Chapter 1 - The Cold Truth In The Crosshairs
The words hung in the icy draft blowing through the shattered tranquility of Patsy’s Roadside Diner. ""Your father sends his regards. And he'd like his grandson delivered by morning.""
The man who spoke was Marco Varga, Don Carmine Caruso’s most merciless enforcer. Behind him, two heavies in heavy wool trench coats slipped their right hands inside their lapels. The diner fell into absolute, suffocating terror. The truckers near the windows slid out of their booths, crawling along the linoleum toward the emergency exit, while Patsy dropped behind the stainless steel kitchen counter with a stifled whimper.
I stood frozen against the edge of table four, my apron stained with coffee, both palms instinctively flattened over the heavy swell of my belly. My son kicked again, a fierce, desperate flutter against my ribs, as if he knew the wolves had picked up our scent.
Luca didn't flinch. The pure, bewildered shock that had cracked his face moments ago vanished behind a mask of chilling, lethal detachment. He rose from the booth in one fluid motion, towering over the laminate table, his dark charcoal coat sweeping back to reveal the tailored line of his suit and the matte black grip beneath his arm.
""Marco,"" Luca said, his voice dropping into that terrifyingly quiet register that froze rooms faster than a gun barrel. ""You have three seconds to walk back into the snow.""
Aria Fontaine remained seated, but the calculated poise she wore had begun to fray at the edges. Her manicured fingers dug into her designer purse, her eyes darting between my rounded stomach, Luca’s murderous gaze, and the hitmen blocking the exit. ""Luca,"" she hissed through gritted teeth, her voice trembling with venomous realization. ""What is this? You told me she drowned. You told me the bloodline was ours to continue.""
""Quiet, Aria,"" Luca murmured without looking at her. His gaze remained locked on Marco, though every line of his rigid posture screamed that his peripheral focus was pinned entirely to me.
Marco laughed, a grating sound like gravel under a boot. ""The Don knew you’d go soft if you found out, Luca. That’s why he handled her disappearance seven months ago. Too bad the girl was smarter than the old man gave her credit for. Faking a plunge off the ice? Brilliant. But running to an interstate greasy spoon just fifty miles outside Chicago? Sloppy.""
The truth struck me like a bucket of icy water. Luca hadn't known.
For seven months, I had lived with the bitter, burning agony that my husband had wanted me dead, that the brake lines severed on my sedan and the suspicious car tailing me onto the icy bridge had been his order to clear the way for an alliance with the Fontaine family. I had staged my own watery grave because I believed my husband was my executioner.
""My father ordered the hit on my wife?"" Luca whispered. The air in the diner dropped ten degrees.
""He ordered the removal of an obstacle,"" Marco countered, easing his weapon from beneath his coat. ""The Don never wanted a nobody from the North Side carrying the Caruso heir. He tolerated your wedding to keep the peace, but a baby changes the board. Hand the girl over, Luca. The Don wants the child raised under his roof. What happens to Elena after the nursery is full... well, you know how your father operates.""
Before Marco could fully clear leather, Enzo moved. Luca’s loyal guard drew his sidearm with lightning speed, firing twice through the laminated table divider.
Gunfire ripped the diner apart. The deafening cracks shattered the neon signs overhead, showering sparking glass down onto the booths. Screams tore through the air.
May you like
In that fraction of a second, Luca lunged across the narrow aisle. His massive arm locked around my waist, sweeping my feet off the floor and pulling my entire body flush against his chest before Marco’s first bullet slammed into the wooden counter where my head had been resting. Luca shielded me with his own bulk, absorbing the splintering wood and flying ceramic mugs against his back.
""I’ve got you,"" Luca breathed against my ear, his voice rough and ragged with pure fury and desperate relief. ""Elena, I’ve got you. Keep your head down!""
