The dining room was too quiet.
Your mother sliced through her steak like it had personally offended her. Your father barely touched his wine. Your brother's eyes kept flicking toward the hallway, checking if she was coming.
Catalina.
She was upstairs in her room—reading, journaling, probably planning a trip with her college friends. She was everything you were supposed to protect. Kind. Soft-spoken. Brilliant. The only one in the family not tainted by blood.
And she couldn't know.
"The Ghost is moving again," your father said, voice low. "Took out the Alvarez base in Batangas. That's four of our branches down in less than two months."
You tightened your grip on your fork. Everyone knew who he meant. The Ghost. That's what the underground called the faceless new mafia leader rising in the shadows. No one had ever seen her face. No photos. No voice recordings. Just rumors.
A woman. Cold. Calculated.And terrifyingly smart.
"She's not just wiping us out," your mother added, "She's dancing circles around us. Like she knows us."
Your brother scoffed. "What if she used to be one of us? A defector."
"No one ever left us alive," your father said. "And this… this is different."
He pulled a photo from his coat pocket. Grainy. Black and white. It showed a woman standing at the edge of a rooftop, face blurred by wind—but the figure was unmistakable. Sharp suit. Perfect posture. Long dark hair.
For a second, your heart skipped.She looked like Catalina.No. It couldn't be.
"This is our enemy," your father said. "The one who's dismantling our empire. We don't know who she is. Or how she knows everything."
"But we will."
Upstairs, Catalina stared at her reflection.
Her fingers traced a scar on her wrist she couldn't remember getting. Lately, she'd been waking up exhausted. There were scratches on her car she couldn't explain. A flash of a voice in her dreams whispering commands in a language she didn't speak.
She shrugged it off. Probably stress.Probably nothing.
But downstairs, your father's words rang loud:
"Whoever she is… she's close. She knows our moves before we make them."
"We're being hunted," your mother whispered. "By one of our own."
And no one—not even you—suspected:
She's already sitting at your table