Chapter 1 - The Men in BlackThe Market Went Silent Before the Shooting Started
Three men in black coats had just entered the market.
All three were looking directly at us.
For one strange second, I thought they were customers.
Then the man in front raised his right hand.
Not waving.
Pointing.
Dante moved before I understood why.
One second, he was standing beside my table.
The next, his arm was across my chest, forcing me backward.
"Down."
His voice was quiet.
That scared me more than if he had shouted.
I ducked just as the first gunshot cracked across the market.
People screamed.
A fruit stand overturned.
Someone knocked over a crate of apples, and red and green fruit rolled across the pavement as customers stampeded between the stalls.
Another shot punched through the wooden sign above my head.
Dante grabbed my waist and dragged me behind a steel support post.
"Stay here."
"Who are they?"
He ignored me.
His eyes had changed.
There was nothing humanly soft left in them.
Dante stepped from behind the post.
The market had become chaos.
Marco was already moving.
He drew a handgun from beneath his coat and fired twice.
One of the men in black stumbled behind a flower stall.
The other two scattered.
Dante didn't shoot.
He simply walked.
That was somehow worse.
He moved with the certainty of someone who already knew how the scene would end.
A man appeared from behind a food truck and fired.
Dante tilted his head.
The bullet missed him by inches.
Then Dante hit him.
One blow.
The man collapsed.
I stared.
The stories I'd heard about Dante Russo had always sounded exaggerated.
People said he could make men disappear.
People said police officers lowered their voices when they spoke his name.
People said entire businesses closed when his cars entered the neighborhood.
I had never believed half of it.
I believed it now.
"Get in the truck," Dante said.
I stepped out from behind the post.
"My table."
He looked at me.
"What?"
"My money."
For the first time all morning, Dante looked completely stunned.
"The market is being shot up and you're worried about your cash box?"
"It's rent."
Something almost resembling a smile touched his mouth.
Then another shot rang out.
He grabbed my hand.
"Now."
We ran.
A black SUV screeched to the curb.
Marco opened the rear door.
I climbed in.
Dante followed.
The truck accelerated before the door had fully closed.
I looked through the rear window.
The three men were gone.
My market was still there.
My awning was still leaning.
My honey table was still standing.
But blood was spreading across the pavement between my jars.
I turned toward Dante.
"Who were those men?"
He looked out the window.
"People I was hoping would never find you."
My throat tightened.
"Why would they be looking for me?"
Dante finally faced me.
"Because they know you."
"I've never met them."
"No."
His voice became quieter.
"They know something about you that you don't."
I shook my head.
"That's impossible."
Dante reached into his coat.
He pulled out a photograph.
I took it.
My fingers froze.
It showed a woman standing beside an old barn.
She had dark hair.
Hazel eyes.
A small scar above her eyebrow.
I knew her.
Not because I'd met her.
Because I'd seen her face before.
On a newspaper clipping from eleven years earlier.
The woman was Dante's wife.
Sofia Russo.
But there was something in the background.
Something I had never noticed in the photographs I'd seen.
The barn behind her had a painted sign.
A yellow honeybee.
My stomach dropped.
"That's my father's barn."
Dante nodded.
"I know."
I looked at him.
"You knew my father?"
"He was alive the night Sofia was killed."
The truck suddenly felt too small.
"My father died eight years ago."
"I know."
"But Sofia was murdered six years ago."
"I know."
I stared at him.
"Then why are you telling me this?"
Dante leaned forward.
His expression was completely serious.
"Because your father left something behind."
"What?"
Dante looked at the photograph in my hand.
"Something three men just risked starting a war to find."
I swallowed.
"What did he leave?"
Dante's eyes met mine.
"I don't know."
The vehicle stopped at a red light.
For the first time, the silence inside the truck felt heavier than the gunfire we'd escaped.
Then Marco looked in the rearview mirror.
His face had gone pale.
"Dante."
"What?"
Marco pointed behind us.
A second black SUV had appeared at the intersection.
Dante looked.
The vehicle accelerated.
"So they're following us?"
"Yes."
"Can they find this place?"
Dante reached beneath his seat and pulled out a second gun.
"They already did."
The black SUV rammed our rear bumper.
I screamed.
Dante grabbed the handle above my door.
"Hold on."
The truck swerved.
Another impact.
Glass exploded beside my head.
And as we entered the next intersection, Dante whispered something that chilled me more than the gunshots.
"They aren't trying to kill me."
I looked at him.
"Then who are they trying to kill?"
May you like
He stared directly at me.
"You."
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