Chapter 149: 149 ~ Mira
We left before dawn.
There was something cleansing about moving while the world was still asleep. It as if the danger couldn’t catch up to us if it didn’t have time to stretch and wake.
Tomas had arranged everything: a single black SUV, two backups, a handful of men who didn’t speak unless spoken to. They packed in silence like thieves rehearsing a daylight robbery.
Jace didn’t give me time to be sentimental. He took my hand as we stepped out, and the warmth of it steadied me more than the desert air or the rumble of the engine. He looked like a man who had already decided to burn whatever stood in his way; the set of his jaw said it all. Still, there was a softness when he glanced my way, a little nod that said; We’ll keep each other, even if the world demands otherwise.
Donna Carmela was wrapped in a cream shawl that made her look small. She’s been smaller since the hospital, the shooting took something from her that medicine couldn’t replace, but her eyes were still sharp, still dangerous in their own way. She refused to be carried; she refused to be coddled. She decided she would go with us as an equal, and in the way only a matriarch can, she set the rules before we left.
"No visitors. No phones beyond what the guards need. You sleep. You eat. You watch." Her voice was weak, but it held iron. Even that fragile voice could cut a man down if she wanted.
We drove for hours. The city thinned out into highways and then into rolling hills dotted with vineyards and small farms. The further we went, the less I felt like I belonged in the life I had stumbled into. Part of me wanted to laugh at that. Me, who used to get flour on my apron and call it a day, now tucked into a leather seat between a Don and his donna, watching the world blur outside.
Tomas handled logistics like a general. "We’ll stay three nights at the safe house north of here," he said, briefing Jace quietly in the front. "Then we move to the villa. Nobody knows about the villa but me and the Don. It’s out of state and off-grid. No cameras, no traceable utilities. It’s purely self-contained. Staff is local, loyal to the family, not to names."
Jace nodded, giving me the smallest smile when he saw my face. "You’ll like it," he said. "It’s quiet."
Quiet. I didn’t know if that word should comfort me or scare me.
The villa was everything the word "hidden" promised. A long, tree-lined drive that swallowed the SUV, a wrought-iron gate that folded apart soundlessly, and a house that looked at once lived-in and abandoned — all stone and dark wood and a wide porch that faced a lake glassy as a mirror. There were olive trees, a small patch of wild roses, a vegetable garden that looked as if someone loved to plant things by hand. It could be a postcard if you ignored the men with earpieces and rifles tucked under their jackets.
We settled into a rhythm the way people do when they’re forced to pretend: routines that quiet the mind. Tomas and a handful of trusted men set up a security perimeter with checkpoints at the road, drone sweeps until night, guards on rotation. They installed scramblers to block signals. I watched it all with a strange calm. I wanted to understand everything; I wanted to be useful.
Donna insisted on seeing the property with a cane, insisting she could do more than sit in a chair. She shuffled slowly, her eyes cataloguing everything, giving orders to the staff like she already owned the place. For someone who almost died a little over a week ago, she was ferocious in the most ordinary ways. She called a gardener over and lectured him about pruning the roses. "Life is in the details," she told him. Then she looked at me, one of those old-woman smiles that contained a thousand stories. "You’ll have to learn to make polenta right."
I wanted to say yes and mean it. I wanted to believe we were safe long enough to learn how to make polenta like a Romano. That night, sitting on the porch with my feet tucked under me, the lake spread in silver and stars, I let myself be small for a second. Jace sat close, his shoulder warm and heavy against mine.
"I love seeing you look so at peace," Jace’s voice startled me as I turned around to face him.
"Wish I could say the same for you." I teased him as he pulled me up.
We shared a laugh that felt like permission to be both ridiculous and human.
The villa’s nights were long and padded in the quiet. I learned quickly how security felt like a blanket — both warm and heavy. Every door had a code. Every staff member had a story, eyes a little too practiced. Tomas checked the guest logs like a priest and crossed names off like absolution. I watched him work and admired the way he could be merciless when he needed to, a fact that made me both comforted and uneasy.
Donna’s recovery surprised me. Some hours she rested like a woman exhausted, and in others she exploded with the energy of someone who had lain in a bed and dreamed of revenge. She told me stories from her youth in bits when she felt good — small memories of markets, of dresses stitched in haste, of hiding children during times that felt endless. She told me she had loved once, and the way she said it made me realize love had always been far more complicated in their world. It didn’t just bring warmth. It brought alliances and debts and knives hidden under couches.
I wanted to ask her about Alejandro. But even I knew that was a forbidden topic for now. Jace was still awkward about ut.
Night fell, and with it, the shadows reminded me we were still small children on the run. The radios buzzed once, then again. Tomas appeared at the threshold with a look I knew too well. His eyebrow rose.
"A car on the north road," he said. "License plates don’t show. They turned off the main road and came through the fields."
The blood drained from my face. Jace was up like a spring, with a quiet order and a rifle in his hands.
They moved like caged predators, efficient and terrifying. I stood in the doorway watching them and felt the old panic rise, but something steadier reminded me: I was here. I’d chosen this. I could help. We had to be better than afraid.
When the men returned, they reported that the car had turned around and left. No footprints. No approach. An intimidation maneuver. It was a message.
We all exhaled, together and separate. Jace came to me then, and the tiredness in him made my chest ache.
"Listen to me," he said softly. "We move as one. We keep our circle small. We never speak of location. You stay with me at all times when we go out." He pressed his lips to my temple as if sealing the promise. "And if anything happens, you run. No questions."
I wanted to protest. I wanted to tell him I wasn’t a fragile thing to be carried. But I stepped into his arms instead and let my fingers lace through his. "I know," I whispered.
That night, I slept like a person who knew the wolves were outside but had found a place to lay their head. It was a strange blessing. I had safety held together by violence and loyalty, by guns and hands that would kill for you without blinking.
I didn’t know how long we’d stay. Weeks, months, a flash before the storm returns. But for now, in the quieted compound with its olive trees and lake and the little wild roses, I let myself believe in a fragile thing: that we could breathe for a moment, learn the edges of one another, and prepare for the burn that was surely coming.
"Do you think we’ll be ready when the war comes?" I asked him.
Jace’s hand closed over mine in the dark. "We always are."
I tried to believe that.