haven

Chapter 2 - The Edge of the Ravine

Rain poured down my face, washing away streaks of mud and Dante Moretti’s blood.

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. Ten red laser sights were still pointed at my chest from the roadside above, but Dante’s iron grip on my wrist never loosened.

“Speak,” Dante commanded, his voice raspy from the smoke, but filled with the unshakable authority of a man who ruled an empire.

“Your wife,” I gasped, my teeth chattering from the freezing rain and sheer shock. “Twenty minutes ago at Bellini’s. In Booth 4. She was with a man in a charcoal pinstripe suit with a silver dragon crest on his cufflinks.”

Dante’s eyes narrowed into slits of lethal steel. The fingers around my wrist tightened slightly.

“Julian Sterling,” Dante murmured, his voice dropping into a register colder than the mountain storm.

“She asked if the brakes were done,” I continued, wiping wet hair from my eyes with my free hand. “He said they were cut just enough to fail on the mountain curves. She laughed and said that by midnight, she’d be a grieving widow. I ran out to stop you, but you had already driven off.”

Marcus Stone, the broad-shouldered head of Dante’s private security detail, slid down the muddy embankment, his sidearm lowered, his face pale with horror.

“Mr. Moretti! Are you injured, sir?” Marcus asked, extending a hand to support him.

“Minor concussive trauma and two cracked ribs,” Dante replied, standing up with difficulty, leaning heavily against the rock face.

Marcus looked down into the smoldering ravine where the remains of the $300,000 Maybach were burning. “Sir, I will call the state police and dispatch three tactical teams to arrest Mrs. Moretti and Sterling immediately.”

“No,” Dante said.

The word cut through the wind like a razor blade.

Marcus paused. “Sir?”

“If you arrest them now, Sterling’s legal team will claim plausible deniability, and Vanessa will play the hysterical, innocent wife,” Dante said, looking at the smoke rising from the gorge. “As far as the world, the press, and my wife are concerned... Dante Moretti died at the bottom of this mountain tonight.”

Dante looked back at me, his gaze sweeping over my bleeding palms, my torn uniform, and my shivering frame.

“Who else knows you were following me, Cara?” Dante asked.

“Nobody,” I replied. “I just grabbed my keys and ran out of the restaurant.”

May you like

Dante nodded to Marcus.

“Take her car, stage it three miles down the service road, and bring Cara with us,” Dante ordered. “She stays under twenty-four-hour level-one protective custody. She just saved my life, and until I settle this debt, she is the most valuable asset in this city.”

Related Stories

Other posts