Page 1 of Devil's Vows

1

GABI

I have rules for surviving in my world, and the first one is tonever show them who I really am.

This has been circling my mind for days. Helpful but also a load of bullshit. On one side, I’m just a girl. In a convent. An orphan, saved by the grace of God. I could be anything really, just never the secret daughter of the most powerful Mafia Don in Italy.

Honestly, I have no clue who I am. All I know is I’ll be certifiable if I don’t get out of this make-shift safehouse soon.

From afar, the clang of metal sounds, and I jolt. Seriously? Get a grip.

Maybeit’s time.

Can’t be.

Maybe it is? My fingers start trembling, so I put the paintbrush down. I fist my hands to quiet them, refusing to be a victim of fictional fear.

When it’s real, it’s a different story. I’m not there yet. I stretch my fingers and reach for my small golden cross necklace. Just running my thumb over its patterned surface calms me.

I hate how these sounds still affect me years down the line, and this isn’t a cellar but it might as well be. At least, it isn’t a dank and moldy dungeon just yards from a pigsty, where the pigs’ putrid stench and squealing just above reminded me every second of someone being tortured.

For almost two months, I’ve been hiding out in this secret chamber in the Potenza Convent, accessible through a hidden passage from Mother Lucia’s office. She is the only one who has keys to this room, so I have no idea why I’m so jittery.

But I know why. Two months is a long time, and every day in here is a day closer to some monster finding me. Someone called earlier this week asking if a Gabriella Randazzo lives at this convent. Luckily for me, I’ve never been called by that name.

I force myself to take a deep breath and home in on the sounds. The gate clicks closed.

Footsteps. Rushed. Urgent.

My heart pounds louder with each creaky stair, and I stand up to lift the roof tile just two inches so I can peek out. The gap provides a view over the church’s playground where kids’ laughter drifts up, music to my ears. The church’s kindergarteners are out for one last outdoor play before it’s story time, and they are rowdy as they should be. I quickly tally them as used to be my habit, and once all are accounted for, I sigh in relief. Nothing would ever happen here, but it’s not every day little kids get to go back home to their parents.

My gaze jumps beyond the playground. No strange cars are parked in the narrow, cobbled street. No men in suits walk around looking menacing. No Russian voices drift over on the late afternoon’s heated breeze.

I take a deep breath, gently lower the tile, and wipe my hands down my pinafore as I listen again.

The footsteps are familiar.

It’s for sure Mother Lucia, but something in her gait putsme on guard. She’s always calm and in charge, and these aren’t the footsteps of a calm and in-charge devout Catholic.

A key gets shoved into the keyhole, and the twist sounds like a chicken’s breaking neck. My breath stalls in my chest. Mother Lucia is never aggressive like this. Somethingiswrong.

It’s been a long time now, but there are layers to things being wrong. For a while, I thought I was safe. Ensconced in the convent at Potenza, working as a teacher’s assistant in the kindergarten here. As insignificant and forgettable as white paint.

But ever since the news of Randazzo’s death reached this last outpost in a broken pearl-string of villages slowly dying out because of an aging population, everything has been a mess.

I’vebeen a mess.

Do we run again? How long can we stay a few measly steps ahead of Franco Fiore, the swine who anointed himself as the new Don once the news of Randazzo’s death started floating around? When he learns about the deal Randazzo struck with that decrepit Russian, who knows what he’d do to me.

I shudder. I know what men are capable of. I don’t know where Mother Lucia gets her information on Franco Fiore from. All I know is I need to disappear forever, before Fiore can learn about me or the deal. My biggest strength has always beenbeing a secret. A mere ghost living in the walls of convents, where drafty whispers about my existence have chased me around Italy for well over a decade.

The door shoves open, and Mother Lucia bursts into the small room. Her face is flushed, eyes wide, her chest heaving, and a droplet of sweat gathers and runs down the edge of her wimple like a misplaced tear.

What on earth is going on? She is never this rumpled, this affected.

“Gabriella…oh,Gabriella!”

I chill to my bones. Shenevercalls me Gabriella. I’ve beeneverything else. Lately Terese, but also Maria, Gianna… Gosh, even I’ve lost track.