Page 85 of Made for Sinners

My stomach twisted as the memory surfaced.

It was at my father’s office.

When I was being trained on the money.

I had been given a code—told to memorize it, never write it down.

And the paperwork I was handed?

It had been wrong.

I had thought it was strange at the time, but I hadn’t questioned it.

Because my family was the mafia.

Because things were always a little off, a little suspicious.

But now?—

Now, I wasn’t so sure.

I swallowed hard, my fingers tightening around the edge of the album.

Had I seen something I wasn’t supposed to?

Had I been given the wrong paperwork on purpose?

Had someone used me without me even realizing it?

The memory sharpened, details clicking into place like pieces of a puzzle I hadn’t even realized I was solving.

I remembered sitting in my father’s office, the weight of his expectations pressing down on me as he explained the financial side of the business. The ledgers, the offshore accounts, the coded transactions that kept everything running smoothly.

“You’ll need to memorize this,” he had said, sliding a slip of paper across the desk toward me. “This is the real code. The one on the official paperwork is just for show.”

I had frowned at the time, confused. “Why?”

His lips had curled into a knowing smirk. “Because we don’t trust anyone, Emilia. Not even the ones who work for us.”

I had nodded, committing the numbers to memory, not thinking twice about it.

But now, staring at the face in the photograph, my pulse quickened.

Because this man—this familiar stranger—had been there that day.

Standing in the corner of the office, silent, watching.

I hadn’t thought much of it at the time. He was just another one of my father’s men, another cog in the machine.

But what if he wasn’t?

What if he had been there for a reason?

What if he had been listening?

I flipped the album closed, my hands trembling slightly.

If the missing money had something to do with this—if someone had used me to access the real code—then this wasn’t just about theft.

---