Kill Order Kiss Novel Chapter 02

Kill Order Kiss Novel Chapter 02

I was out of the compound by dawn.

I left everything—the clothes he’d bought me, the jewelry, the phone he tracked. I took only my passport, the emergency cash I kept hidden inside a tampon box (the one place no Moretti soldier would ever search), and the kill order itself.

Proof. Insurance. A reminder.

My hands were steady as I drove my old Honda—the one Dante always mocked, the one I’d refused to trade for the Mercedes he offered—straight to the only person in the world I trusted.

My older sister, Sofia.

She opened the door of her Brooklyn apartment in a bathrobe, took one look at my face, and pulled me inside without a word. That was Sofia. She never needed explanations before action.

“How long do I have before he comes looking?” she asked, already moving to the kitchen, filling a bag with essentials.

“A few hours. Maybe less.” My voice sounded foreign to me—flat, mechanical. “He’ll wake up, find me gone, and send Marco first.”

Marco Vitelli, Dante’s right hand. The man who smiled at me over Sunday dinners and who, according to that paper, had been assigned as my executioner.

“Jesus Christ, Val.” Sofia’s hands stalled. “Marco? That snake sat at my Thanksgiving table.”

“They all did.”

Sofia grabbed my shoulders. “Tell me everything.”

So I did. Not just the kill order—everything. The two years of Dante’s pursuit, the whirlwind of it, how he’d made me feel chosen, protected, seen. How his mother, Donna Moretti, had welcomed me into the family with open arms and home-cooked meals. How I’d fallen so completely that I’d ignored every red flag—the late-night disappearances, the locked rooms, the conversations that stopped whenever I entered.

“I thought he was protecting me from the ugly parts of his world,” I said, my voice cracking for the first time. “Turns out I was the ugly part.”

“Do you know why?” Sofia asked.

“The merger.” I rubbed my temples. “The Morettis are merging with the Castellano family. I heard Dante mention it weeks ago—said it would make them untouchable. But he never told me the details.”

“And you think you’re the price?”

“My name is on a kill order, Sofia. I don’t need to think anything.”

She was quiet for a moment, then: “The Castellanos have a daughter. Bianca.”

The name hit me like a slap. I’d seen her once—at a gala Dante had taken me to. Tall, raven-haired, draped in Valentino, with the kind of cold beauty that looked like it had been carved from marble. She’d watched Dante all night with proprietary eyes, and when I’d asked about her, he’d laughed it off.

“She’s nobody, baby. Old family politics.”

“He’s marrying her,” I said. It wasn’t a question.

Sofia nodded slowly. “That’s how these mergers work. Blood ties. And if he’s engaged to Bianca Castellano—”

“Then the girlfriend who knows his face, his habits, his home—she’s a liability.”

The word tasted like poison.

“We need to get you out of the country,” Sofia said.

“I have a plan.” I pulled out my passport. “Professor Ashworth at Columbia offered me a research position in London last year. I turned it down because Dante said he needed me close.”

Sofia’s expression darkened. “Of course he did.”

“I’m going to email Ashworth today. If the position’s still open, I’m on a plane by Friday.”

“And if Dante finds you before Friday?”

I reached into my bag and unfolded the kill order, smoothing it flat on the kitchen table.

“Then I make sure every federal agent, every journalist, and every rival family gets a copy of this. His handwriting. His order. Let’s see how the great Dante Moretti explains that to his new in-laws.”

Sofia stared at me, and for the first time that morning, she almost smiled.

“There she is,” she said. “Welcome back, little sister.”