Chapter 1 - The Night My Birthday Became a Death Sentence
"Two tequila shots into my twenty-sixth birthday, I poked Boston’s most feared crime boss in the chest twice and watched an entire nightclub go silent. Less than a minute later, a bullet hit the pillar where my head had been, Matteo Conti threw me over his shoulder, and my miserable birthday shift became a fight to stay alive.
Ten hours into a double shift at the Velvet Room, I was exhausted, angry, and forty dollars short on my mother’s assisted-care payment. So when Matteo’s entourage slammed into me and whiskey soaked his charcoal suit, whatever patience I had left vanished.
“You have an entire aisle,” I snapped, jabbing one finger into his chest. “Yet somehow your army of refrigerators still managed to knock into me.”
Three men nearby stopped breathing.
Matteo’s security chief, Leo Mercer, reached toward his jacket.
I poked Matteo again.
“Now I have three broken glasses, a wet floor, and a manager who’ll blame me. So unless being terrifying makes you immune to workplace safety, stand still while I get a broom.”
Matteo slowly looked down at my finger.
Then back at me.
Behind the bar, Jimmy Morales made the sign of the cross.
“You always talk to strangers like this?” Matteo asked.
“Only the ones standing in broken glass.”
“Boss,” Leo muttered.
“I heard her.”
“No. Boss.”
Something in his voice changed.
Matteo’s amusement vanished.
A man in a gray jacket was moving fast through the crowd, one hand slipping beneath his coat.
Then I saw the gun.
Someone screamed.
Matteo grabbed my waist just as the first shot slammed into the wooden pillar where my head had been.
My feet left the floor.
“What the hell?”
He threw me over his shoulder.
Actually threw me over his shoulder.
“Put me down!”
“Not tonight.”
“You psychotic maniac!”
Another shot cracked behind us.
Matteo covered my head with one hand and carried me through the service corridor while his men closed around us. Somehow, even while terrified, I understood how absurd my life had become.
On my birthday, I was upside down over Boston’s most feared man’s shoulder.
“Matteo Conti!”
Cold November air hit me when he burst through the rear exit.
“If I survive this, I’m reporting you to somebody!”
“To whom?”
“I’ll think of someone!”
He laughed.
Then another bullet struck the brick wall above us.
The laughter disappeared.
Matteo shoved me into an armored SUV and climbed in after me. As we tore out of the alley, I noticed a thin line of blood along his jaw from flying glass.
My hands started shaking.
He reached toward me.
“Don’t.”
His hand stopped immediately.
“You’re safe.”
“You threw me into a car.”
“A bullet missed your skull by four inches.”
“That doesn’t make this normal.”
“No. It makes it necessary.”
I swallowed hard.
“What happened?”
“The man who hit your tray wasn’t drunk,” Matteo said.
“I figured that out when he started shooting.”
“He came for someone in that room.”
“You.”
Matteo went quiet.
“That was my assumption.”
“Great. Drop me home.”
“No.”
Anger replaced some of my fear.
“What do you mean, no?”
“The shooter saw you interfere. Whoever arranged this will assume you saw his face.”
“I barely saw anything.”
“They don’t know that.”
“Then give me a guard.”
“No.”
“You really enjoy that word.”
“It prevents funerals.”
I stared at him, my heart still pounding.
“I have a mother who depends on me.”
His expression changed.
“I know.”
Those two words hit harder than the gunshots.
My fear sharpened instantly into suspicion.
“You know?”"
The armored SUV sped through the dark streets of Boston while I stared at Matteo Conti as though staring hard enough might force the truth out of him.
He sat opposite me in the rear compartment, one elbow braced against the leather seat, his jaw tight beneath the thin cut from the glass. The nightclub music had disappeared. So had the adrenaline-fueled absurdity of being tossed over his shoulder.
Now there was only silence.
And the question I had asked.
You know?
Matteo didn’t answer immediately.
That scared me more than if he had lied.
“You told me your name when the manager yelled at you,” he finally said.
I frowned.
“That doesn’t explain my mother.”
“No.”
“So?”
He looked out the tinted window.
“The assisted-care facility where your mother lives has been contacted twice in the last six weeks by someone asking for access to her records.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
“Our people noticed because the first call came through a number connected to one of my competitors.”
I laughed, but there was no humor in it.
“You’re saying mobsters are monitoring my mother’s medical records?”
“I’m saying someone is interested in your family.”
“You.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
I stared at him.
The confidence in his voice was frightening.
“You don’t know?”
“I know someone is looking for something.”
“What something?”
“I haven’t found out yet.”
I crossed my arms.
“Then why am I in your car?”
“Because whoever fired that gun may believe you saw him.”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“I believe you.”
“Then let me go.”
He looked directly at me.
“I can’t.”
“You absolutely can.”
“No.”
“There’s that word again.”
“It keeps you alive.”
I wanted to slap him.
Instead, I turned toward the window.
Boston blurred beyond the glass, streetlights streaking across the darkness.
My birthday cake was probably still sitting untouched in the tiny apartment I shared with my mother. Earlier that afternoon, I had bought the cheapest chocolate cake I could find. The frosting had a crooked blue border because the bakery had been closing, and I had laughed when the girl behind the counter apologized for it.
Now I wasn't sure I'd ever see that cake.
My mother would be awake.
She always stayed awake on my birthday.
Even when I begged her not to.
My phone vibrated.
I grabbed it so quickly I almost dropped it.
Mom.
I answered.
“Hi.”
“Where are you?”
Her voice was soft and sleepy.
I swallowed.
“At work.”
“You're lying.”
I closed my eyes.
“How do you always know?”
“Because you've been my daughter for twenty-six years.”
I looked across the SUV.
Matteo was watching me.
I turned away.
“I'm just finishing late.”
“Come home soon.”
“I will.”
“You're not driving, are you?”
“No.”
“Good. It's cold.”
My throat tightened.
“I love you.”
There was a pause.
“I love you too.”
Then she whispered, “Are you safe?”
I froze.
Something about the question felt wrong.
“Why wouldn't I be?”
“I don't know.”
My mother's breathing sounded uneven.
“Mama?”
“Nothing. Just come home.”
Before I could answer, the line went dead.
I looked at Matteo.
“My mother sounded frightened.”
His expression hardened.
He said something to the driver in Italian.
The SUV changed direction.
“Where are we going?”
“Your mother's facility.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“My mother is safe there.”
“I hope you're right.”
His answer chilled me.
Twenty minutes later, the SUV stopped outside Harborview Assisted Living.
I saw two police cars at the entrance.
My pulse exploded.
I was out of the SUV before Matteo could stop me.
A security guard ran toward us.
“Miss Carter?”
“Yes. What happened?”
“Your mother's room was found open.”
The hallway inside was chaos.
Nurses whispered.
A doctor stood near the elevators.
Then I saw my mother's wheelchair.
Empty.
My body stopped functioning.
“No.”
I pushed past everyone.
“Where is my mother?”
No one answered.
“Where is she?”
A nurse grabbed my arm.
“They took her.”
The floor seemed to tilt.
“Who?”
“We don't know.”
Matteo moved beside me.
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“Who saw them?”
The nurse looked at him and went pale.
“I—I don't know.”
“You will find out.”
I looked at him.
“Don't threaten her.”
He turned toward me.
“I wasn't threatening her.”
“You sounded like you were.”
“I was promising.”
The nurse began crying.
I couldn't breathe.
“Matteo…”
He was already giving orders.
“Leo.”
His security chief stepped forward.
“North exit. Cameras. Every vehicle entering the property in the last three hours. I want plates, faces, traffic feeds, everything.”
“On it.”
“Call every hospital within fifty miles.”
I grabbed Matteo's sleeve.
“Find her.”
He looked down at my hand.
“I will.”
“No.”
My voice broke.
“Don't say that like it's some favor. Find my mother.”
His eyes changed.
“I will.”
Then, quieter, he added,
“And I'm going to find out who knew enough about your family to take her.”
That was the moment I realized something terrible.
The shooting hadn't been random.
May you like
My mother hadn't been taken randomly.
And somehow, Matteo Conti had been expecting danger before I ever knew there was any.
