She Kissed the Mafia King Before His Car Exploded

Ava Hart had five seconds to save the life of the most feared man in Chicago. Five seconds to run across a private parking garage, throw herself into the arms of a suspected crime lord, and kiss him before his black Bentley exploded.

Her heels slammed against the wet concrete as Roman Vale reached for the driver’s door. He wore a midnight-blue suit, no tie, and the calm expression of a man who had never imagined death could find him. Four armed bodyguards followed several steps behind him, scanning the shadows but missing the danger hidden beneath the polished car.

Ava didn’t have time to explain.

She grabbed Roman by the lapels and pulled him toward her.

Then she kissed him.

Roman’s entire body went rigid. His hand closed around her waist on instinct while his other hand caught the back of her neck. For one impossible second, the parking garage, the guards, and the warning burning inside Ava’s mind disappeared.

Then Roman kissed her back.

It wasn’t gentle. It was the controlled, dangerous response of a man who had spent his entire life taking possession of anything that surprised him.

Ava tore her mouth away.

“There’s a bomb under your car,” she whispered.

Roman’s dark eyes sharpened.

A faint metallic ticking came from beneath the Bentley.

He didn’t hesitate.

Roman wrapped one arm around Ava’s waist, covered the back of her head with his other hand, and threw both of them behind a nearby SUV.

The Bentley exploded.

Fire swallowed the far side of the garage. Metal twisted with a sound like an animal screaming. Windows shattered, alarms erupted, and the force of the blast drove Roman and Ava against the concrete.

Roman covered her completely.

Heat rolled over his back. Debris struck the SUV beside them. Ava pressed her face against his chest, unable to breathe, while the garage filled with black smoke and falling sparks.

For several seconds, the only sound she could hear was Roman’s heartbeat.

It was steady.

Hers wasn’t.

When the worst of the blast passed, Roman lifted his head. Blood traced a thin line along his cheek, and ash clung to his dark hair. He looked down at Ava as though she had become the most important and most dangerous mystery of his life.

His thumb brushed dirt from beneath her eye.

“How did you know?”

Ava forced herself to sit up. “You’re welcome.”

Roman’s expression didn’t change.

“How did you know?”

Behind them, his security team moved through the smoke with weapons drawn. One man shouted that the exits had been secured. Another called for a second vehicle. Sprinklers sputtered overhead, turning soot into black streams that ran across the floor.

“I overheard two men talking in the lobby,” Ava said.

Roman studied her face.

“Which lobby?”

“The hotel lobby.”

“What did they say?”

“That your car was wired.”

“And you knew which car belonged to me.”

Ava’s heart stumbled.

Forty luxury cars had been parked in the garage. She had run directly to Roman’s Bentley without looking at a license plate.

Roman noticed everything.

“I saw you arrive earlier,” she said.

“No, you didn’t.”

His voice was quiet, but the words struck like a blade.

Ava slowly got to her feet. Roman stood with her, keeping one hand at her elbow until she was steady.

“I just prevented your assassination,” she said. “Maybe save the interrogation until we’re not standing beside a burning car.”

“You knew exactly when the bomb would detonate.”

“I guessed.”

“You don’t look like a woman who trusts guesses.”

Ava said nothing.

One of Roman’s men approached. He was broad-shouldered, with close-cropped gray hair and a scar along his jaw.

“Police are less than three minutes out,” he said. “The east ramp is clear.”

Roman never looked away from Ava.

“Bring the backup vehicle.”

A black SUV pulled through the smoke.

Ava stepped backward. “I’m not getting into that.”

Roman tilted his head. “Someone just tried to kill me. You knew before my security team did. Until I understand why, you’re coming with me.”

“I’m a journalist. If I disappear, people will ask questions.”

“You won’t disappear.”

“That isn’t comforting.”

“It wasn’t intended to be.”

The rear door opened.

Ava looked from Roman to the armed guards surrounding them. She had spent four months investigating Roman Vale, searching for evidence that connected his legitimate corporations to the criminal empire prosecutors claimed he controlled.

Now she was about to enter his vehicle voluntarily.

Almost voluntarily.

“I want it clearly understood that I’m doing this under protest,” she said.

Roman placed a hand at the small of her back.

“Clearly understood.”

The SUV left the garage seconds before police vehicles blocked the street. Chicago passed beyond the tinted windows in streaks of rain and neon. Ava sat against one door, Roman against the other, though his presence seemed to fill the entire vehicle.

Roman made three calls.

“Lock down the Vale Tower.”

“Find out who accessed the garage.”

“Bring Mallory to the north residence.”

Each order was delivered without anger. Roman never needed to raise his voice. Men obeyed him because they knew silence was the last warning he offered.

When the calls ended, he studied Ava again.

“Ava Hart. Twenty-nine years old. Investigative reporter for the Chicago Ledger. Formerly with the Boston Beacon. You moved here eighteen months ago after your father suffered a stroke.”

Ava’s hands curled into fists. “You had me investigated.”

“I had you investigated three months ago, when you began following my employees.”

“You knew?”

“I know everyone who watches me.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?”

“You hadn’t found anything worth stopping.”

The insult stung because it was true. Ava had uncovered suspicious transactions, shell companies, and witnesses who became terrified whenever Roman’s name appeared, but no proof that would survive a courtroom.

Roman leaned back.

“You drink black coffee, work too late, and live in an apartment with a broken lock you’ve complained about twice but haven’t replaced. Your editor thinks you’re reckless. Your younger brother thinks you’re brave. Your father thinks you’re wasting your life chasing dangerous men.”

“You’ve been watching my family?”

“I needed to know whether you were a threat.”

“And what did you decide?”

Roman’s gaze dropped briefly to her mouth.

“That decision became more complicated tonight.”

Ava looked away before he could see how the memory of their kiss affected her.

Her phone had been taken by Roman’s security team when she entered the SUV. She had no way to contact her editor, Daniel Price, or tell him she was alive.

More importantly, she could not review the anonymous message that had brought her to the garage.

At 9:12 that evening, six words had appeared on her encrypted phone.

DON’T LET HIM REACH THE CAR.

The message had included the hotel address, the parking level, and a photograph of Roman’s Bentley.

Ava had assumed it was a trap designed to expose her investigation. But after checking the hotel’s charity gala schedule and discovering Roman was attending, she had gone anyway.

Now someone knew she had saved him.

Someone who might be watching.

The SUV turned through iron gates and entered the grounds of an enormous stone residence overlooking Lake Michigan. The house was modern and severe, with dark windows and armed men positioned beneath the covered entrance.

Roman exited first.

Ava followed, refusing the hand he offered.

Inside, polished black floors stretched beneath towering glass walls. The city glittered beyond the lake, beautiful and distant.

A woman in a white medical coat hurried toward Roman.

“You’re bleeding.”

“It’s nothing.”

She examined the cut on his cheek while Roman continued watching Ava.

“Check her first,” he ordered.

“I’m fine,” Ava said.

“You were closer to the blast.”

“So were you.”

“I wasn’t wearing heels.”

Despite herself, Ava almost smiled.

Roman noticed.

That seemed to interest him more than it should have.

The doctor guided Ava into a sitting room and examined the bruising along her shoulder. Roman remained near the fireplace while his security chief—the gray-haired man from the garage—entered carrying a tablet.

“Garage footage was erased eight minutes before the blast,” he reported. “The explosive was military grade. Professional installation.”

“Access logs?”

“Cloned credentials.”

Roman’s jaw tightened.

“Inside assistance?”

“Almost certainly.”

The chief glanced at Ava.

She understood the accusation.

Roman dismissed the doctor and stepped closer.

“Who sent you the warning?”

“I told you. I overheard—”

“No.”

The single word stopped her.

Roman crouched in front of her chair, bringing his eyes level with hers.

“I don’t care that you’ve been investigating me,” he said. “I don’t care what stories you intended to publish. But someone placed a bomb beneath my car and directed you toward it. That makes you either an accomplice, a messenger, or bait.”

“I’m none of those things.”

“Then show me the message.”

Ava’s silence betrayed her.

Roman extended his hand.

“Your phone.”

One of his guards placed it in his palm.

Ava knew the encrypted application required her fingerprint. She also knew Roman could probably find another way inside if she refused.

“There are confidential sources on that phone,” she said.

“I’m not interested in your sources.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tonight, neither of us can afford the luxury of trust.”

Roman held the phone near her hand.

After several seconds, Ava pressed her thumb against the screen.

She opened the encrypted message.

Roman read it without touching the device.

His expression hardened.

“Anonymous?”

“Yes.”

“Have they contacted you before?”

“No.”

“That is another lie.”

Ava looked at him sharply.

Roman took the phone and scrolled upward.

There were three earlier messages.

The first had arrived a month earlier.

ASK ROMAN VALE WHO BURIED THOMAS HART’S CASE.

The second had come two weeks later.

YOUR FATHER’S ACCIDENT WASN’T AN ACCIDENT.

The third had included an old photograph of Roman standing beside Ava’s father outside a courthouse fifteen years earlier.

Ava had not known they had ever met.

Roman stared at the photograph for a long time.

Something changed in his face.

Not fear.

Recognition.

“You knew my father,” Ava said.

Roman handed the phone back.

“Yes.”

“Why were you outside a courthouse with him?”

Roman rose slowly.

“Because your father once saved my life.”

Ava’s breath caught.

Before she could ask another question, a guard entered with a pale, trembling man in a torn security uniform. Roman’s chief pushed him toward the center of the room.

“We found him trying to leave through the service tunnel,” the chief said. “He accessed the garage two hours before the explosion.”

Roman looked at the man.

“Who paid you?”

The guard shook violently. “I didn’t know about the bomb. I only gave someone my access card.”

“Who?”

“I never saw his face.”

Roman stepped closer.

The guard’s eyes shifted toward Ava.

Then widened.

“It was her,” he blurted.

The room went silent.

Ava stood. “What?”

“The woman who paid me,” the guard said, pointing at her. “She looked exactly like her.”

Roman slowly turned toward Ava.

Ava felt the floor disappear beneath her.

“I have never seen him before.”

The guard reached into his pocket and produced a photograph.

Roman’s chief took it first.

Then handed it to Roman.

It showed Ava standing beside the Bentley, placing something beneath the driver’s side door.

The timestamp was from two hours earlier.

Ava stared at the image.

“That isn’t me.”

The woman had Ava’s face, Ava’s hair, and Ava’s beige trench coat.

Even the scar above her right eyebrow was visible.

Roman’s expression became unreadable.

Ava stepped toward him. “Someone created that photograph.”

“Or someone sent you to stop a bomb you helped place.”

“I saved your life.”

Roman held her gaze.

“Perhaps that was the plan.”

Ava heard movement behind her as two guards approached.

She should have been terrified of them.

Instead, she was terrified by the disappointment she thought she saw in Roman’s eyes.

“Do you believe him?” she asked.

Roman looked at the photograph again.

Then at the trembling security guard.

“No.”

Everyone froze.

Roman moved so quickly the guard had no time to react. He seized the man by the collar and slammed him against the wall.

“You looked at her when you entered,” Roman said. “Before anyone showed you her face. You already knew who to accuse.”

The guard began pleading.

Roman released him and turned to his chief.

“Take him downstairs. Find out who rehearsed his story.”

The guards dragged the man away.

Ava exhaled shakily.

“You knew he was lying.”

“I knew before he opened his mouth.”

“Then why let him accuse me?”

Roman came close enough for Ava to see the fire reflected in his eyes.

“Because I wanted to see whether you were surprised.”

“And?”

“You were.”

“Does that mean I can leave?”

“No.”

Ava laughed once, without humor. “Of course not.”

Roman took the photograph to the window. “Someone knows your investigation, your family history, and my movements. They built a plan that placed you between me and a bomb.”

“Why?”

“To make me distrust the woman who could expose them.”

Ava looked at the old photograph on her phone.

“Who are they?”

Roman’s reflection met hers in the glass.

“The same people who tried to kill your father.”

Ava’s throat tightened. “My father had a stroke.”

“No,” Roman said. “Your father was poisoned.”

The words struck harder than the explosion.

Roman turned.

“And if the person behind tonight’s bombing discovers that you know the truth, they will come for you next.”

Outside, thunder rolled over Lake Michigan.