He Married His Enemy’s Daughter, So I Left the Mafia Family Chapter 08
I’d been in El Paso for six months.
The air was dry, and the wind often carried sand with it.
The Franklin Mountains stretched across the horizon, and farther south lay the border.
I bent down and tightened my tactical boots, then instinctively brushed a hand over my now-fla stomach.
I’d survived the attack six months ago.
My baby hadn’t.
When I woke up, Victor was sitting beside my hospital bed.
He looked at me, unable to hide the grief in his eyes.
I didn’t cry. At the time, I was even relieved.
At least that child would never be defined by the Moretti name from the moment it was born.
And it would never have to grow up in a Family that always looked at bloodline before love.
After three months of rehabilitation, I picked up a gun again.,
Victor officially transferred me to the Commission enforcement unit.
The unit didn’t belong to any single Family. It answered to the Commission and handled the trade
routes ordinary crews couldn’t touch.
Here, no one cared what my last name was.
During an operation, the only thing that mattered was whether I could bring my team home alive.
“Natalie, stand by to move.”
The team leader’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Copy.”
I pulled down my face covering and checked my magazine.
Tonight’s target was a group of surviving Rossi loyalists working with a drug cartel.
We’d set an ambush in the desert southeast of the city.
The moment the first shot rang out, the entire team pushed forward.
In less than twenty minutes, we’d cut off every escape route.
While clearing the area, I heard movement in the brush along the perimeter.
“Come out. Now.”
No response.
I swung my weapon toward the sound.
A second later, a young man lunged out with a knife.
I stepped aside, caught his wrist, and slammed him to the ground.
“Get off me!”
Lightning flashed in the distance.
For one instant, I saw his face clearly.
I froze.
“Milo?”
He went still too.
A few seconds later, he suddenly laughed.
“Cindy? Christ, it really is you.”
Cindy was the name I’d used years ago while undercover in Detroit.
Milo was the son of one of the Rossi Family’s old soldiers.
When we took down the Detroit trade route, he had only been fifteen.
Because of his age, he’d been sent to juvenile detention instead of disappearing for good like his
father had.
I grabbed him by the collar.
“You had a chance to get out once you were released. Why get mixed up in all this again?”
Milo spat blood from his mouth.
Achance? Cindy, you really think people like us, raised in the Family business, can just walk away whenever we fancy? Someone got me out early. Gave me money. Gave me a new identity Put me straight back to work.”
Every instinct in me sharpened.
“Who? Who got you out?”
Milo looked at me with a strange smile.
“Who do you think? Selena Rossi.”
For several seconds, I said nothing.
Milo continued.
“You all thought she knew nothing. After the Rossi Family fell, she was the one who pulled the remaining people back together. That attack in Chicago? She gave them the compound’s location.”
A detail from that day immediately flashed through my mind.
When the leader stormed into the compound, the first person he’d looked at was Selena.
They hadn’t gone there to kill her.
The whole thing had been staged.
Adrian had simply made their plan work even better than they’d expected when he locked me inside
with them.
My radio suddenly crackled.
“Natalie! We’ve got trouble on the perimeter. A private security team just pushed into the firefight. No ID codes. Looks like they’ve come in from Chicago.”
I got to my feet.
“Do we know who they are?”
“Not yet.”
I ran up to higher ground and raised my night-vision binoculars.
A few seconds later, I spotted an SUV riddled with bullet holes.
A man was taking cover behind ít.
Even after six months apart, I recognized him instantly.
