CHAPTER NINE
I folded the rest of my shirts into the small, black duffel bag that had been with me to too many countries, too many battlefields. I didn't need much, just the basics.
My labcoat, a few clothes, a knife, and my trusty red lipstick. I put a burner phone under my boot and my gun? It was sewn into a bandage roll, that way it wouldn’t raise suspicion during a quick inspection.
That was all the armor I needed to move forward into the lion's den.
"Are you sure you're ready for this, Francesca?" my brother asked, arms crossed in the corner of my bedroom. He was the spitting image of our father at thirty—broad shoulders, chiseled jaw, that piercing stare that could destroy someone without uttering a word. But my brother's voice wasn't like our father's when he addressed me. There
