(there's the novel version. You can access the next chapters there.)
Chapter One.
(Roof Top)
Isa positioned herself on the rooftop, one eye closed, the other fixed on the sniper’s scope. Night wrapped the city in a thick, indifferent blanket. Her finger hovered near the trigger.
Don’t let him out of your sight, the message had said. Sergeant Maxwell, the cop who walked with the Cobra — one of the most violent biker gangs in the city. They robbed stores, terrorized neighborhoods, stole cars and motorbikes. The police never managed to keep them locked up. The Cobras were a blot that the Lorenzo cartel wanted wiped clean.
Isabella Monroe, mafia princess, elite assassin. That title felt heavier tonight. This was her job: to cut down the men who threatened the Lorenzo name. Tonight she had come to take down Maxwell’s general. Kill him, install fear, redraw a boundary.
“Three, two, one,” she whispered, adjusting the silencer with the practiced calm of someone who had done this a hundred times. The man below stood stiff as a plank. The crowd around him laughed and talked — ordinary noises making the scene feel almost obscene.
Then Maxwell crumpled. Blood burst from the back of his head and painted the pavement. People screamed and scattered like startled birds.
Yes, Maxwell was finally down, she thought. But—
She had not squeezed the trigger.
On instinct she swung the scope to another corner of the roof and froze. A figure leaned in shadow, dressed all in black. A mask hid his face; black curls fell over it. The only thing that showed through was a pair of green eyes as bright and cold as crystal.
Something inside her shifted.
She eased the rifle to her shoulder and trained the scope on him. He trained his on her. For a second their gazes locked. Isa felt the air go thin. She pulled away, turned the rifle into her bag with hands that did not tremble but felt oddly foreign to her.
Her chest was pounding, not from fear but from the strange, small defeat of watching someone else take what she had been sent to take. She always prided herself on precision and speed, on getting the job done without hesitation. Tonight, someone had beaten her to it. For the first time in a long time she tasted defeat.
She thumbed open her phone and scrolled through the group chat.
Maxwell is down boss. But I didn’t kill him. Someone else did.
Her throat dry, Isa swallowed. She packed the rifle and slipped it into the bag with the same mechanical movements she used after every hit. It was the job that kept her mother safe, that bought them fragile peace. She had no illusions about it. This life had cost her everything but survival.
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
“How could you be so fucking stupid?” Viktor’s voice split the room. The slap landed against her cheek and sent her to the floor. Heat flooded her face; her vision swam with the sting and the humiliation.
People nearest the screen drew back. Isa pushed herself up, smoothing her jacket with hands that shook just enough for anyone watching to notice. “I’m sorry, boss,” she said, head bowed. “I tried to do it like you said. The man killed him.”
Viktor crushed his cigarette between his fingers, jaw tight with the satisfaction of owning a wound. He loved the credit of things done, even when others did them. He cupped her face, fingers rough and possessive. The gesture made her skin crawl. He was the kind of man who enjoyed both praise and fear.
“You have to prove yourself to me, princess,” he said, voice low. He pushed the cigarette back into his mouth and leaned back on the couch, legs crossed like a man with time to kill.
Isa’s eyes watered, but she blinked the tears away. Pride kept them from falling. Marco, one of Viktor’s lieutenants, stepped forward with a tablet and shoved it into Viktor’s hands. The screen glowed, and Viktor pushed it toward Isa.
“Come over,” he said.
She obeyed without hesitation, because there was no room for hesitation. He thrust the tablet into her grip as though it were a scalpel.
“That’s the victim,” Viktor said.
Isa’s blood ran cold. The image on the screen was unmistakable. She swallowed, trying to keep her face neutral. “That’s the senator’s son,” she whispered.
She had killed people for less complicated reasons, but this was different. The senator’s son would be wrapped in security, always in public or in sanctified privacy. He was someone who moved behind armored glass and tight schedules. Getting close to him would mean patience, strategy, corners cut only in desperation.
Viktor’s lips twisted into a smirk. “And how are you so sure you can’t take him down, princess?”
“It’s not that I can’t,” Isa said, forcing the logic from her lungs. “It’s that it will take time. He’s hardly seen in public. I’ll need time to find his patterns, his exits, his weak moments.”
Viktor studied her, and for a moment she saw whether he believed her or not. Then he nodded. “You have thirty days.”
Her relief was immediate and short-lived. Viktor’s voice dropped. “If you exceed those thirty days, consider your mother dead.”
The words landed like an anvil. Isa’s hands tightened into fists. Everything she had done, everything she had endured, had been to protect the one fragile life she could not replace. She bowed her head and returned the tablet on shaky legs. Viktor waved her away like he might wave off a servant. She left before he could change his mind.
Outside, her phone buzzed so desperately it felt like an accusation. Thirty missed calls from Mom.
She jumped into her car and drove like a shadow, each stoplight a small annoyance she had no patience for. Today was her mother’s wedding. The fourth marriage in as many years since the divorce. Isa did not believe in romance; she believed in bargains and survival. The idea of attending made her resentful, but she could not not go. Whatever this life took from her, she would not lose her mother to Viktor’s threats.
She arrived at the venue still in her jacket, still smelling faintly of rooftop wind and smoke. The place was grander than she had expected: crystal, laughter, uniforms. Men in suits moved like chess pieces. The gun in her pocket felt heavier than usual.
She stepped through the crowd with the practiced indifference of someone used to being eyed. Then someone tapped her from behind.
“Who are you?” a voice asked.
