Chapter 1 - The Night He Chose Me
The champagne tray shattered, and the men on the terrace stopped talking about weapons.
One of them saw that I had been listening.
Before I could reach the kitchen, the most feared man in the ballroom pointed at me and said, “She comes with me.”
Rain beat against the tall windows of the Grande Hotel while I carried champagne through a room full of people who had never worried about rent. I was twenty-four, six months from finishing nursing school, and working the gala because the agency paid double for a Saturday night. My black uniform was already damp at the collar where I had hurried in from the bus.
“Table twelve needs another bottle,” my supervisor murmured as I passed.
I found the table beneath a gilded arch. A silver-haired woman held out her empty glass without looking up from her conversation, and I poured carefully while the string quartet played beside the stairs. My hands were steady until I heard a man behind the open terrace door say, “Warehouse seventeen. Thursday.”
I should have kept walking. Instead, I paused beside a potted palm and adjusted the glasses on my tray. Beyond the glass, two men stood with their backs to the city lights.
“Petrov gets paid when we see the shipment,” one said.
“The weapons will be there,” the other answered. “Your people had better be ready.”
A cold line traveled down my spine. I turned too quickly, struck the palm’s brass stand with my elbow, and lost my grip on the tray. Crystal hit marble in a series of sharp cracks that cut through the music.
I dropped to my knees. Champagne soaked the cuffs of my uniform, and a shard nicked my palm as I reached for it. Around me, guests fell silent, then resumed their conversations with the practiced ease of people who had decided an accident was beneath their attention.
The terrace door slid shut.
“Leave it,” a man said above me.
I looked up. He wore a black suit without a visible name tag or an evening coat, yet people were making room for him as he crossed the ballroom. His dark hair was brushed back from a severe face. Two security men had followed him from the entrance and stopped a few feet behind me.
“I’ll clean it up,” I said.
“I know.” He glanced at my bleeding hand, then toward the terrace. “Stand up.”
The man who had mentioned Petrov was watching through the glass. I rose with a shard still pinched between my fingers. The stranger held out his hand, and I gave him the glass before it could cut me again.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
My supervisor was hurrying toward us. I hoped she would tell him and spare me the sound of my own voice.
“Isabella Santos.”
“I know who you are.”
My stomach tightened. I had never seen him before. He turned slightly, putting himself between me and the terrace door, and spoke loudly enough for the nearest tables to hear.
“She comes with me.”
My supervisor stopped short. “Mr. Romano, she’s one of our servers.”
“Her shift is over.”
“I haven’t finished,” I said.
His eyes met mine. They were gray-blue, steady, and impossible to mistake for kind. “You can argue with me outside.”
One of his men opened a path toward the service corridor. No one touched me, but every exit seemed to have someone standing beside it. I walked because the men on the terrace had seen my face, and because I wanted to get away from the room where I had heard the word weapons spoken over champagne.
At the kitchen door, I stopped. “How do you know my name?”
The music swelled behind us. Mr. Romano lowered his voice.
“Because I’ve had someone watching you for six weeks,” he said. “And tonight, Isabella, the men who killed your uncle finally noticed you, too.”
I stared at him.
“My uncle died in an accident.”
“That is the story they paid people to tell.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
He took a phone from his pocket and showed me a photograph.
My uncle Gabriel stood beside a black SUV.
It was taken two days before his death.
I recognized the suit.
The same suit he had worn when they found his body.
But there was another man in the picture.
A man I had never seen.
“Who is that?”
“Dimitri Petrov.”
The name sent a shock through me.
The terrace conversation returned to my head.
Mr. Romano watched me carefully.
“Petrov thinks the shipment on Thursday is connected to your uncle’s disappearance.”
“He died three months ago.”
“He was murdered three months ago.”
I backed away.
“This is insane.”
“I know.”
“Why would anyone care about me?”
“Because your uncle left something behind.”
“What?”
He didn't answer.
Instead, he looked at the cut on my palm.
“You need that cleaned.”
“I can do it myself.”
“I know.”
He gestured toward the kitchen.
A woman in a white chef's jacket rushed over with antiseptic.
I pressed my hand under the water.
Mr. Romano stayed nearby.
“Who are you?” I asked.
His answer was simple.
“Adrian Romano.”
I had heard that name.
Everyone in the city had.
He owned shipping companies, nightclubs, construction firms, and half the warehouses on the industrial side of town.
But the newspapers never explained how he had acquired them so quickly.
People whispered instead.
He was the head of the Romano organization.
A man with influence stretching through the docks, the courts, the unions, and streets where police cars rarely stayed long.
I looked at him.
“You're a criminal.”
One eyebrow rose.
“You say that like you expect me to deny it.”
“Why are you helping me?”
“I'm not helping you.”
He took the cloth from the nurse and wrapped it around my palm himself.
“I'm keeping you alive long enough to find out what your uncle hid.”
I pulled my hand away.
“I don't know anything.”
“Then you'll be safe.”
“What?”
“Because if you truly know nothing, you're useless to them.”
He walked away.
I followed.
“Then why am I coming with you?”
He glanced over his shoulder.
“Because they saw you.”
The back doors opened into the rain.
A black car waited at the curb.
I stopped.
“I am not getting into that.”
“You can take a taxi.”
My relief lasted half a second.
He continued, “The taxi will have two men waiting at the next intersection.”
I looked toward the dark street.
“You're lying.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
He opened the car door.
“You're very brave for someone who keeps arguing with a man she believes is a murderer.”
“I don't know if you're a murderer.”
His mouth curved slightly.
“Good.”
I should have run.
Instead, I got in.
The car moved through the rain.
Neither of us spoke for several minutes.
Then Adrian asked, “Where do you live?”
“Why?”
“To move you somewhere secure.”
“No.”
He looked at me.
“You don't understand.”
“I understand enough. I don't know you.”
“And I don't trust you.”
“That makes two of us.”
We arrived at a luxury townhouse in a gated neighborhood.
I stepped inside and immediately turned toward him.
“I told you I couldn't stay.”
“You don't have to.”
“Then why bring me here?”
“Because it's safer than your apartment.”
I laughed nervously.
“I have an exam Monday.”
He looked at me.
“You're worried about school?”
“Yes.”
“You've just been told your uncle may have been murdered by an international weapons network.”
“And I still have to pass pharmacology.”
For the first time, Adrian actually laughed.
It was quiet, unexpected, and completely changed his face.
“You're serious.”
“Unfortunately.”
A man named Mateo appeared in the hallway.
Adrian spoke to him in a language I didn't understand.
Then Adrian turned back to me.
“You can leave in the morning.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
He paused.
“But tonight, you sleep here.”
“I'll take the couch.”
“You'll take the bedroom.”
“I don't want—”
“I'm not sleeping with you.”
My face burned.
“I wasn't implying that.”
“Good.”
He started upstairs.
Then stopped.
“Isabella?”
“Yes?”
“Lock the bedroom door.”
I stared at him.
“From the inside?”
“Always.”
I barely slept.
At 3:17 a.m., I woke to a sound downstairs.
A door closing.
I grabbed my phone and stepped into the hallway.
I heard Adrian arguing with someone.
“You were told to stay away from her.”
A man's voice answered.
“She doesn't know what she has.”
“Then you should have learned to leave her alone.”
I quietly went downstairs.
Through the railing, I saw a stranger.
He wasn't one of Adrian's men.
He was holding an envelope.
Adrian took it.
The stranger left.
I waited until the door shut.
Then I stepped into the room.
“What was that?”
Adrian turned.
His face changed when he saw me.
“You should be in bed.”
“What was in the envelope?”
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“You brought me here because this concerns me.”
He hesitated.
Then he gave me the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
My uncle.
Standing beside Adrian.
On the back were six handwritten words.
SHE KNOWS WHERE GABRIEL HID THE LEDGER.
I looked up.
“I don't know any ledger.”
Adrian took the photograph back.
“Maybe you don't.”
“Then who thinks I do?”
He stared at me.
“The people who murdered your uncle.”
I swallowed.
Then asked the question I had been avoiding.
“Adrian…why were you watching me for six weeks?”
He looked toward the window.
“Because Gabriel asked me to.”
My heart stopped.
“My uncle knew you?”
“Very well.”
“Then why didn't he tell me?”
“Because he knew he'd be dead before he had the chance.”
May you like
And for the first time, I understood that whatever had killed my uncle had not ended with his funeral.
It had only been waiting for me.
