She peeked into the attached garage. The car she’d requested was there with a full tank, registration, and keys in the ignition. Perfect. Back inside, she set up her laptop on the Formica bar counter and logged in. The first thing she did was pay the real estate agent.

  She left a note: “Excellent work. I’ve transferred the remaining funds.”

  Then she logged into the new security system for the house and checked the footage going all the way back to installation. Nothing seemed unusual or out of place.

  Although she was eager to act, Eva had to sit tight for a few hours. Krystal would be at the school for the rest of the day, working in the school library like she did every Thursday. Eva would wait outside the school until the library closed at five and then follow her home. Just to be safe, though, Eva grabbed her voice encryptor headphones and programmed them to portray a female voice before connecting them to her burner cell phone and dialing the school’s main line.

  “Is Krystal Diamond there?” she said. “I can’t believe it, but my son forgot to turn in his library book today. I reminded him several times.”

  “Yes. Ms. Diamond is in the library. Would you like me to transfer you?”

  “I don’t want to disturb her. Just one question, though—do you know how long she’ll be there? If I leave now will I still be able to get it to her in time?” The woman on the other line seemed exasperated by her questions.

  “I don’t know where you are coming from or how long it will take you, so I can’t answer that question. However, I can tell you that Ms. Diamond is scheduled to work in the library until five p.m. today since the library is open late on Thursdays now instead of Mondays.”

  “Perfect. Thanks. I’ll be there before five.”

  Eva hung up, disabled the generated number, and programmed a new one.

  She had several hours before she had to leave for the school.

  Enough time to do another search for Luca, to dig deeper.

  She went to the Dark Web. A deeply buried website briefly mentioned her brother. She read quickly, scanning the document. Luca had pissed the wrong people off. He’d slept with a capo’s daughter and refused to make an honest woman of her. He’d then married another woman. The newlyweds had died in a car bombing on their way home from the wedding.

  Her brother was dead. Dead for nearly a year.

  Eva sat back in shock. She didn’t feel a shred of pity for him. Instead, a wave of fear trickled through her. If Luca hadn’t killed her family, who had?

  A few hours later, with a ball cap pulled low and huge sunglasses on, Eva parked on the street outside the school in her new car—an environmentally friendly vehicle—something no self-respecting Malibu housewife would drive. It was a car that a Minnesota soccer mom would tool around in.

  It was also a common disguise for nearly all the celebrities in Los Angeles when they tried to get about town incognito. If anyone thought she was in disguise, in L.A. it would be natural for them to assume she was some hot actress trying to keep a low-profile.

  Eva held her binoculars up and pointed them at the windows of the library. She saw Krystal’s blonde head bob by every once in a while, until finally the lights went out. A few minutes later, she was tailing Krystal’s massive, white Lexus SUV through the streets of Los Angeles, keeping far enough back to not draw attention or suspicion.

  Soon, Krystal pulled up before a gated community. Damn it.

  Eva pulled over to the side of the road and watched as Krystal and the guard had a brief conversation.

  The gate clanked closed behind her vehicle.

  Eva pulled into the driveway, stopping at the gate. The guard looked at her through the window.

  “I’m here to see Krystal Diamond.”

  He frowned. “She didn’t say anything about a visitor.”

  “That’s odd,” Eva said. “She wanted me to start coming to her house to do her weekly massage since she has to work late on Thursdays now—they changed the late day, I guess.”

  “She did mention that change,” he frowned again. “Well, she just pulled into the community, so she’s not at her house yet.”

  “Great. I was running a few minutes behind, so now I won’t be late.”

  He stared at her for a second and then opened the gate.

  Eva smiled. “Thanks. I’m Kim. I’ll be coming on Thursdays from now on.”

  He nodded formally.

  “Oh, one other thing,” Eva said. “She told me the name of the community, but forgot to give me the house number. We got busy talking about Patricia’s party this Sunday.”

  Eva hoped by dropping the principal’s name, she’d solidify her story even more.

  “5407.”

  “Thanks.”

  Eva zipped in, watching in relief as the gate closed behind her. As soon as she was out of the guard’s line of sight, she punched the accelerator.

  A mile up the road, she spotted a sign for 5407 and a long, cobblestone driveway leading to a massive house perched on the edge of the Hollywood hillside.

  She arrived in time to see the garage door closing. She pulled to the side of the driveway under a tree, hoping her dark vehicle would not attract attention as she surveyed the house. If Eva was right, Krystal was home alone. Yates and his father would be at karate class. She’d once heard Krystal saying that Thursday nights were her home spa and Real Housewives night because “the boys” were gone.

  The house faced the east and had windows at the front and back, so even from where Eva was she could see the sun setting on the Pacific not far away. The view was spectacular. The plastic surgery business must be doing well.

  At the same time, the glass house creeped her out. Anyone could see inside. The family must really trust that guard at the gatehouse and their neighbors to not come snooping around. Eva would never ever live in a house that exposed her that way, even if there hadn’t been a decade-long hit out on her life.

  Eva yanked off her hat and dark glasses and held the binoculars up to her eyes, pointing them at the various windows of the house. She spotted Krystal in an upstairs window stripping off her top.

  Something caught Eva’s eye toward the side of the house facing the small canyon. A figure emerged from the bushes to the south. The person had a lithe body and was dressed all in black with a black face mask. Eva saw the person had a gun. Her blood raced, and she instinctively reached for the dagger strapped to her back, but then her hand dropped. The gun in her ankle holster was what she really needed. She watched the figure creep around to the back of the house.

  Eva opened her car door and slipped out, leaving the door open behind her. She ran toward the house, keeping her gaze trained on the floor-to-ceiling front windows that presented a view of the entire first level and then straight through the house and through the bank of windows facing west.

  Within a few seconds, a dark form emerged on the back deck. Eva crept toward the front of the house, watching as the intruder boldly picked up a chair and smashed it through a back window. Eva jumped. Her eyes flicked up to the second story. She watched as Krystal first raced for the bedroom door and then jerked back toward the bed, scrambling for a cell phone.

  Down below, the person’s gloved hands chopped at the remaining fragments of glass still stuck in the frame until there was a large enough opening to step through.

  Eva was sprinting now, racing toward the front of the house. Meanwhile, she saw the dark silhouette of the figure loping toward the staircase. At the front door, Eva smashed the window pane near the door with her gun. She reached in to unlock the door so she didn’t have to worry about cutting herself on the jagged window edges.

  Once inside, she raced toward the stairs, stooping in mid-run long enough to yank her pistol out of its ankle holster. She wished she’d brought more weapons. From the way the intruder moved and acted, Eva knew she was dealing with a professional. He knew what he was doing. He would be a formidable match.

  As she crested the landing on the second floor, she paused, breathing heavily, and listening hard. Several doorways flanked the hall before her. From her earlier vantage point of the bedroom, Eva knew it was either the second or third door down. Holding the gun in front of her, she hugged the wall, creeping forward, eyes trained on the doors to her right.

  She stepped into the master bedroom.

  The masked figure held a knife to Krystal’s throat. As soon as she saw Eva, Krystal began to cry.

  “Eva! I swear I didn’t mean it. Call your dog off. Please. I’m sorry. Please. Please.” She was blubbering now. “I hit the silent alarm. The police will be here any second. I promise I won’t say anything if you let me go. Just leave now. I’ll tell them it was a false alarm. I promise. Please don’t kill me. Call him off. Eva! Please.”

  Up close, Eva realized the masked intruder was male.

  Foolish woman. Now she would die. Eva didn’t know if she had time to stop it now that Krystal had confessed to the police coming.

  Eva met the eyes of the man in mask. They were dark, but that was all she could distinguish. But they also sent a clear message: he was going to kill Krystal, and he wanted Eva to watch.

  “Drop the knife,” Eva said. To her dismay, her arms were trembling. The man in black looked pointedly at the wildly shaking Ruger in her hands. The next few seconds came in snapshots—the slightest movement as his fingers tightened on the blade at Krystal’s throat; Eva harnessing every ounce of her energy into her trigger finger; raising the gun steadily and quickly; squeezing the trigger smoothly; firing off two shots one after the other directly into the man’s forehead; kneeling to tuck her gun back into her ankle holster.

  Then everything sped up to double time—the masked man slumped to the ground in a heap, his knife clattering onto the marble floor; Krystal’s mouth opening in a long blood-curdling scream; the sound of sirens in the distance.

  Pushing Krystal out of the way, Eva knelt by the dead man and ripped the rubber mask off. She stared at a face she’d never seen before in her life.

  Meanwhile, Krystal’s wailing and weeping continued, and the sirens grew closer. Without a backward glance, Eva raced out of the room toward the stairs, jumped down six at a time, and then hurled herself out onto the back deck. She leaped off the side and raced into the bushes in the direction she’d seen the man come from just as the first squad car pulled into Krystal’s driveway. She tumbled down the steep hill for about twenty feet until it leveled off. A small deer path led further downhill, so she sprinted down it, hoping it would lead her where she needed to go. Above, she heard shouting and more sirens.

  Ninety yards away she saw it. A road. And the gleam of metal from a small, dark SUV. It was parked on a residential road below Krystal’s house, outside of the gated community. Eva darted toward it, hoping her hotwiring skills from long ago would still work on a newer car. But no sooner had she thought that, than she saw the silhouette of a head in the driver’s seat. She pulled up short, but only to reach down and take her gun back out of its holster. As she stood straight again, she readjusted her grip on the gun and headed straight for the vehicle at a sprint.

  She was within fifteen feet of the SUV when the driver gunned the engine and peeled out, scattering gravel and dirt and dust.

  Eva held the gun before her, tempted to fire at the receding vehicle, but was blinded by the dust cloud. It sent her into a coughing fit.

  Instead, aware of the sirens just up the hill from her, she sprinted after the vehicle, keeping to the shoulder. About a quarter mile later, she saw what she needed: a driveway with a vehicle parked in it. Within seconds, she’d hotwired the minivan and roared off, heart pounding, with an eye on the rearview mirror.

  She soon realized the gunman and his accomplice had planned their escape route well. They’d chosen that particular spot to park because the road was out of the gated community and led straight to a major artery in Los Angeles—the 405 freeway. Soon, Eva was on the freeway, blending into traffic and heading back to her new home. She tucked the stolen minivan into the garage and, after checking the security footage to make sure her home had remained unmolested, she stripped and stepped into the shower.

  Although she didn’t have blood or guts on her—only dirt and twigs stuck to her hair and clothing—she needed to wash the murder off. She hadn’t killed anyone in more than a decade. And this kill might have been the wrong one. The figure in the SUV might have been the woman she was truly after. While she’d only seen the silhouette of a head through the vehicle’s window, there was something strikingly familiar about the person—something about them that she knew, something she recognized.

  If she was right, it had almost certainly been the woman who’d killed her family, and she had been this close to her. Eva swore and wanted to punch something. She’d killed the wrong person. There was no room for even the slightest miscalculation. Though she’d done it to save Krystal’s life, Eva knew it had been a mistake.

  She leaned her forehead against the shower wall, letting the scalding water pound down on her scalp, and realized she’d lost the taste for murder. What had once given her a sense of limitless power, now filled her with regret. In hindsight, she knew that under the same circumstances, she’d do it again. But she no longer took pleasure in taking a life. It had become so distasteful to her, she had to steady herself from collapsing onto the shower floor in a heap.

  She told herself it would be different if it was a murder of vengeance, but killing that masked man had left a bad taste in her mouth. She was questioning herself. Could she have shot to disable instead of kill? She didn’t know. But what she did know was that after she avenged her family’s murder, she’d turn herself in.

  As she thought this, she batted away a small thought creeping into her mind—a nagging sense of doubt that whispered in her ear: You’re weak. You’ve lost your edge. You won’t be able to kill again. When you are faced with the woman who slaughtered your family, you will crumble. You will never avenge them. You will die in vain.

  “STOP!” The word echoed in the bathroom. Swiping at her eyes, she realized she was overtired, dehydrated, hungry, and on the verge of delirium. But she didn’t move. Instead, she stood there in the steamy shower, her face pressed against the slick tiles, and fought the urge to vomit. Finally, after some deep breathing exercises, she was able to finish washing herself.

  It was only when she stood wrapped in a thick towel, shivering and teeth chattering, that she realized she’d been shaking nonstop since she stepped into the house.

  Thirteen

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  “The blonde is alive. My man is dead. And Eva is underground.”

  He said it in an even tone and waited for Ludovicus “Luigi the Arm” Mazzo’s reaction. And sure enough, the older man’s displeasure could nearly be felt through the phone line even from more than 6,000 miles away.

  “Cagacazzo!” The Arm did not sugarcoat his feelings about people who failed to follow his orders. He’d just called Vincenzo an incompetent idiot.

  Vincenzo swallowed back his injured pride and tried to keep his tone matter-of-fact, without whining in justification.

  “She showed up early. She killed my man. In front of the blonde.”

  The silence stretched on for a few long seconds before the man in Sicily spoke.

  “This is good.”

  “But we failed.”

  “Maybe not.”

  The Arm’s plan had been to lure Eva to the scene of the murder. The hitman had waited in the bushes until he saw Eva’s car drive up. The idea was as soon as the hitman did his job, he’d return to the car where Vincenzo would call 911 and report that Eva White had killed Krystal Diamond. There was no way Eva could escape. Even if she managed to drive away before police arrived, the security guard at the gate would testify he saw her and her fingerprints would be all over everything, implicating her.

  But everything had gone sideways. Eva had killed the hit man and escaped. That was fine. After all, Vincenzo had planned to take the hitman out himself after Krystal’s murder. He didn’t want to leave any witnesses behind.

  But still, Vincenzo had made a mistake. He’d foolishly assumed Eva had grown soft over the years. That becoming a mother would’ve taken the bloodlust out of her. He was wrong. She was possibly more powerful than ever. Even more reason he should kill her outright instead of adhering to the Arm’s plan. Because for some reason, the old man had convinced himself that Eva living with the massacre of her family—and being blamed for it—was the worst possible punishment he could exact upon her.

  Vincenzo bit his tongue but was tempted to say, “Just because this is what you lived through does not mean it is worse than death.”

  But how did he really know? So instead of screaming into the phone, hurling accusations and arguments, Vincenzo simply asked, “What now?”

  “Wait for my instructions,” the Arm said.

  The line disconnected.

  Fourteen

  1990s

  Los Angeles

  Eva slept for nine hours before she woke up, throat parched, weak, and nauseous. After gulping three glasses of water in the kitchen and wrapped only in the sheet from her bed, she saw the bowl of fruit left by the real estate agent. She stood at the bar counter and ate three oranges, two bananas, and an apple before she turned to the cupboards.

  Bare.

  She’d order food and have it left at the front gate. She needed to eat. She needed to build up her strength. Yesterday’s mission had shown her that she had grown soft. If she hoped to avenge her family before she died, she had to return to the woman she’d been in Sicily.

  Pumped up by the sugar rush from the fruit, Eva downed another glass of water and began her morning exercise routine.

  It was a regimen she’d begun immediately upon arriving on American soil. She performed the exercises religiously each morning. Until this week, she’d only missed two mornings in ten years—once when the morning sickness she’d experienced with Lorenzo had been at its worst, and the other was the morning after her wedding when she and Matthew woke in Cabo San Lucas on their honeymoon.