PART 2 — THE GIRL WHO BURNED

Sloan ran before anyone else moved.

Not toward the front door.

Never toward the obvious exit.

She vaulted over the counter, shoved through the swinging kitchen door, and nearly collided with Jimmy, who was still holding the spatula like a weapon.

“Sloan—”

“Back door,” she snapped.

Jimmy blinked. “What?”

“Lock it behind me.”

She was already moving.

Behind her, the diner erupted.

Chairs scraped. Matteo’s men cursed. Carla sobbed. Matteo shouted one order, low and sharp, and the whole room seemed to obey it.

“Do not shoot.”

That stopped Sloan more than a gunshot would have.

Do not shoot.

Not don’t let her get away.

Not grab her.

Do not shoot.

He wanted her alive.

That was worse.

Sloan burst into the alley behind the diner. Rain hit her face like cold needles. Dumpsters lined the brick wall. A stray cat shot beneath a rusted fire escape. Somewhere down the block, a siren wailed and faded without coming closer.

South Side cops knew which streets to avoid at night.

Sloan knew them too.

She ran through alleys, over broken glass, past boarded windows and sleeping buildings. Her breath burned. Her shoes slipped twice. She did not slow.

Seraphina.

The name chased her harder than Matteo’s men.

She had not heard it since she was eight.

Since smoke filled a house with green wallpaper.

Since a woman with bloody hands pushed her into a laundry chute and whispered, “Do not make a sound, little star.”

Since flames ate the ceiling.

Since men shouted downstairs.

Since her father screamed once and then never again.

She remembered a hand over her mouth. A man carrying her through rain. A hospital room. A woman in a navy suit telling her that Sloan Carver was her name now. That Seraphina was dead. That dead girls survived longer than missing ones.

For eighteen years, Sloan had obeyed.

No friends too close. No photos online. No doctors unless she was dying. No questions. No past.

And now Matteo Valente had looked at her wrist and torn open the grave.

By the time she reached her apartment building, her lungs felt shredded.

The building leaned between a pawnshop and a liquor store. The front lock had been broken for six months. Frank Doyle, her landlord, called it “scheduled maintenance” whenever tenants complained.

Sloan climbed three flights, one hand on the railing, one hand under her apron where she kept a small folding knife taped inside the waistband.

The hallway outside her apartment was dark.

Too dark.

The bulb had been unscrewed.

She stopped.

Her door was open.

Not wide.

Just enough.

A warning.

Sloan stepped closer without breathing. The three dead bolts hung destroyed from splintered wood. Inside, her apartment smelled wrong.

Cedar.

Rain.

Black pepper.

Matteo’s scent.

No. Not Matteo.

Someone else.

Someone who wanted her to think of him.

Sloan entered slowly.

Her mattress had been overturned. Drawers emptied. The cheap mirror above the sink shattered. Her clothes were sliced open and scattered across the floor. The shoebox beneath the radiator was gone.

Her emergency cash.

Her second ID.

Her bus ticket to Portland.

Gone.

On the kitchen table sat one thing that had not belonged there before.

A photograph.

Old. Burned around the edges.

Sloan picked it up with shaking fingers.

A little girl stood in front of a white stone mansion. Dark curls. Serious eyes. A pale scar forming on her left wrist.

Beside her stood a boy maybe fourteen years old, tall and thin, already too solemn for childhood. His hand rested protectively on her shoulder.

Matteo.

Younger.

Human.

On the back of the photograph, written in faded blue ink, were four words.

MY CHILDREN, BEFORE THE FIRE.

Sloan’s knees weakened.

No.

She did not remember him like that.

She remembered flashes. A boy teaching her how to throw a punch. A boy sneaking sugar cubes from the kitchen. A boy calling her Sera when their father was not listening.

Matteo had been her brother.

Then why had she spent eighteen years being told he was the monster?

A floorboard creaked behind her.

Sloan turned with the knife already open.

Matteo stood in the doorway.

Alone.

No guards. No gun drawn. Rain darkened the shoulders of his coat. Blood bruised the side of his mouth where she had thrown him.

He looked at the wreckage of her apartment, then at the photograph in her hand.

His face changed.

“Lorenzo found you first,” he said.

Sloan held the knife higher. “Get out.”

“Sera—”

“Don’t call me that.”

Pain flickered through his eyes so quickly she almost missed it.

“You think I did this?” he asked.

“I think men like you do whatever gets you what you want.”

“And what do you think I want?”

“My death. My silence. My blood. Pick one.”

Matteo stepped inside, slow enough not to spook her. “If I wanted you dead, you would not have walked out of that diner.”

Sloan laughed once. It sounded broken.

“I walked out because your men were on the floor.”

His mouth twitched. “That too.”

She hated that he could still sound amused.

She hated more that some buried part of her recognized him.

Matteo reached into his coat.

Sloan’s knife shifted.

He stopped. Then, carefully, he pulled out a small silver chain.

A pendant hung from it.

Half of a saint medal.

Sloan’s hand went numb.

Her own half was taped beneath the sink, behind a loose tile. Or it had been.

She moved to the bathroom, ripped the tile free, and found nothing.

The hiding place was empty.

Matteo’s jaw tightened.

“They took yours,” he said.

“Who?”

“Our uncle.”

Sloan stared at him.

“Lorenzo Valente raised me after the fire,” Matteo continued. “He told me you died. He made me look at a body under a sheet and swear vengeance. I built an empire on that lie.”

Sloan swallowed. “Why would he hide me?”

“Because our mother left you something.”

“What?”

“I don’t know.”

“You expect me to believe that?”

“No.” Matteo looked around her destroyed apartment. “But you already know someone wants you. The question is whether you want to face him alone.”

A phone rang.

Not Sloan’s.

Matteo pulled his from his pocket.

He listened for three seconds.

Then his expression went dead.

He turned the screen toward her.

A photo had been sent.

Carla, the young waitress, bound to a chair, mascara streaked down her cheeks.

Below the image was one message.

BRING SERAPHINA HOME.

Sloan’s knife lowered.

Then another message appeared.

OR THE GIRL DIES BEFORE SUNRISE.