Chapter 1 - The Wrong Car
“Don’t let them find me,” Chloe whispered as she pulled the car door shut.
The man who owned the black sedan was still inside the nightclub, and Chloe’s hand had closed around a metal key tag lying on the rear floor.
Three numbers were scratched into its back.
Chloe knew that number.
Her breath stopped.
She crouched lower behind the front passenger seat, clutching the little tag so tightly its edge pressed into her palm.
Outside, footsteps splashed through puddles.
“Check behind those dumpsters.”
Chloe closed her eyes.
Six months.
She had spent six months planning this night.
Six months hiding twenty-dollar bills beneath the loose lining of an old winter coat Tommy never touched. Six months memorizing bus schedules instead of saving them on her phone. Six months pretending she had stopped wanting to leave.
She had learned to smile when Tommy asked whether she was happy.
She had learned to answer without hesitation.
Of course.
She had learned to hide fear so well that sometimes, looking into a bathroom mirror, she barely recognized the woman staring back.
But Tommy had found the cash.
Then the prepaid phone.
Then the bus ticket.
And Chloe had run.
Now rainwater dripped from her dark curls onto her burgundy blouse. Her bare feet burned from the pavement. A scrape along her cheek stung every time sweat or rain touched it.
She wrapped both arms around herself and tried to make her full body smaller in the footwell.
It was impossible.
Chloe had spent years hearing people tell her she took up too much space.
Tonight, she desperately wished she could disappear.
A flashlight swept across the tinted glass.
She froze.
“There.”
A man's silhouette appeared beside the rear window.
Chloe stopped breathing.
“Check the car.”
The handle moved once.
Her stomach dropped.
Then another voice snapped from several feet away.
“Are you insane?”
Silence.
The flashlight lowered.
“Look at the tag.”
Chloe heard nothing for several seconds except rain hammering against the roof.
Then the first man spoke again, quieter.
“That car belongs to the Italians.”
“Exactly.”
“We should still check.”
“You want to explain to him why you touched his car?”
Another silence.
Then footsteps retreated.
Chloe slowly opened her eyes.
Relief hit so hard she nearly sobbed.
She pressed a hand over her mouth.
One minute.
She needed one minute.
Then she would climb out, find another street, and keep running.
She looked again at the small metal tag in her palm.
The number meant something completely different to her.
Apartment 417.
Three years earlier, before Tommy had convinced her to move in with him, Chloe had rented a tiny apartment above a laundromat on West Mercer Street.
Apartment 417 had belonged to the woman across the hall.
Elena Rossi.
Elena had disappeared one night without saying goodbye.
Chloe had never understood why.
A heavy door opened outside.
Music spilled briefly into the alley.
Then the door closed.
Footsteps approached.
Not hurried.
Not searching.
Measured.
Chloe's heart began pounding again.
The driver's door opened.
A man got inside.
He was broad-shouldered and tall enough that the interior suddenly seemed smaller. Rain darkened the shoulders of his white dress shirt. Black-and-gray tattoos disappeared beneath his rolled sleeves and climbed along the side of his neck.
He shut the door.
Chloe lowered herself.
Maybe he wouldn't see her.
Maybe she could wait until the next stop.
The man adjusted his seat.
His hand reached toward the rearview mirror.
Chloe stared at the floor.
The mirror moved.
She looked up without meaning to.
Dark eyes met hers in the reflection.
Everything stopped.
He didn't shout.
Didn't reach for her.
Didn't even turn around.
He simply looked at her.
Chloe's lips parted.
“Please.”
His gaze dropped briefly toward the scrape on her cheek, then toward her bare feet.
His expression hardened.
Not at her.
At something.
His right hand moved.
Click.
All four doors locked.
Chloe grabbed the handle.
Nothing.
“Unlock it.”
He started the engine.
“Please. I just needed somewhere to hide.”
“Sit properly.”
“What?”
“You're going to hurt yourself if I brake.”
The car rolled forward.
Chloe stared at him.
“Stop the car.”
He drove out of the alley.
“Stop!”
“Your friends are still behind us.”
“They're not my friends.”
“I assumed.”
Chloe twisted around.
Two figures had appeared at the mouth of the alley.
One raised a phone.
“Please,” she said. “I don't want trouble.”
The stranger glanced into the mirror.
“You climbed into my car.”
“I know.”
“You were hiding on the floor.”
“I know.”
“You're bleeding.”
“It's a scratch.”
“And two men were searching for you.”
Chloe swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Then trouble was already here.”
The city slid past the windows.
Chloe reached toward her purse.
The stranger's eyes immediately sharpened.
“Slowly.”
“My phone.”
She pulled out the prepaid phone.
The screen was cracked.
No signal.
Of course.
Tommy had probably canceled the account connected to her old phone hours ago. The prepaid should have worked, but water had gotten beneath the screen during her escape.
The stranger spoke.
“Who are they?”
Chloe hesitated.
“No one.”
He looked at her through the mirror.
That was all.
No threat.
No demand.
Somehow, his silence was more effective.
“My ex.”
“Name?”
“Why?”
“Because men don't search alleys in the rain for no reason.”
“Tommy.”
The stranger's expression changed almost imperceptibly.
“Tommy what?”
Chloe noticed.
“You know him?”
“Last name.”
“Vale.”
The car continued forward.
But the stranger had become very still.
Chloe leaned forward.
“You do know him.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I've heard the name.”
That frightened her more.
“From where?”
He didn't answer.
Chloe looked toward the door.
“Please let me out.”
“Where will you go?”
“That's not your problem.”
“Correct.”
“Then stop.”
He slowed at a red light.
For one hopeful second, Chloe thought he might unlock the door.
Instead, he asked, “Does Tommy know where you were going?”
“No.”
“Does he know who you contacted?”
“I didn't contact anyone.”
“Family?”
“No.”
“Friends?”
Chloe looked away.
Tommy had taken care of that.
Not quickly.
That would have been obvious.
He had done it one person at a time.
A misunderstanding here.
An argument there.
A canceled dinner.
A friend blocked from Chloe's phone while she slept.
By the time she realized what had happened, isolation had begun to feel normal.
“I don't have anyone,” she said.
The light turned green.
The stranger drove.
Chloe hated how vulnerable the words sounded.
She straightened.
“I can handle myself.”
“I can see that.”
She couldn't tell whether he was mocking her.
Then she noticed the metal tag still in her hand.
“Who's Elena Rossi?”
The stranger's eyes snapped toward the mirror.
That reaction was unmistakable.
Chloe's pulse jumped.
“You know her.”
“Where did you hear that name?”
“I asked first.”
“Where?”
Chloe opened her palm.
The metal tag caught the passing light.
The stranger looked at it.
His jaw tightened.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your floor.”
“Give it to me.”
“No.”
For the first time, he turned slightly.
Not enough to face her completely.
Enough for Chloe to see that calm had disappeared from his expression.
“Give me the tag.”
“Tell me who Elena is.”
He watched her.
Chloe's fear remained, but something else had joined it.
Anger.
She was tired of men expecting obedience before explanations.
“Elena lived across from me three years ago,” Chloe said. “Apartment 417.”
The stranger said nothing.
“She disappeared.”
Still nothing.
“She left everything. Plants. Clothes. Food in the refrigerator. The landlord said she broke the lease, but that wasn't true.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Elena had a cat.”
The man's brow tightened.
“She loved that animal more than anything. She would've taken him.”
“Where did the cat go?”
“I did.”
“What?”
“I kept him.”
The stranger stared at her through the mirror.
Chloe continued.
“His name was Bruno. Elena asked me once that if anything ever happened, I should take care of him.”
The stranger's hand tightened around the steering wheel.
“When?”
“Two weeks before she disappeared.”
He looked ahead again.
“What exactly did she say?”
Chloe remembered Elena standing in the hallway.
Pale.
Distracted.
Looking toward the stairwell every few seconds.
“She said, ‘Some doors should stay closed.’”
The stranger exhaled slowly.
“Anything else?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
Chloe hesitated.
“She asked whether I knew Tommy.”
The car went silent.
Chloe's skin prickled.
“I hadn't met Tommy yet.”
The stranger turned onto a quieter street.
“But I met him three months later.”
“What did Elena say about him?”
“Nothing. She just asked his name.”
The stranger reached toward the console.
Chloe stiffened.
He picked up his phone.
The screen illuminated his face.
One message.
He read it.
Then braked.
The sedan stopped beside the curb.
“What?” Chloe asked.
He didn't answer.
“What's wrong?”
The stranger looked at the phone again.
Chloe could see only part of the message from the back seat.
A photograph.
Her photograph.
Taken tonight.
Chloe stared.
Someone had photographed her climbing into this car.
Under the image was a sentence.
YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT BELONGS TO TOMMY VALE.
Chloe's blood turned cold.
The stranger slowly lifted his eyes to the mirror.
“What's your name?”
“Chloe.”
“Last name.”
“Mercer.”
He went completely still.
“What?”
Before he could answer, another message arrived.
This one contained no photograph.
Only four words.
ASK CHLOE ABOUT ELENA.
The stranger turned toward her.
“My name is Adrian Rossi.”
Chloe looked at the tag.
Then at him.
Rossi.
The same name.
Adrian's phone rang.
The caller ID appeared on the dashboard.
TOMMY VALE.
Neither of them moved.
May you like
Then Adrian answered.
And Tommy said Chloe's name.
