A black SUV sat by the gas station at the entrance. It had been sitting there for fifteen minutes before it finally pulled away. I'd never seen that car in this town before.
Maybe just tourists passing through. Blackhill got out-of-towners sometimes. But my gut told me otherwise. After thirty years in this business, instinct was the weapon that kept me alive. It had never lied to me.
The next day, the SUV came back. Same spot, same time frame. Stayed twelve minutes, then left. Third day, it returned. This time, it parked closer to the center of town.
I snapped a photo of the plates and sent it to Luca.
His reply came four hours later. He'd traced the registration to a company called Blue Ridge Investments. On paper, they did real estate development. But Luca dug through the ownership structure and found three layers of shell companies. At the bottom was a link to a guy named Marcello, one of Julian's men. Marcello handled Julian's money laundering.
Huh. Julian.
I gave him everything. I thought that would be enough. But clearly, as long as I was still breathing, Julian's seat would never feel secure. People in the family knew who the real king was. Even if that king had stepped down. As long as I had breath in my lungs, Julian would never sit easy in that chair.
He wouldn't let me go. And he wouldn't let Chloe and Emily go either.
But what really set off alarm bells wasn't Julian himself. I knew his crew—bunch of drunken idiots. I could handle them alone.
But these weren't Julian's men. This was Carmine Elite Squad style.
That unit was made up of veterans Carmine brought back from Palermo in the nineties.
Every single one had seen combat and had kills under their belt.Once they took a contract, there was no backing out. Even if the client died, they'd see it through. I'd trained with them when I was younger. I knew their tactical manual by heart. Which also meant they knew my habits, my playbook.
Julian had called them in. He was using Carmine's old connections and resources. This wasn't an impulse. He'd thought it through. He was going to rip me and everyone around me out by the roots in one move.
I walked to the dim window. The warm yellow light in Chloe's little window had just gone out.
She'd probably put Emily to sleep and gone to bed herself. She had no idea that on the edge of this quiet town, trained killers were lurking in the shadows like snakes.
I would never let that filth touch her or my daughter again.
Even if I had to trade my life for theirs.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chloe
Ever since Enzo became employee number two at the flower shop, things between us had thawed. Considerably.
Everyone probably figured out he was here for me. But I never admitted it, and no one asked. We all just... knew.
Enzo threw himself into the work. Orders had exploded lately—people coming from miles away just to buy flowers. I half-suspected some post had gone viral online, turning us into some kind of Instagram hotspot.
But when I searched, I found nothing.
The surge in orders turned Enzo from customer to unofficial employee. Every day I watched this infamous former New York mob boss haul flowers around until he was filthy and disheveled. It was surreal.
Enzo had always been proud. Distant. Now we were squeezed into this tiny shop together, wrapping bouquets, teasing Emily in the back room. It felt like whiplash.
Like everything in New York had been a dream. Like we were just an ordinary couple in a small town. Happy, even.
But I never gave him any real signals. I wasn't about to repeat past mistakes.
Today, Enzo didn't show up at the shop. I wasn't sure what game he was playing this time. Then he knocked on my door that evening, and the second he walked in, I knew something was different. His shoulders were tighter than usual, lips pressed into a hard line. His eyes swept all four corners of the shop before landing on my face.
He braced both hands on the counter and spoke low.
"Chloe, I need you and Emily to leave town for a while. I've arranged a place in another city."
