“It wasn’t easy. Took me three months of digging through records and calling in favors. They all changed their names like you did. Moved to different states. Tried to disappear.” He pauses. “But someone found them anyway.”
I close the folder because I can’t look at their faces anymore. “I’m the last one.”
“You’re the last one I could verify, yes.”
“Which means I’m next.”
Tom doesn’t deny it. “I think you need to seriously consider going to the police with this information. All these deaths happening to women who were in the same place at the same time six years ago? That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern.”
“And tell them what exactly?” I keep my voice down but it’s hard. “That I was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring but escaped when some other criminal showed up and murdered everyone? That I’ve been living under a fake name for six years? That I have a five-year-old son I’ve been raising alone while looking over my shoulder every day?”
“It’s better than waiting for whoever’s doing this to find you.”
“The police can’t protect me from these people.” I think about the man with storm-grey eyes covered in blood. About the casual way he put three bullets in Antonio Marchetti. About the scar on his shoulder that burns in my memory even after all this time. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Tom is quiet for a long moment. Then he slides a piece of paper across the table. “This is the number you asked me to find. Dante Moretti. He’s big in New York now. Runs his own organization. Very dangerous man, Scarlett.”
I pick up the paper and stare at the number written in Tom’s neat handwriting. Ten digits that could save my life or end it.
“Are you sure about this?” Tom asks.
“No.” I fold the paper and tuck it into my jacket pocket. “But I’m out of better options.”
I pay Tom for his work and leave the café with my mind spinning. The folder stays with me, evidence of five deaths that look like accidents but aren’t. Evidence that someone is hunting us down one by one.
Evidence that I’m next.
The drive to Luca’s school takes twenty minutes through Portland traffic and I spend every second of it checking my mirrors. Looking for cars that follow too close or appear too often. Looking for threats I might not recognize until it’s too late.
I’ve gotten good at this over the years. Paranoia becomes a survival skill when you’re running from people who want you dead, when monsters will follow you into a club and even fuck you.
Luca’s kindergarten is in a good neighborhood with security cameras and teachers who actually pay attention. I picked it specifically for those reasons. He’s safe here during the day, which is more than I can say for most places.
He comes running out when he sees my car and my heart does that familiar thing it always does when I see him. This perfectlittle human I somehow created. This beautiful boy with dark hair and grey eyes that should remind me of his father but don’t because I’ve never let myself think about that night long enough to remember details.
“Mama!” He throws himself into the backseat, shedding his coat as I help him with his seatbelt. “We made paper airplanes today and mine flew the highest in the whole class!”
“That’s amazing, baby.” I kiss the top of his head and breathe in the scent of kid shampoo and whatever they had for lunch. “Tell me all about it.”
He chatters the whole drive home about paper airplanes and his friend Aiden and the new fish in their classroom tank. Normal five-year-old stuff that makes me want to cry because this is what I’m protecting. This innocence and normalcy.
I’m so focused on listening to him that I almost miss it. The black SUV that’s been behind us for the last three blocks.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel and I take a turn I don’t normally take. The SUV follows.
No. Please no. Not now. Not with Luca in the car.
I take another turn, but the SUV keeps following.
“Mama? Why are we going this way? This isn’t how we get home.”
“Just taking a different route today, sweetheart.” I keep my voice calm even though my heart is trying to break through my ribs. “Keep telling me about Aiden.”
He keeps talking and I keep driving, taking random turns, trying to lose the SUV without making it obvious that I know I’m being followed.
But it stays there. Three cars back.
We’re on a residential street with cars parked on both sides when the SUV suddenly accelerates. It comes up fast on our left side and I have maybe two seconds to react before it swerves directly at us.
