Chapter 1 - The Stranger on the Pavement
Olivia Carter dropped over the wounded man and shouted:
“Stay down!”
Luca Moretti reached for the silver watch lying beside his hand.
The glass was cracked at exactly 12:17.
Then he saw the tiny black mark carved into its back.
This had never been a random shooting.
The second shot shattered the rear window of the black SUV.
Olivia did not think.
Thinking would have told her to run.
Thinking would have reminded her that she was twenty-nine years old, five minutes late for a meeting, wearing cream trousers and heels that were completely useless on broken asphalt, and that getting between a stranger and gunfire was the kind of decision sensible people spent the rest of their lives regretting.
Instead, she dropped.
Her knees struck the pavement hard enough to send pain through both legs.
The man beside the SUV had already gone down.
One hand was pressed against his lower side. His charcoal vest had darkened beneath his fingers. His face had gone pale, but there was nothing weak about his eyes.
They were dark, focused, furious.
And strangely calm.
Olivia threw one arm around his shoulders and dragged him lower behind the open SUV door.
“Stay down!”
His gaze snapped toward her.
Not gratitude.
Assessment.
As if even half-conscious and injured, he was deciding whether she was dangerous.
Another sharp crack echoed between the buildings.
People screamed.
A taxi jumped the curb.
A man in a gray suit flattened himself behind a mailbox.
Somewhere farther up the block, someone shouted for everyone to move.
Olivia could barely hear any of it over the pounding in her chest.
The wounded stranger shifted.
“Get away from me.”
His voice was low.
Controlled.
“You’re bleeding.”
“I noticed.”
“Then stop arguing.”
For the first time, something changed in his expression.
Not amusement exactly.
Surprise.
Then a tall man in a black suit came around the front of the SUV with the speed of someone who had spent years expecting trouble.
He had slicked-back dark hair, broad shoulders, and a face that looked carved from stone.
“Boss.”
Boss.
Olivia heard the word.
Her brain refused to process it.
The tall man crouched.
“We need to move.”
The wounded stranger glanced past Olivia toward the street.
“Marco?”
“Two shooters confirmed. Maybe more.”
“Driver?”
“Alive.”
“Rossi?”
Marco hesitated.
“Hit.”
The wounded man closed his eyes for half a second.
When he opened them again, whatever pain had been there was buried under something much colder.
“Get him out.”
Marco nodded toward Olivia.
“And her?”
The stranger looked at her.
Olivia expected him to tell Marco to leave her.
Instead, his hand closed around her wrist.
His grip was weak compared to what it might normally have been, but the intent behind it was unmistakable.
“She comes with us.”
Olivia stared at him.
“No.”
Marco stared too.
It was apparently not a word people often used around this man.
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Another crack split the air.
A chip of concrete jumped from the building behind them.
Marco grabbed the rear door.
“You are now.”
Olivia was pushed into the SUV before she could argue.
The wounded man followed with help from Marco.
The door slammed.
The vehicle accelerated.
Olivia’s shoulder struck the leather seat.
She caught herself against the center console and turned.
The stranger was breathing harder now.
His hand remained pressed to his side.
Marco sat across from them, speaking quickly into an earpiece.
“Route three. No hospital. Doctor is waiting.”
Olivia’s stomach dropped.
“No hospital?”
Nobody answered.
She looked at the stranger.
“You need an emergency room.”
“I have a doctor.”
“That isn’t what I said.”
“Olivia.”
Her whole body went still.
She had never told him her name.
He saw the question immediately.
His eyes dropped toward her blouse.
She followed his gaze.
Her temporary conference badge was still clipped beneath her jacket.
OLIVIA CARTER.
She almost laughed from relief.
Almost.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
Marco stopped talking.
The wounded man looked at her for a long moment.
“Luca.”
“Luca what?”
His eyes held hers.
“Moretti.”
The name meant nothing for exactly two seconds.
Then memory arrived.
News reports.
Federal investigations.
Photographs outside courthouses.
Whispers about construction unions, nightclubs, shipping companies, politicians, vanished witnesses, old neighborhoods where certain businesses never got robbed because the people protecting them were more frightening than the people who might rob them.
Luca Moretti.
She moved away from him instinctively.
His expression hardened.
“You recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“That isn’t good.”
“No,” Luca said quietly. “Probably not.”
The SUV turned sharply.
Olivia looked through the tinted glass.
They were heading downtown.
“Let me out.”
“No.”
“You can’t just take me.”
“You saved my life.”
“That doesn’t make me your prisoner.”
Marco finally looked at her.
“Right now, being with us is probably the safest place you can be.”
She stared at him.
“That may be the least comforting sentence anyone has ever said to me.”
Luca’s mouth almost moved.
Almost smiled.
Then pain crossed his face.
His shoulders tightened.
Olivia forgot who he was for a moment.
She shifted closer.
“Let me see.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re pale.”
“I’m Italian. We’re dramatic.”
Marco looked away.
Olivia blinked.
“That was a joke?”
Luca leaned his head back.
“Don’t tell anyone.”
Despite herself, she smiled.
It disappeared when she noticed the blood on her hand.
Not much.
But enough.
She pressed her palm more firmly over the cloth at his side.
His eyes opened.
“Pressure,” she said. “Hold it.”
He studied her.
“You’ve done this before.”
“My father was a paramedic.”
“Was?”
“He died four years ago.”
Something in Luca’s face changed again.
This time softer.
“I’m sorry.”
Olivia looked away.
She had heard those words hundreds of times.
From coworkers.
Neighbors.
People who had met her father once.
They usually sounded automatic.
From Luca Moretti, they did not.
That bothered her more than if they had.
The SUV entered an underground garage.
Metal doors closed behind them.
Olivia’s pulse climbed again.
Marco opened his door.
Two men approached.
Another man in medical scrubs was waiting beside an elevator.
Luca tried to stand.
His knees nearly gave.
Olivia caught his arm.
He looked annoyed.
“At me?” she asked.
“At the situation.”
“Good. Because if you fall on me, I’m leaving you there.”
“Noted.”
They took him upstairs.
The building above the garage was nothing like Olivia expected.
No gold statues.
No velvet curtains.
No movie-villain mansion.
It was a private residence above an old renovated warehouse, spare and quiet, with brick walls, dark wood, and enormous windows overlooking the river.
The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Samuel Greene.
He did not ask questions.
Olivia noticed that immediately.
He cut Luca’s shirt.
Examined the wound.
Then looked at Marco.
“Through-and-through. Missed anything vital by what appears to be luck.”
Marco looked at Olivia.
“Not luck.”
Luca was watching her too.
Olivia felt uncomfortable under both men’s attention.
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You covered him,” Marco said.
“That’s something.”
“I panicked.”
Luca’s voice came from the table.
“No.”
Everyone looked at him.
He was pale, but conscious.
“You didn’t.”
Olivia crossed her arms.
“You don’t know me.”
“I know panic.”
There was something in the way he said it that stopped her answer.
Dr. Greene began preparing a local anesthetic.
Marco moved toward the door.
Olivia followed.
Luca spoke.
“Wait.”
She turned.
“Why?”
“I want to talk to you.”
“You’re being stitched.”
“That has never stopped me before.”
Dr. Greene sighed.
“It should.”
Olivia hesitated.
Then sat in the chair near the wall.
Luca watched the doctor work without flinching.
“You were crossing the street when the first shot came,” he said.
“Yes.”
“You could have run.”
“I know.”
“You didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
She had been asking herself the same question.
“I saw you fall.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the one I have.”
Luca studied her.
Her hands were shaking now.
Not during the shooting.
Now.
He noticed.
“You’re scared.”
“Yes.”
“Of me?”
Olivia gave him a tired look.
“I just got dragged into a black SUV by men calling you boss.”
“Fair.”
“Are you really what people say?”
Marco, standing by the door, became completely still.
Luca’s eyes remained on hers.
“People say many things.”
“That’s not an answer either.”
“No.”
The doctor finished the first layer of stitches.
Luca’s jaw tightened.
Olivia watched his hand close around the edge of the table.
“Does it hurt?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
He looked at her.
She added, “That means you’re alive.”
For the first time, Luca truly smiled.
It was brief.
Unexpected.
And it transformed his face so completely that Olivia understood something dangerous.
Men like Luca Moretti were not frightening because they never looked human.
They were frightening because sometimes they did.
Marco’s phone rang.
He stepped into the hallway.
Olivia looked at the cracked silver watch placed on the table beside Luca’s folded jacket.
“You dropped that.”
Luca followed her gaze.
His expression changed.
“Bring it here.”
She picked it up.
The crystal had cracked across the face.
The hands had stopped.
12:17.
She turned it over.
There was a small black mark near the clasp.
A symbol.
Two crossing lines inside a circle.
Luca’s face went blank.
“Where did you see that?”
“On the watch.”
Marco appeared in the doorway.
“What?”
Luca held out his hand.
Olivia passed him the watch.
Marco looked at the mark.
Color drained from his face.
“That wasn’t there this morning.”
Luca’s voice became very quiet.
“No.”
Olivia looked between them.
“What does it mean?”
Neither man answered.
Then Marco’s phone buzzed.
He checked the screen.
His entire posture changed.
“What?”
Luca asked.
Marco looked at Olivia.
Then at Luca.
“We pulled street camera footage.”
“And?”
“The shooter wasn’t aiming at you first.”
Luca’s eyes narrowed.
Marco turned the phone around.
A grainy frame showed the Midtown street seconds before the attack.
Olivia stood near the curb.
Behind her, a man lifted his weapon.
But the barrel was not pointed toward Luca.
It was pointed directly at her.
Olivia stopped breathing.
Marco swiped to the next image.
A second figure stood in the reflection of a storefront.
Someone Olivia knew.
Someone she had spoken to that very morning.
Someone who should never have been there.
Her phone began ringing inside her bag.
She pulled it out.
The caller ID appeared.
DANIEL CARTER.
Her younger brother.
Olivia answered.
“Daniel?”
For two seconds, there was only breathing.
Then a man’s voice whispered:
“Olivia, don’t go home.”
May you like
The line went dead.
And someone knocked three times on Luca Moretti’s private door.
