Chapter 1 - The Desperation of Varro Security
Mia Callaway was never supposed to be the answer to anyone's life-or-death crisis.
She was the candidate dispatch called only when every credentialed professional on the roster had either suffered a catastrophic injury or fled the country.
On Tuesday morning, she proved every awful rumor about her motor skills completely true.
She entered the glass doors of Varro Security Agency at full stride, caught the toe of her boot on a bronze trash receptacle, and went airborne.
The trash can skidded across the mirror-sheen marble lobby.
It struck an Italian terracotta planter with the hollow crack of a rifle shot.
A shower of damp potting soil and crushed ferns rained down across twelve immaculately tailored private contractors.
Every single operative turned in unison to look at her like she had just dropped from the stratosphere.
Mia did not groan.
She did not burst into tears.
She stood up slowly, smoothed down the front of her cheap polyester blazer, and dusted peat moss from her lapels.
""Structural integrity test complete,"" she declared to the horrified receptionist.
""The flooring passes inspection, but the foliage is clearly compromised.""
Nobody smiled.
Nobody laughed.
Two days later, she was officially rejected by form email.
Then, on Friday afternoon, fate decided to play a cruel and calculated joke on the city's criminal elite.
Varro’s top close-protection agent shattered his tibia during a Krav Maga exhibition in Queens.
The primary backup contractor ended up in the emergency ward with acute food poisoning from a rancid gas station chorizo.
The third choice was already on a private flight to Florence for a sister’s wedding and refused to turn around even for triple time.
That left Mia Callaway sitting across the mahogany desk from Director Hensley.
Hensley was a man who looked like he had surrendered his last shred of joy in the late nineties.
He tapped a thick Manila folder against the blotter.
""You trip over painted lines in the asphalt, Callaway,"" Hensley said without looking up.
""I stumble over mundane architecture, sir,"" Mia corrected without missing a beat.
""However, I placed first in tactical marksmanship across three regional academies.""
""I speak fluent Italian, Russian, and conversational Cantonese.""
""I possess an eidetic visual memory and my reflex trigger speed clocks at one hundred and twelve milliseconds.""
She held up both hands and flexed her slender fingers.
""My feet are a domestic disaster, but my hands keep people breathing.""
Hensley stared at her with bloodshot, weary eyes.
Mia met his gaze without flinching.
Her father, a retired beat cop with a shattered knee and a bitter tongue, had taught her long ago that looking down in an interrogation room was an admission of guilt.
Finally, Hensley slid the folder across the expanse of polished wood.
""You are being assigned to the Duca household.""
Mia’s fingers stiffened against the leather of her handbag.
""Lorenzo Duca?"" she asked, her voice dropping into a flat, careful register.
""The one and only,"" Hensley muttered, rubbing his temples.
Every living soul in the metropolitan area knew that name.
Lorenzo Duca was the quiet architect of the eastern seaboard's underground economy.
He was a man who commanded billion-dollar supply chains and political appointments with a whisper.
The tabloids called him a reclusive shipping magnate.
The police commissioner called him untouchable.
The rumors claimed Lorenzo had once vanished an entire dockworkers' union committee over a single disrupted shipment.
""His only son,"" Hensley continued, ""is Matteo Duca.""
""Twenty-six years old.""
""He serves as the chief financial strategist for their legitimate holdings.""
""Over the last three weeks, the Ferretti family has intercepted two of his couriers and sent three targeted warning shots.""
""They want the boy dead to shatter Lorenzo’s line of succession.""
Mia opened the dossier.
A glossy eight-by-ten surveillance photograph stared back at her.
Matteo Duca was undeniably striking in the sharpest, most hostile way imaginable.
He had dense dark curls cropped close at the temples, an angular jawline, and cold, calculating eyes that looked through the camera lens.
His mouth rested in a severe line of aristocratic boredom.
He looked brilliant, arrogant, and entirely impossible to manage.
""There is a complication,"" Hensley said, clearing his throat.
""There always is when money is involved.""
""Lorenzo Duca explicitly specified that he would only accept a male operative with prior tier-one combat experience.""
Mia raised her chin, feeling a dangerous spark ignite behind her ribs.
""Naturally he did.""
Hensley unfolded a memo and read aloud in a flat monotone.
""No woman will guard my son.""
""Women are emotionally unstable.""
""Women freeze when blood hits the pavement.""
""I will not gamble my family's legacy on a skirt that will scream at the first gunflash.""
The insult hung between them in the stale air of the office.
It was the identical sentence Mia’s father had delivered at the kitchen table when she enrolled in the tactical training academy.
She had spent six long years taking blows from heavyweight sparring partners to erase that sentence from the world.
She reached out and snatched the folder from the desk.
""What time does my shift begin?"" she asked.
Hensley gave her the look a doctor gives a terminal patient who insists on smoking.
May you like
""Seven sharp tomorrow morning at the estate gates.""
""Try not to knock over their priceless Renaissance sculptures before you get introduced.""
