He tilts his head. The messy beard shifts. A tendon pulls taut along his neck. The clinical edge is completely wiped away. The man looking at me now is operating on a dangerous instinct. The kind that commands a private army.
"You have two choices, Gemma Torres," he states softly. The quietness of his voice is infinitely more terrifying than a shout. "You get in the vehicle under your own power. Or I put you over my shoulder and secure you in the vehicle myself. Make the choice."
I stare at the width of his shoulders. I look at the dark, unyielding ink of the skull and roses on his left arm. I look at the dark eyes promising lethal violence to anyone who steps in his path.
He is not bluffing. He thinks he can just bark an order and I will fall in line?
"I will scream," I warn him.
"Scream," he agrees. "My men will not care. The street is empty. You are wasting time."
I grind my teeth together. "You are a lunatic."
"I am the man keeping you alive tonight." He steps to the side, gesturing toward the lead SUV. A man in a suit immediately opens the rear door.
I look at the ruined metal of my food truck. I look at the smashed salsa containers. The smell of cumin and gun oil twists together in the night air. He is right about one thing. The police are not here. The sirens have faded. The street belongs to the Costas.
And right now, apparently, so do I.
I step past him. The heat radiating off his frame catches my skin. I do not look back at him as I climb into the leather-scented interior of the SUV. The doors are armored. The windows are pitch black.
The door slams shut behind me.
The guard climbs into the front seat. He barks an order in rapid, harsh Italian. The convoy slams into gear. The tires squeal against the asphalt.
We leave the ruined shell of La Diosa behind in the dark. We speed away from the South Side, plunging deep into the neon-lit arteries of the Chicago skyline. I sit in the passenger seat, arms crossed tightly over my chest, staring straight ahead.
I have no reason to trust a Costa. I have every reason to run.
But as the armored SUV merges onto the expressway, taking me away from the only life I have built, running is no longer an option.
The guard has locked me down.
And the war has just begun.
2
Dante
The armored doors slam shut.Reinforced deadbolts engage with a hollow thud. That sound is a barricade. It separates the violence of the outside world from the pressurized, secure cabin of my vehicle. I shift the transmission into drive. My combat boot slams onto the accelerator. The engine roars. The tires scream against the broken asphalt of the alley. We tear away from the curb. The vehicle lurches forward, swallowing the distance between us and the main thoroughfare.
The smoke from the wreckage of her food truck fades in the rearview mirror as we leave the cleanup to my crew. La Diosa. A vibrant, colorful emblem of her independence, now reduced to a twisted cage of blackened steel and shattered glass. Flames lick the brick walls of the narrow alleyway. Plumes of acrid black smoke billow into the night sky. The Bellanti family did that. They sent a hit squad to spray this block with automatic fire. They did not care about the collateral damage. They did not care who caught the shrapnel. They missed her by sheer, dumb luck.
Luck is a fickle, useless concept. I do not rely on it. I rely on Kevlar and hollow-point ammunition. Most of all, I rely on ruthless paranoia.
I calculate the angles of the intersection ahead. I map the sightlines. My jaw locks. The muscles in my neck pull tight. I scan the pedestrian traffic, the parked cars, the shadows between the streetlights. My mind operates at maximum capacity, cycling through threat assessments and exit strategies. The watch on my wrist catches the glare of the streetlamps as we pass beneath them. The steel glint is a cold reminder of the time ticking away. The Bellantis will realize they missed a witness. They will come back to finish the job.
Then the scent hits the air circulators.
Orange and cumin.
The scent floods the confined space of the SUV. It slices through the harsh, metallic tang of residual cordite clinging to my tactical vest. It burrows straight past my armor. My concentration breaks. The scent is overwhelming. It is rich, vibrant, and alive. It smells like warmth and salvation. It smells likeher.
I cut my eyes toward the passenger seat.
Gemma Torres.
She sits rigidly against the dark leather upholstery. Her breathing is erratic. Her chest rises and falls in rapid, uneven hitches. She is a vivid contrast of soft curves against the lingering smoke. She is soft where I am hard, a brilliant flash of color against the sterile, violent world I just dragged her into. Her dark hair cascades over her shoulders in wild, tangled waves. Dust and soot smear her cheekbone, but it does nothing to hide her features.
