Chapter 1 - The Account in the LedgerThe leather upholstery of the armored SUV smelled faintly of expensive cedar, fresh leather, and the metallic sharpness of gunsmoke.
Outside the tinted, bulletproof windows, the neon lights of Boston’s Seaport District blurred into long, rain-slick streaks of crimson and gold as the vehicle tore through the night at ninety miles an hour.
I sat pressed against the far door, my knees pulled tightly against my chest, my hands trembling violently as I tried to wipe the dry alcohol and floor dust from my cocktail apron. My cocktail dress was ripped along the left seam from where Matteo had hauled me over his shoulder, and my bare shoulder throbbed where his heavy fingers had gripped me.
Beside me, Matteo Conti sat in total, absolute stillness.
He didn't look like a man who had just dodged a three-man assassination squad in the VIP lounge of the Velvet Room. He pulled an ironed silk handkerchief from his breast pocket, dabbing at the thin line of red running along his sharp jawline where flying glass from the wooden pillar had nicked his skin.
My voice rasped out, thin, sharp, and laced with a terrifying, sudden realization: "You know about my mother?"
Matteo didn't turn his head immediately. He finished folding his handkerchief, tucking it away with a practiced, methodical precision before turning his dark gray eyes onto mine. Under the dim amber interior lighting of the SUV, those eyes didn't look like the eyes of a patron at a bar. They looked like two pieces of polished granite.
"Sarah Miller," Matteo spoke softly, his deep baritone carrying smooth and unhurried over the hum of the twin-turbo engine. "Fifty-four years old. Diagnosed with early-onset progressive neuropathy three years ago. Currently residing at St. Jude’s Assisted Living Facility on Beacon Street. Monthly care fee: four thousand two hundred dollars. You were short forty dollars on the secondary installment due at midnight tonight."
Cold horror washed over me, far colder than the November wind outside. My jaw sagged open, my breath catching violently in my lungs.
"You... you've been tracking me?" I choked out, horror twisting my gut into a tight, agonizing knot. "I'm a cocktail waitress, Matteo! I serve gin and tonics to drunk tourists! Why the hell are you keeping tabs on my mother's nursing home bills?!"
"Because your manager at the Velvet Room, Jimmy Morales," Matteo answered deadpan, leaning back against the leather headrest, "isn't just a manager. He operates an illegal secondary sports-gambling book out of the basement freezer. Two weeks ago, Jimmy took a three-hundred-thousand-dollar credit line from a crew operating out of Providence—the same crew that sent those three shooters into my lounge tonight."
I stared at him, my mind frantically spinning, trying to connect the absurd, terrifying dots.
"Jimmy... Jimmy borrowed money from hitmen?" I rasped out.
"Jimmy put up his bar staff's private background registries as secondary collateral," Matteo revealed cleanly, every word dropped with absolute, forensic weight. "He told Providence that if he defaulted, they could use his employees' identities to set up shell accounts for money laundering. I audited Jimmy's book three days ago. I found your name on his secondary ledger, Maya."
My hands flew up to cover my mouth as a sharp, sob-like gasp escaped my throat. "Oh my God... my mother... if they have my records—"
"They won't touch your mother," Matteo interrupted smoothly, his gray eyes locking onto mine with an absolute, unyielding intensity that made the air in the vehicle go still. "Because as of five minutes ago, Jimmy Morales is no longer operating in Boston. And you are no longer a cocktail waitress at the Velvet Room."
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"Where are you taking me, Matteo?!" I demanded, terror breaking through my shock as the SUV took a sharp, screeching left turn onto the private bridge leading toward the gated estates of North Shore.
"To my estate in Marblehead," Matteo replied cleanly. "Where no one from Providence—or Boston—can reach you."
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