Chapter 1:TheReturn
1105 Words
The city hadn’t changed. It still gleamed like a lie. All light on the surface but dark and rot underneath.
Kriela Santos stood across the street, watching the towering glass building that bore the name Miano De Qanto Enterprises in sleek silver letters. The building looked like a blade piercing through the stormy clouds.
Untouchable, Ruthless and Cold. Just like the man she had come to destroy.
Miano De Qanto, heir to one of Puebla’s oldest Mafia Empires. The man whose father’s word had sentenced hers to death. They called him a thief, a traitor and made sure no one in Puebla would ever hire a Santos again. The Qanto family had burned everything she loved.
The thought of the lies, blood, and fire, ten years since that night made her fingers tremble slightly as she adjusted her black bob wig, sharp, like the woman she had become.
“Lana Russo”. That was the name she would use. The real one was buried with her father.
She had run, changed her identity and built her revenge plan in silence.
She wasn’t the scared girl who ran away anymore.
Now she was back.
She slipped on her heels, took a deep, shaky breath and crossed the street.
Inside the lobby, the air smelled like money and danger. Marble gleamed under chandeliers and security guards stood like statues as they scanned every face.
Kriela’s heart raced as she handed over her fake ID.
Lana Russo. Born in Chicago. College degree in Administration. Decent background. No criminal records.
It had taken years to perfect this.
The guard glanced up barely looking at her fake ID, then stamped her pass.
“Top floor, you’re early,” he said.
“I like to be prepared,” she said smiling faintly.
Prepared for anything, even him.
As the elevator doors closed, she saw her reflection in the mirrored wall.
Short bob wig, blue eyes behind light contacts. Red lipstick, sharp, unfamiliar.
She almost didn’t recognize herself. Maybe that was good.
Good because Kriela Santos couldn’t walk into the De Qanto tower without being shot on first sight. But Lana Russo could.
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The top floor opened into silence.
The assistant outside the main office, a lady with beautiful hair and colder eyes, gestured for her to wait.
“He’s finishing a call,” the woman said.
Kriela nodded, though her stomach twisted. She could feel the weight of the walls around her, the faint hum of expensive air conditioning, the faint scent of tobacco and cedar.
And beneath it all, there was something darker, power.
When the inner door finally opened, a man stepped out.
Miano De Qanto was not what she expected.
She had imagined an arrogant monster with blood on his hands. Instead, the man before her was taller than she expected, looked calm, unreadable and built in the quiet, effortless way that made people step aside without thinking. He wore a dark suit that fit him like sin. His shirt, open at the collar.
His cold gray eyes, like winter steel, lifted from a file and flicked up to hers when she entered.
“Lana Russo,” he said.
Her breath stalled.
Hearing him say her fake name felt like being caught between two worlds.
“Y-e-e-e-s-s-s,” she managed. “For the personal assistant position.”
He looked at her for a long moment before stepping aside. “Come in.”
His office was all glass and distance.
Rain drops streaked down the windows behind him, painting the city in blurred lights.
Miano didn’t sit right away. Instead, he studied her. Not in the way men usually did, not hungry, not dismissive. Just….observing, measuring.
“Chicago,” he finally spoke, scanning her resume. “Beautiful city.”
“It was,” she replied faintly.
He glanced up. “Was?”
She met his eyes. “Yes, it doesn’t feel like home anymore.”
A faint twitch crossed his jaw. “Home rarely does.”
She didn’t know what to say to that.
He sat, gesturing for her to do the same.
“Tell me, Miss Russo,” he said. “What do you seek to achieve from this job?”
A chill raced down her spine. To ruin you, bring you down to nothing, she thought. To watch everything you’ve built and love fall apart.
Instead, she smiled. “A challenge.”
He leaned back, pondering. “And loyalty?”
“I believe in it,” she said carefully.
“Belief is cheap,” he said. “Action is not.”
Their eyes locked again. The tension in the room shifted, heavier, quieter.
Kriela kept her voice steady. “Then you’ll see it in my actions.”
He smiled faintly, the kind that didn’t reach his eyes. “I do already.”
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She didn’t recall much of the rest of the interview.
He asked practical questions, schedules, files, translations.
But he kept looking at her, as if he was looking for something beneath the surface.
When she stood to leave, he said quietly, “You start tomorrow. Seven a.m. sharp.”
She gave a startled look. “That’s early.”
“Not for me.”
There was no arrogance in his tone, just certainty.
The kind that made people obey.
“Welcome to the De Qanto family, Miss Russo.”
The word family hit her like a blow.
She smiled anyway. “Thank you, Mr. De Qanto.”
He tilted his head slightly. “Call me Miano.”
His name tasted like smoke in her mouth.
She nodded once and turned to leave, her legs barely steady.
Outside his office, the air felt colder.
She had done it. She was in.
Inside his territory. Inside his world.
But as the elevator doors closed behind her, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she hadn’t entered his world.
She’d stepped into his trap.
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Later that night, back in her tiny apartment, Kriela laid her forged papers on the table.
Her fake ID. Her resume. Her courage.
She looked at the city lights through the window, sharp, cruel, beautiful.
Her father’s voice echoed faintly in her mind.
“Never let them see your fear, Kriela. Fear makes you human and humans die first.”
She whispered back to herself, “Then I’ll stop being human.”
Outside, thunder rolled.
Inside, she wrote a line in her diary, the only one she’d kept for years.
One: Get close to Miano De Qanto.
Two: Find the truth.
Three: Burn his empire to the ground.
She closed the book.
And for the first time in ages, she smiled.
- Writer
