Chapter 2 - The Ghost of the Past
Dawn was breaking over Baltimore, casting a sickly, gray light across the harbor when Alessandro’s blacked-out SUV convoy tore through the gates of an abandoned shipping yard in Locust Point.
Inside the armored vehicle, the silence was suffocating.
Logan had finally fallen asleep, curled up in my lap with Captain Bear clutched tightly in his fist. His breathing was soft and even, completely unaware that his life—and mine—had just been upended by a dead man and a mafia boss.
Across from us sat Alessandro. He had refused a wheelchair, pulling a black wool overcoat over his hospital trousers and bandages. The only sign of his near-death experience was the pale, sweat-slicked pallor of his skin and the faint red stain blooming over his chest.
“You’re insane,” I said, breaking the silence for the tenth time. My voice was hoarse. “You break out of a hospital, you terrorize a staff, and now you’re dragging me and my son into an abandoned warehouse? If David is alive, why hasn't he come back? Why did he let me suffer?”
“Suffering is a luxury compared to execution,” Alessandro replied, not looking at me. He was staring out the bulletproof window at the rusted cranes lining the docks. “Five years ago, your husband didn't crash into a telephone pole because he was drunk. He was running.”
“Running from what?”
“From me.” Alessandro turned his head, his dark eyes locking onto mine with an unsettling intensity. “David Winters wasn't an ordinary accountant. For three years, he cooked the books for the city’s largest real estate syndicate—a syndicate run by a man named Marcus Vance. You remember Marcus, don't you? Your old landlord? The man who bought up half your neighborhood before he mysteriously disappeared?”
My breath caught. “Marcus… Marcus foreclosed on our first apartment. He ruined David’s firm.”
“Marcus is my primary rival,” Alessandro said smoothly. “And David found out that Marcus wasn't just laundering money through real estate—he was funding an internal war to overthrow my family. When David tried to walk away, Marcus threatened to kill you and the newborn baby. So, David came to me.”
The world tilted. I gripped Logan tighter, my knuckles aching.
“He came to the head of the mafia?” I whispered, disbelief warring with a sickening realization.
“He offered me Marcus’s entire ledger in exchange for one thing: absolute erasure,” Alessandro said. “He wanted a clean slate. He wanted a corpse left in a burned-out sedan so Marcus would stop hunting him. I gave him the corpse. I gave him the wreckage. I gave him a new passport, a new face in a different country, and enough cash to start over—on one condition.”
“What condition?”
“That he work off his debt to me,” Alessandro said coldly. “A man doesn't walk away from the syndicate for free, Catherine. He bought your safety with his indentured servitude. For two years, he has been my most brilliant operative overseas. But a week ago, Marcus found out the truth. He found out David’s family was still in Baltimore. That’s why I was ambushed last night. And that’s why you’re no longer safe in your little apartment.”
The doors of the SUV slid open.
Before I could process the avalanche of lies, half-truths, and terrifying realities, Viktor pulled the door open on my side.
“Boss, we’ve got company,” Viktor muttered, his hand resting on his holster. “Vance’s clean-up crew is moving in. Three unmarked sedans just cleared the perimeter gate.”
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Alessandro didn't panic. He moved with cold, calculated precision. He reached across the seat, gently scooped a sleeping Logan into his arms with surprising tenderness—a gesture so bizarrely paternal it made my head spin—and looked down at me.
“Stay close to me, Catherine,” Alessandro commanded, stepping out onto the wet asphalt as the wind whipped his coat around his legs. “If you want to see David again, you’re going to have to survive the morning.”
