Chapter 1 - The Weight of Mirrors
The incense in St. Augustine Cathedral burned too sweet, a heavy, cloying fog of frankincense and decaying white lilies that tasted like old copper in the back of my throat. Around me, the congregation shifted like a collective organism adjusting its weight, the rustle of silk and wool sounding like dry leaves dragged across asphalt.
Gabriel Donatelli had not returned to the pew. He remained standing three paces away, his broad shoulders squared beneath a custom-tailored black coat that swallowed the dim amber light filtering through the stained-glass apostles. His eyes were still locked on my face, searching desperately for some flaw, some microscopic discrepancy that would prove the nightmare was either real or mercifully false.
He was looking at my cheekbones, identical to Natalie’s. He was looking at the way my left shoulder naturally dropped half an inch lower than my right—an old gymnastics injury we had both shared, though only one of us was supposed to be in the mahogany box thirty feet away.
"She talked about you more than you’d ever believe," Franco Rinaldi murmured beside me, his voice a gravelly rasp that barely carried over the low rumble of organ music beginning to swell from the loft.
My breath hitched. I kept my gaze fixed on Franco’s watchful gray eyes, refusing to look back at Gabriel. "What did she say?"
"That you were stubborn," Franco said, a faint, melancholic ghost of a smile touching the corner of his weathered mouth. "That you had a brain like a safe, and you locked things away until nobody could ever get inside. She said you were the only person in the world who could tell her the truth without making her hate herself for it."
A cold spike of guilt pierced through my ribs, sharp and sudden. I’m sorry, Natalie. The words had lived at the back of my tongue for three years, ever since the rainy night in Seattle when I told her to leave my apartment. I had thought time would make me right. Instead, it had simply made me too late.
The priest at the altar raised his hands, his vestments whispering as he began the Rite of Committal. But the ritual felt like a hollow theatrical performance. The real service was happening right here in the aisle, between a grieving mafia boss who had been lied to and a twin sister who didn't even know what Natalie’s life had truly become.
Gabriel finally moved. He closed the distance between us with a slow, deliberate stride, his leather-soled shoes clicking sharply against the stone floor. He stopped so close I could smell the faint, expensive scent of sandalwood and cold rain clinging to his coat.
"You're staying at the Drake," Gabriel stated. It wasn't a question.
"I haven't checked into a hotel yet," I replied, lifting my chin to meet his intense, dark gaze. I refused to let him intimidate me, no matter how much raw, unfiltered power radiated off him. "I just flew in from Seattle this morning. My bags are still in the trunk of a cab outside."
"Your cab is gone," Franco intervened smoothly from my left. "My men dismissed the driver and brought your luggage to our vehicle. You’re coming with us."
Anger flared hot beneath my skin. I spun around to face the silver-haired enforcer. "You searched my belongings? Without my permission?"
"We don't ask permission when protection is required, Miss Cooper," Franco said, his voice entirely devoid of malice, which somehow made it worse. "The moment you walked down that aisle looking identical to a dead woman who happened to be engaged to the most dangerous man in Chicago, you painted a target on your back. If the people who killed Natalie think she's back from the dead, they’re going to come looking for you. And they aren't going to wait until after the funeral."
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Gabriel reached out, his large, warm hand gripping my upper arm. The touch was firm, almost bruising, but there was no cruelty in it—only a desperate kind of urgency.
"Franco is right," Gabriel said, his voice dropping into a low, rumbling timbre that vibrated straight through my bones. "You are not walking out of this cathedral alone, and you are not staying in a public hotel. You are coming to my estate. And you are going to tell me everything you know about my fiancé's past—starting with why she lied to me about having a sister."
