Chapter 1 - The Shadow Outside the WindowThe phone felt ice-cold against my ear despite the humid night air rolling off the Aegean Sea.
I stood frozen beside my bedroom window on the third floor of the dilapidated apartment complex, looking down into the narrow, cobblestone alleyway below.
The headlights of the sleek black Mercedes-Maybach cut through the darkness, casting long, dramatic shadows against the whitewashed stone walls of Oia. Dante Moretti stood beside the open rear door. He wasn't wearing his sunglasses now. His dark, impenetrable eyes were fixed directly on mine, as if three flights of stairs and fifty feet of distance were nothing to him.
"You knew my real name before you walked into Bella Vista?" I whispered, my voice trembling so violently that I had to press my other hand against the window frame for support. "Who are you?"
"I told you who I am, Emily," Dante’s gravelly baritone resonated through the receiver, smooth and laced with an authority that sent a shiver straight down my spine. "I am the man who warned you to stay away."
"Then why are you standing outside my building at one in the morning?"
"Because three hours ago, a man named Tyler Vance—a mid-level enforcer for a debt syndicate in Columbus, Ohio—landed at the airport in Thira," Dante stated flatly, his tone completely devoid of hesitation. "He paid a local informant four thousand euros to find out which restaurant hired an American girl named Emily Hart."
My heart stopped beating. The air left my lungs in a sharp, painful gasp.
Tyler Vance.
My stepfather’s younger brother. The man who had spent six months hunting me down after I took the six thousand dollars my late father had left in a private trust fund—money my stepfather claimed belonged to his gambling debts.
"He's here..." I choked out, tears stinging behind my eyes as the terror I had spent three months running from came crashing back through my quiet sanctuary. "How... how did he find me?"
"You used your real Social Security number when you transferred funds to your Greek bank account two weeks ago," Dante replied smoothly. "A foolish mistake, mia cara. But understandable for someone playing at hiding."
Dante reached into his dark wool coat, taking out a silver lighter, lighting a thin cigarette without taking his eyes off my window.
"You have two choices, Emily," Dante said, blowing a cloud of gray smoke into the night air. "You can stay in that room, wait for Tyler to break through your flimsy deadbolt by three AM, and let him drag you back to Ohio... or you can walk down those stairs and get into my car."
I stared down at him—the feared Italian crime boss whose name had just produced three pages of unsealed Interpol inquiries on my cracked phone screen.
"Why are you offering to help me?" I asked, my knuckles white around the phone. "You don't know me!"
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"I know you took a dare to sit at my table today," Dante murmured, his voice dropping into a low, velvet register that made my chest heave. "I know you didn't flinch when I told you to be afraid. And I know that if you step into my car tonight, you will never have to run from anyone again."
I didn't answer. I hung up the phone, grabbed my canvas bag containing my passport and my father's silver watch, turned off the light, and ran down the stairs into the dark alley.
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