Kidnapped By The Italian Mafia

"So what exactly is your plan?" Moira stared at me as she stabbed her spoon into a banana bead ice cream scoop. I sipped my smoothie and stared right back at her, wondering how in the world she was so pretty.

"I'm torn between acting like I work for Katarina and just being a newcomer." My hand came to rest on my forehead. "This is hard."

"But not impossible. You can do both!" Moira smirked and leaned closer. "Act like you owe Kat a debt of honour."

That could work… I saw the logic in it but was still very confused. "What kind of debt would warrant me going to the underworld?" That was like walking into the river Styx to retrieve a bracelet. F.u.c.k that, just buy a new bracelet.

"She saved you from traffickers and asked you to work for her some day." Moira shrugged. "The underworld is your oyster."

"Clam."

"What?"

"The underworld is my clam."

"Do clams produce pearls?"

That, I did not know. And I voiced my lack of knowledge to her. I was about to google it on my phone when she snapped her fingers in front of my face. "Focus, we need to get your story straight."

"If I owe Kat a debt, that would explain why I'd be going there with you. It would also get me a lot of contracts relatively quickly. I don't know, I'm so conflicted right now."

"Why?"

"Because I feel like I'm missing something, I don't know!" With a groan, I smacked my paralyzed forehead and sighed. My straw was poking me in the cheek. "This entire idea feels like a fluke."

"It won't be that bad. Once you're in, you know what to do."

That banana bread ice cream looked really good, which said a lot about me because I usually thought that flavour was disgusting.

"We need to review with Connor and Henri. I know he'll have some words."

"Connor or Henri?"

"Both but I was referring to Henri. He knows things better than I." My butler was so smart. And hot. Boy was he hot…

"Clearly. He assessed us with a single glance when he went to pick us up." I was glowing with pride. "Where did you find such a man?" My pride quickly deflated. Moira was one of my best friends, but I still couldn't imagine myself telling her about my secret operations. Those were things nobody knew.

"He found me. It took a while for him to accept my job offer but I just kept hiking up the price until he said yes." His paycheck was… pricey, but not unaffordable, and it was well worth it. "I think he can help with the backstory. My imagination doesn't go so far."

"I hope so because we for sure need it." Moira's fingers drummed on the glass tabletop. I looked down at the reflection of the umbrella above our heads.

"We're terrible at this," I sulked, crossed my arms and leaned back in my seat. The warm sunshine shone down on my b.a.r.e shoulders. "We absolutely suck."

"Well it's the first time any of us do something without it being expressly ordered by our parents, obviously it's not easy. Our first real life experience, as it were." She bit into her banana bread ice cream like a psychopath.

"What a coming of age experience. Kidnapped then completely transformed. Me and my stupid ambition," I sighed and closed my eyes. "Hey did you notice anything weird about the art show?"

"No, why?" Moira's eyebrows furrowed inquisitive. "Was there something wrong?"

"The guy who Jean-Louis hired to be the head of security detail. Claudette said she heard via gossip that he had ties with my father's mob."

"Weird. I've never seen him before." Moira shrugged. "Maybe it's just harmless gossip."

"Maybe, but there's something fishy about it. He was undeniably French, and the French just don't pick sides, they surrender." As history had proved countless times. Maybe once in a while the French gathered the balls to stand up for themselves, but more often than not, they waved that little white flag.

Even though they were cowards, I had to admit they were smart. Turning France into a neutral country had given them all the power because now they hosted the biggest train stop and underworld gateway in the world. Why? Simply because everyone came here.

"Maybe, but all that will be revealed in time. For now, let's try to draft up an acceptable backstory. You're Isabella VanBurren and you owe Katarina a debt of honour." I raised an eyebrow at her. "Your face looks like it would keep up the compromise of a debt of honour. It's very noble."

"Thanks…?" Point one for Isabella. I placed the straw in my mouth and continued to sip my smoothie slowly.

"So you owe her a debt of honour, you contact her friends and they take you to the underworld. Nobody will question why she didn't kill you, Katarina loved trapping people and making them owe her." I did? "So you go to the underworld, fully intent on repaying your debt. What is it?"

"Great bloody question, Moria, I don't even have a clue." I scowled down at the table with narrowed eyes. This s.u.c.k.e.d massively. "I don't want anything that will put my staff in danger. I also don't want any of this following me back to Saint-Étienne." I pulled out my cellphone to contact my friends in government who made my secrecy possible.

"Then you have to buy a house here, fabricate a whole new foolproof backstory, and get the little fillings for the holes because you absolutely know that these pricks will dig and dig and dig until they have every single detail of your life laid out in front of them to see."

She was right, but I was already a few steps ahead of her, not because I saw this coming, but because I liked having plans A through K ready to go just in case my first identity failed.

"So whatever you did to get this new face up, do it again for the second face because you're definitely going to need it."

My phone chimed, a text from my highest friend in government, assuring me that everything I was asking for would be completed and then some. Guaranteed, I would be the owner of a townhouse and heiress of a jewellery empire based here in Paris before the end of the week. All that needed to come through were the deeds and the identity papers. Thank God Henri brought my new finger prints.

"Done. With a little prosthetics and some good contour, we'll be good to go."

"Already?" Moira raised an eyebrow at me this time. "How?"

"Friends in high places, debtors in even higher places." I shrugged. "You know the drill."

"When did you even start building this network of yours?" She looked bewildered, but quickly shook her head. "I don't even want to know. Just get the remaining details so we can get started."

"Already on it." I was tapping at my screen furiously, drafting up a quick text to send to the rest of my government crew. "Now all we need is Henri's help to finish up the last details and we'll be done."

"I hope he's not too critical of it because this is literally a plan made from scratch and scraps." Moira continued eating her banana bread ice cream in peace, and I continued sipping my smoothie, looking down at my legs through the glass tabletop. What a mess.

"I'm determined to come out winning." I pulled out my straw and stabbed my smoothie with it. "Marco will not defeat me."

"That's another thing," Moira frowned. "Why don't you just let your dad deal with him?"

"Because I'm always letting Salvador deal with it!" I w.h.i.n.ed, pouting. "I want to do something for myself for once!"

"You're starting all this petty drama for nothing. There are just some things that are out of your reach, accept it and move on!" I opened my mouth, but snapped it shut immediately when she gave me a look. "You have done a lot of things for yourself, there's no shame in backing down now. One day you'll be able to take over Italy by yourself when you're Queen, with everyone at your disposal, but today is not the day."

"But if I let time go by he'll become stronger, and do you remember that I'm supposed to be dead? Newsflash! I'm supposed to be dead."

She hummed her agreeable. "You're not wrong. Quite the pickle you got yourself in."

"Quite the pickle Marco's mom put me in. She's the one who killed me off in the first place."

"I wonder why she did that."

"She never does anything without reason. There's a story behind that nickname of hers. The Black Panther? There's a reason behind that." My eyes narrowed as I gazed out onto the street in front of us. "I think she knew I was going to run away."

"She couldn't have possibly known that," Moira deadpanned. "You're overreacting."

"Am I?" With a challenging brow raised, I took up my phone and began tapping at some numbers again, watching as Moira just rolled her eyes and began attacking her raspberry cream cheese ice cream. "Hello, I would like to speak to Aurelia DiBiancci."

The prison line operator sighed and a tone came on the other end before it was cut off by ringing.

"What are you doing?"

"Calling the prison." A phone on the other side of the line picked up and her infuriatingly cool voice came through.

"Hello?" She answered in French. It was a sing-song voice that was grating my very last nerves.

"Aurelia, how are you?" I was speaking in my Katarina voice because I would be damned if she heard my Isabella voice.

"Ah, The Spanish Princess. I was expecting you to call me sooner." She sounded oddly at ease for someone who was in prison for a number of crimes… probably… it's not like I had managed to keep up with the situation happening in Italy. No matter how much I wondered, nothing on the internet told me, and I couldn't exactly contact anyone.

"I was a bit busy, you'll have to forgive me." I sipped my smoothie again. "How's prison life?"

"Just fine! I've become friends with so many guards. It's lovely."

"I'm glad, I hear ugly jumpsuits are great for slimming the figure."

She scoffed on the other side of the line and suddenly her tone became clipped. "What do you want, Katarina?"

"Why'd you fake my death?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She growled. "Dead people can't plan betrayals."

"You thought I was going to betray you? Marco kidnapped me."

"Marco is an idiot, just like his father. You're a smart cookie, just like me. I know how you would think, and I know that if I were in your position, I'd do everything in my power to flip the script. It's not rocket science."

"So you thought I was going to form a coup." I couldn't help but laugh at her. She was f.u.c.k.i.n.g genius. "Brilliant."

"I saw that intent from the moment he let you cook. It was so obvious."

Honestly my mind was dwelling on the farthest thing from a coup when I was there. All I wanted was to run away. Somehow she had managed to look into the future and plan seven hundred steps ahead. "Thank you for answering my question. Don't let the cell mates bite, Aurelia. Toodles!"

I hung up. The phone call lasted less than two minutes. "She thought I was going to form a coup."

"But you were though," Moira agreed. "Maybe not right away, but you were going to at some point."

She wasn't wrong about that, but all of this just strengthened my resolve to take over Italy instead of making me want to give up. Now I was more determined than ever. "Let's patch up that backstory."