Page 69 of This Life of Mine

That’s the only thing working in my favor right now. No one can tie me to my work because no one’s ever seen who I am beneath the mask.

Still, luck runs out eventually. And I’m not stupid enough to gamble my life on it.

People like me don’t get applause. We get erased.

“Anything else?” Reese asks.

“Yes,” I say. “Set alerts if my old name or image pops back up. I want to know immediately.”

“Already on it,” he replies. “And Alex?”

“Yeah.”

“You did the right thing.”

I end the call without responding.

Back inside, Lina’s laughing with a customer, the sound warm and unguarded. The shop buzzes. Full, alive, protected by the illusion that everything is normal again.

Good.

Let the internet forget my face. As long as she’s safe, my existence doesn’t matter to anyone else.

My phone vibrates before I sit back down. It’s Reese.

My jaw tightens.

Fuck!

When I was twenty-two, I changed my name. Legal and airtight.Alessandro Morettidied quietly on paper the same year Alex Lombardi came into existence. No loose ends. Or at least, that’s what I paid for.

Alessandro Morettibelonged to a world I burned down behind me.

Old money. Older bloodlines. Vineyards stretching across Italian hillsides that tourists photograph without ever knowing what’s buried beneath them. Fine wine. Fine suits. And hands that remain clean when they’re really soaked in filth.

The Moretti name carried weight. For business, for politics, for violence. For organized crime.

When I left, I didn’t merely walk away. I disappeared. Let my family believe what they needed to believe. An accident. A body never found. A son erased.

Dead men don’t get followed.

I built Alex Lombardi carefully. No lineage, no spotlight, no past worth tracing. A ghost with credentials. A man who handles problems that the system can’t or won’t.

And now someone is trying to peel that apart.

I glance back through the window at the shop.

Lina’s still smiling at a customer, unaware that my past is sniffing the air again. Unaware that her name, by extension, her safety, might now be brushing up against things I swore I’d never bring near another innocent life.

I won’t let that happen.

I peer down at my hands. Steady, familiar, capable of far worse than the town realizes.

I left that life behind. But it never really leaves you.

I pocket my phone and head back inside, expression neutral, posture relaxed. To anyone watching, I’m just another customer enjoying the warmth of a small-town shop.

But inside, every instinct is awake. Someone is searching for me, the version of me I’ve long since forgotten.