CHAPTER FIVE
1276 Words
CHAPTER FIVE – Elira’s POV
Safehouse – 1:42 PM
She didn't realize she'd fallen asleep until the sound woke her.
Metal scraping against metal. Slow. Deliberate. A lock turning, not the door—but something smaller.
She sat up, eyes adjusting to the artificial afternoon light. The tray from breakfast was gone. The room had been cleaned. The folded sheets at the edge of the bed were tighter than she left them.
Someone had been inside.
Again.
She glanced around.
Everything was untouched. But something had shifted.
She stood, barefoot on the cold floor, heartbeat ticking in her throat. Then she saw it—near the mirror, a hairline break in the seamless wall. Almost invisible unless you were looking for it.
A door.
Smaller. Hidden.
And now, unlocked.
Elira approached slowly, instincts screaming.
She opened it.
A walk-in closet.
Empty hangers. Empty shelves.
Except for one item, hanging dead center.
A dress.
Silk. Deep red. Backless. Expensive as sin.
Beneath it: a shoebox.
She opened it.
Heels. Black. Sharp. Louboutin.
Her stomach twisted.
She slammed the closet door shut.
Was this a joke?
A test?
A reward?
For what?
Surviving?
She paced, adrenaline creeping up her spine.
He wanted something. This wasn’t just about control anymore. This was the beginning of something else. She could feel it in the air—electric, shifting, dangerous.
She was no longer just a pawn.
She was being dressed for display.
And that made her skin crawl.
---
3:05 PM
The door opened again.
Not a hiss.
A knock.
And then, a voice—female. Cool. Polished.
“Elira. You’re expected downstairs in thirty.”
She opened the door before Elira could answer, stepping inside like she belonged.
Tall. Black suit. High ponytail. Not a guard. Not a maid. Something else.
The woman set a sleek black cosmetic bag on the table.
“Clean up. Dress. I’ll return in twenty.”
Elira said nothing.
She watched the woman leave, then stared at the bag.
Brushes. Foundation. Lipstick. All new. All curated.
Everything in her screamed don’t play the part.
But her logic whispered, you want to survive? Then get in the room. Hear everything. Learn. Then burn it down from the inside.
She showered quickly. Braided her hair back. Dressed without letting herself think too hard.
The heels made her taller. Sharper.
She didn’t look like a prisoner now.
She looked like bait disguised as a guest.
And she hated how natural it felt.
---
3:48 PM
The elevator was silent. Sleek. Security-coded. The woman didn’t speak again, just tapped a code and stepped aside.
Elira’s reflection stared back at her in the chrome doors.
Hard eyes. Red silk.
Unrecognizable.
The elevator dinged.
They stepped into another world.
The safehouse—if you could call it that—sprawled out beneath her like a luxury bunker. Stone floors. Open space. Low fire in a hearth. Men in suits stationed at strategic corners, looking like they belonged in a boardroom and a battlefield.
In the center?
Luca Moretti.
He looked… different.
Not softer. Not relaxed.
Just quieter.
Like a storm eye.
He didn’t look at her right away. Just spoke without turning.
“Sit.”
She walked to the chair across from him.
Didn’t wobble. Didn’t hesitate.
The table between them was oak, thick and antique. On it: a folder, sealed.
He pushed it toward her.
She stared at it.
“What is it?”
“You see that file? That’s your biography. The one you didn’t write.”
He met her eyes.
Her fingers hovered over the folder.
She opened it.
Photographs.
Dozens.
Some were surveillance shots—her at school, walking to class, eating at a carinderia.
But others…
Others weren’t her.
A woman.
Late twenties. Sharp eyes. Archery gloves on her hands.
And a face that mirrored hers like a fractured echo.
It wasn’t recognition. It was recoil. Like her body remembered something her mind didn’t.
Her hands shook.
“She’s not me,” Elira whispered. “But she could be.”
And for one second, the woman in the photo looked more like her than her own reflection did.
He leaned forward.
“She trained in Hungary. Competed under an alias. Vanished six years ago. But she was spotted in Manila three months back. Tailing Karla. Then Karla found you.”
“She didn’t find me. We were roommates.”
“Exactly.”
He dropped a sheet of paper in front of her.
A document.
Fake ID.
Elira’s photo.
Mila’s name.
“You forged that.”
Luca lifts a brow. “If I had, wouldn’t I use a worse photo?”
Stamped with a date that hadn’t happened yet.
Two weeks from now.
“She’s setting you up,” Luca said.
Elira’s pulse thundered in her throat.
“She’s using your face. Your name. Whatever connection there is, it’s deeper than you know.”
“But why me?”
“I think you were born into it. Raised out of it. Forgotten. Or hidden.”
She sat back.
“I sucked at math. Had a crush on a classmate who forgot my name. My biggest rebellion was skipping CAT.”
“That doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “The best ghosts are the ones who don’t even know they’re dead.”
The words struck her hard.
She wanted to scream.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she leaned forward.
“Let’s say you’re right. Let’s say there’s some connection. Why the dress? Why the makeup? Why now?”
His expression didn’t change.
“Because tonight, you’re going to be seen.”
“Where?”
“At a gathering. Neutral ground. Four families. No weapons. No blood. Just... politics.”
He stood.
“You’re going as bait. As leverage. As proof that we have Mila’s shadow in our grasp.”
She laughed once—sharp, bitter.
“Do I get a choice?”
“There are always choices. Only the clever survive theirs.”
---
5:01 PM
She was escorted to a car. Armored. Tinted.
She sat across from Luca in the back.
Neither spoke for ten minutes.
She didn’t know what scared her more: that Mila would come… or that she wouldn’t.
Then:
“What if she shows up?” Elira asked.
“Then we grab her.”
“And if she runs?”
“We let her.”
Elira frowned.
“Why?”
“Because a running woman leaves footprints.”
He looked at her then, the firelight in his eyes low and unreadable.
“You don’t have to like the plan. You just have to survive it.”
---
6:22 PM – La Estrella Hotel
The ballroom shimmered with cold gold.
Not joy.
Just wealth and power dressed in champagne.
She adjusted the red silk over her hips, not to look beautiful—but to look untouchable. Let them all wonder who she belonged to. And what it would cost to steal her.
Elira stepped out of the car like a woman walking onto a wire—measured, unreadable, dangerous if pushed.
Eyes turned. Cameras flashed.
A whisper of her name swept the room—but no one knew who she was.
That was the point.
To make them wonder.
To make them question.
To make Mila twitch.
Luca walked beside her, hand ghosting the small of her back—possessive in gesture, but strategic in weight.
This was a stage.
And they were actors.
He leaned in as the elevator doors shut again behind them.
“You’re doing fine.”
She didn’t answer.
Because the second she stepped into that ballroom, one thought echoed like a gunshot:
If I’m bait… then someone’s already hunting.
- Writer
