Chapter 1 - The Gun Wasn't Pointed at Me
For three seconds, neither of us moved.
Rain blew through the broken doorway behind Alexander, turning the cottage floor black with water. His hair was plastered to his forehead. Blood ran from a narrow cut at his temple and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. The gun in his right hand looked impossibly dark against his pale knuckles.
I was on the floor with one palm pressed to the boards, staring at the man I had spent a month trying to forget.
Then a tiny voice came from the hallway behind me.
"Mommy?"
Alexander changed.
It was so fast I almost thought I imagined it.
The cold, unreadable expression vanished. His eyes moved past me toward our daughter, and something raw crossed his face.
"Lily," he breathed.
Our four-year-old daughter stood in the hallway wearing pink pajamas with clouds on them, clutching a stuffed rabbit by one ear. She blinked sleepily at the broken door.
Then she saw him.
"Daddy!"
She took one step forward.
"No!"
Alexander and I shouted at the same time.
Lily froze.
A second later, glass exploded inward from the kitchen window.
Alexander moved before I understood what had happened.
He crossed the room in two strides, caught me by the shoulders, and drove both of us behind the heavy stone fireplace.
A shot cracked through the cottage.
Then another.
Lily screamed.
"Stay down!" Alexander barked.
He turned, raised the gun, and fired once toward the darkness outside.
The sound inside the tiny cottage was deafening.
I covered my ears, my entire body shaking.
Alexander looked at me.
"Where is the back exit?"
I stared at him.
"Claire."
"The pantry. There's a door through the pantry."
"Take Lily. Go now."
I didn't move.
He grabbed my wrist.
"They found you before I did."
The words cut through the panic.
"Who?"
"The reason I'm holding this gun."
Another bullet struck the outside wall.
Alexander released me, leaned around the stone, and fired twice.
"Go!"
I ran.
I reached Lily, pulled her against me, and carried her toward the pantry while she cried into my shoulder.
"Daddy! Mommy, Daddy's here!"
"I know, baby."
My hands shook so badly I could barely work the latch on the back door.
Alexander appeared behind us.
"Don't open it."
I stopped.
He crouched and examined the thin line of light beneath the door.
Then he pointed toward the pantry floor.
I saw it.
A shadow moved outside.
Someone was waiting behind the cottage.
Alexander lifted one finger to his lips.
Lily buried her face against my neck.
The doorknob turned.
Slowly.
Alexander positioned himself beside the frame.
The door opened less than an inch.
A gloved hand appeared.
Alexander slammed the door shut on the man's wrist.
A weapon clattered onto the floor.
The stranger cursed.
Alexander opened the door with brutal force, seized the man's coat, and dragged him inside.
They hit the floor hard.
The man wore black tactical clothing and a rain mask. He reached for a knife at his belt.
Alexander struck him once.
The man went still.
Lily began sobbing.
I wanted to cover her eyes, but I couldn't stop looking at the stranger.
There was a silver emblem stitched near his shoulder.
A black wolf beneath a crown.
Alexander saw me staring.
His jaw tightened.
"Rinaldi."
The name meant nothing to me.
"Who is that?"
"Someone I hoped would never learn you were alive."
I felt the room tilt.
"Alive?"
Alexander looked toward the front room.
"We have less than five minutes before the others move."
"Others?"
"There were four vehicles two miles down the road. I disabled two. At least six men are still in the woods."
I stared at him.
"How do you know?"
"Because I followed them here."
For one terrible second, I couldn't speak.
"You followed them?"
"Yes."
"You didn't find me?"
His eyes met mine.
"Not at first."
The answer hurt in a way I hadn't expected.
I had spent thirty-one days imagining Alexander tearing Chicago apart looking for us. I had imagined him furious. I had imagined him relieved. I had imagined him not caring at all.
I had never imagined other men searching too.
"We need to move," he said.
"I'm not going anywhere with you."
His face became perfectly still.
"Claire."
"You don't get to break down my door with a gun and order me into a car."
"My car is armored. This cottage is wood and glass."
"You said you never loved me."
The words came out louder than I intended.
Alexander stopped breathing.
Even the storm seemed to recede for one strange second.
I clutched Lily tighter.
"I heard you," I said. "I heard everything. I heard you tell Dominic our marriage was a cover. I heard you say Lily was an accident. And then I heard you order someone eliminated. So don't stand there and speak to me like I'm still your wife who follows instructions because you refuse to explain anything."
His expression changed very slowly.
Not guilt.
Shock.
Real shock.
"You were outside the study that night."
"Yes."
He closed his eyes.
I laughed once, bitterly.
"That's your defense?"
"No."
He opened his eyes again.
"That's the reason you ran."
"Of course it's the reason I ran."
Another burst of gunfire sounded in the distance.
Alexander looked toward the window, then back at me.
"I can explain every word."
"I'm sure you can."
"But not here."
"Convenient."
His mouth tightened.
Then a voice crackled from a small radio clipped inside his coat.
"Boss, east tree line. Three moving toward the house. We have maybe ninety seconds."
Alexander pressed the button.
"Hold them. No explosives. My family is inside."
My family.
The phrase struck me harder than it should have.
A man's voice answered, "Understood."
Alexander turned to me.
"I am asking you, not ordering you. Give me ten minutes. Let me get Lily out of this house. If after that you still want to point a gun at me yourself, I will hand you mine."
I almost told him no.
Then a bullet tore through the pantry wall.
Lily screamed against my shoulder.
That decided it.
"Fine."
Alexander opened the back door a few inches and looked outside.
"Stay behind me."
We ran into the storm.
The rain was freezing.
Mud sucked at my shoes as Alexander led us down a narrow path behind the cottage. Two men I recognized from our old life appeared between the trees.
Rafael Costa and Jonah Blake.
Both had worked security at our Chicago home.
Rafael's eyes widened when he saw me.
"Mrs. Moretti."
"Don't call me that."
He looked at Alexander.
Alexander said nothing.
A black SUV waited behind a row of pines with its lights off.
Jonah opened the rear door.
I hesitated.
Alexander leaned close enough for me to hear him over the rain.
"Lily first."
I put our daughter inside.
Alexander climbed in after her.
That surprised me more than anything else.
He left me outside with the open door and the choice.
No hand on my arm.
No threat.
No order.
Just a space beside our daughter.
I climbed in.
The SUV moved before the door fully closed.
Shots cracked from the trees.
Lily cried out.
Alexander bent over her instantly, shielding her with his body.
I saw it clearly.
Not strategy.
Not performance.
Instinct.
The man who had called our child an accident was willing to take bullets for her without thinking.
That contradiction was the first crack in everything I thought I knew.
We drove through the storm for nearly forty minutes.
No one spoke.
Lily eventually fell asleep curled against my side, one small hand twisted into Alexander's coat.
He stared at that hand as though it were something holy.
I watched him without wanting to.
He looked thinner.
There were dark circles beneath his eyes. A healing cut ran across one knuckle. His wedding ring was still on his hand.
Mine was not.
I had left it in the drawer beside our bed in Chicago.
At last the SUV turned through iron gates surrounding an abandoned-looking farmhouse.
Inside, however, the building was reinforced like a bunker.
Alexander carried Lily in.
She woke halfway down the hall.
"Daddy?"
"I'm here, sweetheart."
"Did you find us?"
His steps faltered.
"Yes."
"Mommy said we were having an adventure."
His eyes moved to mine.
"Did she?"
"We had no pancakes."
A sound escaped him that was almost a laugh and almost pain.
"That is unacceptable."
Lily put her arms around his neck.
"I missed you."
Alexander closed his eyes.
Then he kissed her hair.
"I missed you every minute."
I looked away.
Ten minutes later, Lily was asleep in a guarded bedroom upstairs.
Alexander and I stood alone in a small kitchen.
He placed his gun on the table between us.
Then he slid it toward me.
"I meant what I said."
I stared at the weapon.
"You think this proves I can trust you?"
"No."
"Then start talking."
He sat opposite me.
For the first time in five years, Alexander Moretti looked uncertain.
"The night you heard me," he said, "my study was bugged."
I said nothing.
"I knew it was bugged. Dominic did not."
"Your assistant?"
"My former assistant."
The way he said former made my stomach tighten.
"You told him you never loved me because someone was listening?"
"Yes."
"And the rest?"
Alexander looked directly at me.
"Some of it was a lie."
My fingers curled around the edge of the table.
"Some?"
"Claire, our marriage did begin as cover."
The world went silent.
He continued before I could speak.
"But not the kind you think."
I stood so quickly my chair scraped backward.
"You have ten seconds before I leave."
"Your father asked me to marry you."
I stopped.
May you like
Alexander's next words changed the story of my entire life.
"Because three days before he died, he learned someone had put a price on your head."
