Chapter 3 - The Fiancée Who Wasn't Running Away
“Drive.”
Alessandro said the word so quietly Emma almost missed it.
The driver did not.
The armored SUV lurched backward.
At the same instant, one of the supposed police officers reached beneath his jacket.
Gunfire cracked across the road.
The rear vehicle swung sideways, shielding Alessandro’s SUV while another car accelerated into the median and opened a path through a narrow maintenance lane.
Marianne screamed.
Emma ducked as bullets struck the reinforced glass with sharp, terrifying pops.
Across the road, Charles Sterling never moved.
He stood behind the cruiser as calmly as if he were waiting for valet parking.
Victoria did.
She stepped forward, shouting something.
Her father grabbed her arm and yanked her back.
For one second her face appeared clearly in the headlights.
Fear.
Not anger.
Fear.
Then the SUV spun around and raced into the darkness.
“Those weren’t police,” Emma said.
“No,” Alessandro replied.
“How do you know?”
“Because Metro does not use private security rifles at traffic stops.”
He touched his earpiece.
“Marco, secondary route. Now.”
Static answered.
Alessandro frowned.
“Marco?”
Nothing.
He tried again.
Emma watched him.
“Who is Marco?”
“My consigliere.”
“One of the three people who knows about the safe house?”
Alessandro looked at her.
“Yes.”
Marianne tightened her fingers around Emma’s hand.
The convoy cut through an industrial district, then headed west into darkness beyond the city glow.
Alessandro called another number.
This time someone answered.
“Cancel Red Rock,” he said. “Burn the route. Use Shelter Three.”
A voice responded too softly for Emma to understand.
“No electronic navigation. Split the convoy at Blue Diamond. I want two decoys.”
He ended the call.
Emma stared at him.
“How many safe houses do you have?”
“Enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is tonight.”
She wanted to argue, but Marianne suddenly pressed a hand to her chest.
“Mom?”
“I’m fine.”
“You just had heart surgery.”
“I know what surgery I had.”
Alessandro reached into a medical bag and handed Emma a small bottle.
“The cardiologist packed her medication.”
Marianne looked at him.
“You planned for this.”
“I plan for most things.”
“And yet you nearly married Charles Sterling’s daughter.”
The words landed harder than Emma expected.
Alessandro’s face went still.
Marianne sighed.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
For the next twenty minutes no one spoke.
The Vegas skyline disappeared behind mountains.
Eventually the SUV turned onto a dirt road that seemed to lead nowhere.
A low adobe house appeared between dark ridges.
No exterior lights.
No neighboring buildings.
No visible security.
It looked less like a Mafia safe house than a forgotten desert ranch.
Inside, however, cameras covered every entrance, steel shutters were hidden inside the walls, and a basement corridor led to an underground garage.
Alessandro’s men swept every room before allowing Emma and Marianne inside.
Marianne was settled into a bedroom with a portable monitor and a private nurse.
Emma stood in the kitchen while Alessandro removed his jacket.
A faint line of blood marked his forearm.
“You said it wasn’t yours.”
“That was before the roadblock.”
She crossed the room.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Apparently everyone in this family says that while bleeding.”
He raised an eyebrow.
Emma pointed to a chair.
“Sit.”
To her surprise, he obeyed.
She found antiseptic and gauze in a cabinet.
The bullet had grazed his arm.
Nothing serious, but deep enough to require cleaning.
As Emma worked, Alessandro watched her.
“What?” she asked.
“You’re not afraid of blood.”
“I worked in a diner during college. Saturday nights after two in the morning make Mafia violence look organized.”
A quiet laugh escaped him.
It was the first time Emma had heard him laugh since before the tank.
The sound hurt more than it should have.
Because beneath the blood, the secrets, and the men with guns, she remembered the man who had handed a delivery boy an umbrella in the rain.
She hated that she remembered.
“You were going to marry her,” Emma said.
Alessandro’s smile vanished.
“Yes.”
“Did you love her?”
He looked toward the dark window.
“I thought I could.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No.”
Emma taped the bandage into place.
“Then why?”
“Because our families had been doing business for years. Because Victoria understood the world I lived in. Because everyone around me said affection could come later.”
“And did it?”
“No.”
Emma stepped away.
“Did you know she hated me?”
“I knew she was jealous.”
“You let it happen.”
His expression tightened.
“I didn’t know she was hurting you.”
“You knew she humiliated the staff.”
“I corrected her.”
“Privately.”
He said nothing.
Emma folded her arms.
“That mattered to you, didn’t it? Protecting her dignity in public.”
“Yes.”
“And mine?”
The question hit its target.
Alessandro looked down at his bandaged arm.
“I failed you.”
Emma had expected defense.
Powerful men usually had entire arsenals of excuses.
Alessandro offered none.
“That does not make what she did my fault,” he continued. “But I should have seen what was happening long before she put you in that tank.”
Emma looked away.
For months she had told herself Alessandro’s kindness meant nothing.
A glass of tea left on the counter after a long shift.
A book ordered because he heard her mention it once.
A paid afternoon off when her mother had a bad cardiology appointment.
She had called those things decency.
Victoria had called them something else.
“Why did you ask if we had met before?” Emma asked.
“In the library?”
“Yes.”
He leaned back.
“Your eyes.”
“My eyes?”
“I remembered them.”
Emma’s throat tightened.
“From the fire?”
“I remembered a little girl covered in soot shouting at me not to go to sleep.”
Emma saw it then.
A boy on the basement floor.
Blood running from his forehead.
Smoke beneath the door.
Her small hands shaking his shoulders.
Stay awake, Alex. Stay awake.
Her scar prickled.
“I dragged you through the laundry chute,” she whispered.
Alessandro sat forward.
“What?”
“The basement stairs were burning. There was a laundry chute behind a cabinet.”
Memory crashed into her in bright, painful pieces.
“I made you go first. You didn’t want to because you said your father was upstairs.”
Alessandro’s eyes closed.
“I remember.”
“You kept saying, ‘He’ll come for me.’”
“He didn’t.”
“No.”
A silence stretched between them.
Then Alessandro opened his eyes.
“You did.”
Emma’s breath caught.
He stood.
They were suddenly too close.
She could smell smoke on his jacket from the attack at the hospital.
For one dangerous second, neither moved.
Then a phone vibrated on the counter.
Not Alessandro’s.
Emma frowned.
The sound came from the pocket of her coat.
She reached inside and pulled out a slim black phone she had never seen before.
Alessandro’s hand went immediately to his gun.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“It’s already in my hand.”
The screen lit.
One unread message.
Emma looked at Alessandro, then opened it.
A photograph appeared.
Victoria.
She was sitting in the back seat of a car, one side of her face bruised.
Below the image was a message.
I put this phone in your coat at the hospital loading dock. My father made me sabotage the tank. He said you were the girl from the fire. He said if you remembered, we would all die. I thought he was threatening me. I was wrong.
Another message arrived.
Ask Alessandro why his father kept a room beneath the Belladonna Casino that no police officer was ever allowed to enter.
Then a third.
And do not trust Marco D’Angelo.
Emma looked up.
Alessandro had gone completely still.
“Marco?” she whispered.
His face revealed nothing.
But she saw it in his eyes.
He was thinking of every secret route, every hidden safe house, every security detail his consigliere knew.
Before either could speak, the lights in the safe house flickered.
Once.
Twice.
Then the security monitor on the wall changed.
One camera feed went black.
Then another.
Then another.
Alessandro drew his gun.
“Get your mother.”
Emma’s blood turned cold.
“How did they find us?”
Alessandro stared at the dead screens.
“Only three people knew this location.”
Emma thought of Victoria’s message.
Do not trust Marco D’Angelo.
Then came a knock at the front door.
Three slow knocks.
May you like
A man’s voice called through the darkness.
“Boss? It’s Marco.”
