Page 42 of Savage Saint (Empire of Secrets #2)

KASIA

C zerwona Wdowa..

The name hits me like a physical blow. Red Widow. I know it. I've heard it before. Many times.

"No," I say, shaking my head. "I'm here to save you. Come on!"

Gunfire erupts from the main floor, cutting through the throbbing bass of the music. Shouts and screams follow. The girls shrink back, terror making them immobile.

"Fuck," I mutter. I need to get back to Alessa, make sure she's safe. The girls aren't moving though, backing away from me even further. I take a step towards them.

"He'll find us and kill us," one whispers, tears brimming in her eyes. Fuck. Fuckety. Fuck.

"He won't. Come on!" I growl. "Let's go."

"We can't," the blonde says, shaking her head frantically. "He has our families. If we leave, they die."

The oldest trick in the book. And the most effective. Also, most likely a lie.

"Fuck it. I'll be back." I turn and run. If anything happens to Alessa, I'll kill every single motherfucker in this place. I'll drag these girls out next time. When I don't have to worry about Dante's fiancée.

My body moves on autopilot as I navigate back through the corridors. Two men with guns appear around the corner, heading for the dressing rooms. Without hesitation, I launch myself at them.

The first goes down with a knife-hand strike to the throat. As he drops, choking, I grab his gun and shoot the second man between the eyes. The recoil feels familiar in my hand. The spray of blood across the wall looks like artwork I've created a hundred times before.

I don't feel anything as I step over their bodies. The blood on my hands might as well be paint for all it bothers me.

I make it back to the car in record time, sliding into the passenger seat with my heart hammering against my ribs.

"Go, go, go!" I tell Alessa, who doesn't waste time asking questions. She starts the car and peels out of the alley, tyres screeching as we flee the scene.

We're halfway back to Dante's mansion when Alessa finally breaks the silence. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

I stare straight ahead, watching the fog swallow the road in front of us. "No," I say slowly. "But I found something else..."

Memory fragments start to surface, each one more devastating than the last. They hit like bullets, precise and deadly.

A red dress, slit high up the thigh, concealing a garrote wire. A high-profile target in Vienna. A perfect execution.

Clean kills. No witnesses. A reputation growing in whispered conversations throughout the criminal underworld.

The fear in men's eyes when they whispered my name: "Red Widow."

Pride in Jerzy's voice as he strokes my hair: "My perfect weapon."

The brand on my hip—not torture, but a mission marker. I let them do it. Part of the job. Nicolosi was there, watching from the corner, cigar smoke curling around his face. "Make it look real," he instructed the man with the iron.

The whole thing was orchestrated. Get captured, get rescued by the Santoros. Gain their trust. Learn their weaknesses.

Then destroy them from within.

Jerzy and Nicolosi's master plan.

I wasn't a victim.

I was a weapon.

"Kasia? You're scaring me."

Alessa's voice breaks through the fog in my head, pulling me back to the car. The streetlights flash by in a blur as we speed through the empty streets. I look down at my hands, surprised to see them covered in blood. When did that happen? The men at the club. Right.

"There's blood on your clothes," Alessa says, her knuckles white on the steering wheel. "Are you hurt?"

"Not mine," I say, my voice sounding distant even to my own ears.

The memories keep coming, faster now, like bullets being loaded into a chamber. Click. Click. Click. Each one sliding into place with terrifying precision.

I remember everything now.

The plan had been perfect. So perfect. Let Nicolosi brand me with his mark. Pretend to get captured. Be found by the Santoros in that shipping container. Gain their trust. Learn their weaknesses. Then destroy them from within.

But everything went wrong.

Nicolosi must have panicked. He went into hiding, leaving me in that container for days instead of hours.

The evidence that was supposed to lead the Santoros to me sooner never got planted.

The infection from the brand burned through me like wildfire.

Dehydration. Lack of food. By the time Angelo found me, I was barely alive, my memories lost in the fever haze.

"I know who I am," I say, the words hollow in my mouth.

The Red Widow. Jerzy's perfect weapon. The assassin who leaves no trace, feels no remorse, makes no mistakes. Until now.

And Angelo... God, Angelo. I wasn't just meant to kill him. I was meant to break him first. Make him trust me. Make him love me. Then destroy him. Destroy them all. That was Jerzy's plan. His revenge on the Santoro family for some past slight I never fully understood.

"Kasia, please talk to me," Alessa pleads, her green eyes darting between me and the road. "What's happening?"

"I'm remembering," I whisper. "Everything."

My hands start to shake. I've killed so many people. Men, women, politicians, rivals. Faces blur together in a gruesome slideshow. I was good at it. Too good. I took pride in my work, in being the best. In making Jerzy proud.

But Angelo. He saw me. Not as a weapon or a tool, but as a person. He held me when I cried. He protected me. He made me feel things I'd forgotten existed. Made me want things I'd been taught never to want.

And I was sent to destroy him.

"They call me Red Widow," I say, the name bitter on my tongue. "I'm an assassin." Jerzy's assassin.

Alessa's sharp intake of breath fills the car. Her hands tighten on the wheel as she processes this. I wait for her to pull over, to kick me out, to call Dante. She does none of these things.

"You're not making sense," she says carefully, but I can hear the fear in her voice.

"I was sent here to infiltrate your family. To gain your trust and then destroy you from within." The words spill out of me like poison. "I let them brand me, tattoo me, so I'd look like one of Nico's victims. It was all planned."

Alessa pulls the car over suddenly, the tyres screeching against the wet asphalt. She turns to face me, her expression a mix of horror and disbelief.

"That's not possible," she whispers. "You nearly died in that container. You had no memories."

"I wasn't supposed to be in there that long. Something went wrong. The infection, the dehydration... it wiped my memory." I laugh bitterly. "Ironic, isn't it? The perfect assassin, undone by bacteria and bad timing."

Alessa grabs my arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "Whatever you're remembering, you're not that person anymore."

I pull away from her, unable to bear her touch. "But I am. I'm the Red Widow. I've killed people, Alessa. So many people."

The faces flash before my eyes again. The diplomat in Vienna. The businessman in Prague. The politician's wife in Madrid. Clean kills. Perfect executions. No witnesses. No mistakes.

"You don't understand," I continue, my voice breaking. "I was sent to destroy Angelo. To make him trust me, make him... care for me. And then kill him and everyone he loves."

Alessa's face pales in the dim light of the car. "Including me?"

I nod, unable to speak. The weight of what I was sent to do crushes down on me. How could I ever have agreed to this? How could I have been so cold, so empty?

But I know the answer. Years of Jerzy's training, his conditioning. Being broken down and rebuilt as a weapon. Never questioning, never feeling. Just obeying.

"So what now?" Alessa asks, her voice small but steady. "Are you going to complete your mission?"

The question hangs in the air between us, heavy with implication. Am I? Could I? After everything that's happened, after everything Angelo has done for me, could I still be the monster Jerzy created?

"I don't know," I whisper honestly. "I don't know who I am anymore."

Alessa takes a deep breath, then does the last thing I expect. She reaches out and takes my bloodstained hand in hers.

"I do," she says firmly. "You're Kasia. You're brave and fierce and protective. You've been through hell, but you're still standing. And whatever you were before, whatever you were sent here to do, that's not who you are now."

I stare at her, speechless. How can she say that? How can she look at me, knowing what I've done, what I was meant to do, and still see something worth saving?

"You're wrong," I say, pulling my hand away. "I am the Red Widow. I always will be. It's what I was made for."

Alessa's eyes harden with determination. "Bullshit. You're what you choose to be. And I've seen how you look at Angelo. That's not an act."

The mention of his name sends a fresh wave of pain through me. Angelo. The man who saved me. The man who held me through nightmares. The man who showed me I could be more than just a weapon.

The man I was sent to destroy.

"It doesn't matter," I say, turning to look out the window at the fog-shrouded streets. "When he finds out the truth, he'll kill me himself."

"You don't know that," Alessa argues, but there's doubt in her voice. We both know what Angelo is capable of. What he does to those who betray him.

"I do," I whisper. "And he'd be right to."