Chapter 1 - THE BULLET AT THE WEDDING
Tommy saw the bullet hole.
His expression changed.
“Everybody down!”
The warning came too late to prevent panic.
A woman screamed. Someone overturned a chair. Glass shattered as guests rushed away from the eastern windows.
Behind the stone pillar, Edmund Costa held his new wife against him.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
Vivien looked up at him.
“You're bleeding.”
He glanced at his left hand.
A thin cut crossed his knuckles where broken crystal had struck him.
“It's nothing.”
“That's what men say right before they faint.”
He stared at her.
She stared back.
Then another shot cracked through the window.
Edmund pulled her lower.
The bullet struck the marble wall behind them.
“Tommy!” he shouted.
“Working on it, boss!”
Edmund pressed a hand against Vivien's shoulder.
“Listen carefully. When I tell you to move, you go through that door.”
He pointed toward a narrow passage beside the former cathedral's sanctuary.
“What about you?”
“I'll follow.”
She studied his face.
“You're lying.”
His jaw tightened.
“Vivien—”
“You're planning to stay here and play hero.”
“I'm planning to keep you alive.”
“Wonderful. We agree on something.”
He looked confused.
She grabbed his hand.
“Then we're leaving together.”
For a moment, Edmund Costa, the most feared mafia boss in Chicago, appeared genuinely speechless.
Then he laughed.
One short, disbelieving sound.
“You've been my wife for two hours.”
“And already I'm improving your decision-making.”
Another crash echoed across the hall.
Tommy shouted that security had identified a possible firing position in an unfinished office building across the street.
Edmund guided Vivien through the narrow passage.
They emerged in a private corridor.
Two guards joined them.
Within minutes, they reached an armored vehicle behind the cathedral.
Vivien climbed inside.
Edmund followed.
The door slammed.
The car accelerated into the night.
Only then did Vivien realize her hands were shaking.
Edmund noticed.
He reached toward her.
She pulled away instinctively.
“Don't.”
He stopped.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then he said, “You saved my life.”
Vivien looked out the window.
“Don't sound so surprised.”
“Most people would have run.”
“Most people weren't being used as a human shield at their own wedding.”
His expression darkened.
“I didn't use you.”
She turned.
“You kept me between yourself and the window.”
“Because you put yourself there before I knew what was happening. I was trying to move us to cover.”
Vivien studied him.
She wanted to argue.
But she remembered his first question after the shot.
Are you hurt?
Not whether his enemies had escaped.
Not whether the guests had seen him frightened.
Whether she was hurt.
That complicated things.
Edmund leaned back.
“Who taught you to recognize a targeting laser?”
Vivien hesitated.
“My mother.”
He turned toward her.
“Your mother?”
“She worked in emergency medicine. She taught me to pay attention to things other people ignore.”
“That doesn't explain how you knew what the light meant.”
Vivien looked down.
“No.”
Edmund waited.
Finally, she whispered, “Because someone tried to kill her the same way.”
The silence inside the car changed.
Edmund sat forward.
“Who?”
Vivien looked into his pale gray eyes.
“My father told me it was an accident.”
Her voice trembled.
“But tonight, when I saw that red dot, I realized something.”
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“What?”
“The person who tried to kill you may be the same person who murdered my mother.”
