Page 2 of Lupo

I turn my head slightly to look down at the rear passenger tire.

I don’t hear him move. I only feel the crushing impact, a heavy, solid object connecting with the back of my skull just above the neck. White-hot pain explodes, instantly stealing my vision and strength. My knees hit the asphalt before my mind registers the attack.

The Beretta clatters on the dirt shoulder of the road.

I hit my hands and knees, my vision swimming, a deafening ring in my ears. I try to push up, but my body is paralyzed by the sudden trauma.

Dante appears in front of me, stepping over the gun. He's holding a heavy black pistol, its butt slick with my blood. His face is vacant. Cold. Empty.

"Sorry, boss," he says.

He doesn't stop. He swings the pistol like a weight, smashing the butt into my jaw. I taste a rush of hot blood. He hits me again. And again. Relentless, measured blows delivered by a man who knows how to break things. My head feels like a cracked drum.

The world fragments into blinding pain and blackness. The last sound I register is the sickening thud of metal against my skull.

Then, nothing.

Chapter 2: Isabella

The morning sun is just beginning to warm the kitchen when I hear Elena's feet pattering across the wooden floor. I'm at the stove, stirring polenta for our breakfast, mentally calculating how much longer the bag of cornmeal will last. Two weeks, maybe three if I stretch it.

"Mama, can I go see the chickens?"

I glance at my daughter. She's already dressed herself, shirt on backward, mismatched socks, dark curls escaping the braid I wove last night. Three years old and fiercely independent, just like her mother.

"Stay where I can see you," I tell her, pointing through the window toward the small coop beside the barn. "And don't open the gate. Just look."

"I know, Mama." She rolls her eyes in that way that makes her seem much older than three, and I have to hide my smile.

The door bangs shut behind her, and I watch through the window as she skips across the dusty yard, her stuffed rabbit dragging behind her by one ear. My chest tightens the way it always does when she's out of my sight, even for a moment.

Eighteen months of looking over my shoulder. Eighteen months of jumping at every car that passes on the distant road, every stranger in the village market. Eighteen months of wondering if today is the day Draco finds us.

I push the thought away and focus on the polenta, stirring in the last of the parmesan. We'll have bread and jam too, and some ofthe figs that are finally ripe. It's not much, but it's ours. We’re safe, hidden.

My father bought this farm forty years ago, back when he still had dreams of leaving the city, of living a quiet life. He never did, not until I needed him to. Not until I showed up on his doorstep in Rome with a black eye, a terrified toddler, and nowhere else to go.

He brought us here. Told no one. Used cash for everything. Taught me how to work the land, how to survive on almost nothing, how to disappear.

Then his heart gave out six months ago, and I've been alone ever since.

The polenta starts to bubble, and I'm reaching for the pot when Elena's voice cuts through the morning air.

"Mama!"

That's not her playful voice. That's not her calling because she found a pretty stone or wants to show me something. That's fear.

I drop the spoon and run.

The door slams against the wall as I burst outside, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Elena!"

She's standing at the edge of the olive grove, twenty feet from the barn, pointing toward the trees. When she sees me, she runs, and I catch her, dropping to my knees to look her over.

"Are you hurt? What happened?"

"Mama, a man fell down!" She points back toward the grove, her eyes wide but not crying. Curious more than scared. "He's sleeping by the trees."

Every muscle in my body goes rigid. "What?"