Chapter 1 - The Man in the AlleyThe rain didn't wash the city clean.
It only made the grime slicker.
Cora Davis leaned her forehead against the freezing glass of the subway car and watched neon signs bleed into the puddles sliding past the window. Her reflection looked as exhausted as she felt.
Twenty-four years old.
Fourteen hours on her feet.
Six dollars spent on dinner.
Four dollars and twelve cents left in her checking account.
And exactly three hours before she had to wake up and do it all over again.
Her stomach gave a hollow growl.
She looked down at the plastic bag resting in her lap.
Inside was a styrofoam container filled with chicken and rice from the halal cart on Fourth Street. Steam had already fogged the lid.
She had bought it because she'd promised herself she would eat something real tonight.
Not coffee.
Not crackers.
Not the stale bread she'd stolen from the restaurant kitchen after closing.
Food.
A proper meal.
Tomorrow, she could worry about being hungry again.
The train screeched into her station.
Cora pulled the collar of her threadbare wool coat around her neck and stepped into the freezing rain.
Her apartment building was only two blocks away, but she never used the front entrance.
The lock had been broken since August.
The hallway smelled like stale alcohol, wet concrete, and whatever Henderson on the second floor had poured down his sink that morning.
So Cora always used the alley.
She turned the corner.
And stopped.
The alley was almost completely dark.
A dying sodium lamp flickered above the dumpsters.
Rain tapped against metal fire escapes.
Water streamed along the cracked pavement.
Then she smelled it.
Copper.
Blood.
Cora's grip tightened around the plastic bag.
She took one step backward.
A wet cough came from the darkness.
Then another.
A shadow shifted between the dumpsters.
Cora froze.
A man was sitting against the brick wall.
He was huge.
One leg stretched across the pavement.
An expensive black leather shoe rested in a puddle.
The water around it wasn't dirty.
It was dark red.
Blood.
The man's suit was soaked through, the expensive fabric torn beneath his ribs.
His left hand was clamped over the wound.
His right hand held a pistol.
"Don't."
His voice was barely a whisper.
Cora stopped breathing.
"Don't run. Don't scream."
"I'm just going to my apartment."
"Cell phone."
"I don't..."
"Take it out."
She slowly raised both hands.
"I'm not calling the police."
His eyes lifted toward her.
Even in the darkness, Cora could see how dangerous they were.
Cold.
Focused.
Predatory.
"Take it out."
She reached into her coat pocket.
He tightened his grip on the gun.
Cora pulled out her phone.
Instead of handing it over, she held it up.
"I have one emergency contact. The police."
His expression changed.
"Delete it."
"I'm not deleting anything."
For a second, neither moved.
Then the lamp flickered again.
The light caught his face.
Cora stared.
He looked like someone who belonged on a magazine cover, not dying beside a dumpster.
Dark hair.
Sharp cheekbones.
A split lower lip.
Bruising along his jaw.
And a pair of black eyes that looked almost unreal.
He looked at her.
Then at the food in her hand.
Then back at her.
"Go inside."
His voice had weakened.
"You don't want to be here."
Cora knew that.
She also knew what shock looked like.
She had seen it on her father's face years earlier.
The trembling.
The pale skin.
The distant eyes.
The slow breaths.
"You need a hospital."
"No."
"You're bleeding to death."
"No hospital."
"You need stitches."
"No."
"No cops?"
"No."
Cora stared at the gun.
Then the blood.
Then the gun again.
"You are extremely annoying for someone who is actively dying."
Something almost resembling amusement crossed his face.
"Go."
She walked toward him.
His gun rose.
"Stop."
"You don't have the strength to shoot me."
His eyes narrowed.
She dropped to her knees.
"Move your hand."
"Touch me and I kill you."
"Sure."
She grabbed the scarf from her neck, bundled it into a thick pad, and shoved his bloody hand away.
He hissed.
Cora pressed the scarf against his wound.
His entire body went rigid.
Then his hand clamped around her wrist.
The grip was brutal.
"You don't know what you're doing."
"I know you're losing too much blood."
"You should be afraid."
"I am."
She looked directly into his eyes.
"I'm just too tired to care right now."
For the first time, he said nothing.
Cora guided his hand back over the scarf.
"Keep pressure."
His jaw clenched.
She looked at the food bag beside her.
Her stomach twisted.
She opened the container.
Steam rose into the cold night.
The man stared at it.
"You can't be serious."
"Eat."
"What?"
"Eat."
"I don't need..."
"Protein. Carbs. Calories. Shock is going to make this worse."
"I said no."
"Then die."
His eyes flicked toward her.
Cora picked up a piece of chicken.
She held it in front of his mouth.
"Open."
He stared at her as though she had lost her mind.
"Are you insane?"
"I'm working fourteen hours a day, I'm broke, and I haven't slept properly in a week. I don't have enough energy to argue with a bleeding man in an alley."
His lips parted.
She fed him.
He chewed slowly.
She gave him another bite.
Then rice.
Then chicken.
Then rice.
For nearly ten minutes, the world became strangely quiet.
Rain.
Breathing.
Chewing.
Cora's fingers.
His eyes.
Nothing else.
When the container was empty, she dropped it into the dumpster.
Headlights swept across the alley.
A black SUV stopped at the entrance.
The wounded man's posture changed.
His eyes sharpened.
"They're here."
Cora stood.
"Good."
She started toward the fire escape.
He watched her.
"Wait."
She stopped.
"What?"
"Your name."
"Cora."
"Cora what?"
She smiled bitterly.
"Nobody important."
She climbed the ladder.
He called after her.
"Cora Davis."
She froze.
She turned.
His eyes were on her.
"You should know my name too."
She waited.
"My name is Dante Moretti."
Her stomach dropped.
The name meant nothing to her.
Until she remembered where she'd heard it.
A restaurant customer had whispered it one night.
Then another.
Always in the same tone.
Fear.
Respect.
Silence.
Dante Moretti.
The man whose name people lowered their voices to say.
The man who supposedly owned half the city's underground businesses.
The man who had survived three assassination attempts.
Cora stared down at him.
He looked back.
"Go inside," he said quietly.
She climbed through her window.
The black SUV remained parked across the street.
For one hour.
Then two.
Cora finally fell asleep at 4:17 a.m.
She never saw the man standing in the rain beneath her window.
Dante Moretti had already recovered enough to stand.
And he hadn't come there to watch her.
He had come to make sure someone else didn't.
Because three minutes before Cora entered that alley, Dante had heard something his men hadn't.
A second set of footsteps.
May you like
Someone had followed him there.
And whoever had shot him was still looking for the woman who had fed him her last meal.
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