putting the two of you somewhere safe.”

“And what about you?” I ask.

“Don’t worry about me, Bella. This is my life. This is what I deal with every day.”

I hold back my emotions but hiccup into the phone. “Kilian…”

“An hour and a half, Bella. Be ready.”

He hangs up on me, and I finally let a tear fall. I know I am stronger than this. But the thought of anything happening to Aria kills me.

Magda clears her throat and I see her in the doorway of the kitchen. I don’t say anything and call the school like Kilian instructed.

When I hang up, Magda speaks. “What have you gotten yourself into,mimma?” she asks with concern on her face.

“Nothing I wasn’t born into.”

She nods. A look of understanding crossing her face. “You know, when your grandmother left here all those years ago with that boy, I knew something was off. I knew he wasn’t just some random summer fling. I knew he was different. He had an air about him that said he was dangerous.” She pauses as she walks toward me. “She used to write me. For two years, she wrote me. And then the letters stopped. But I knew from those letters. I saw the clues she wrote hidden between words. He was a bad man.”