Chapter 1 - The Crosshairs
The text message screen glared back at me in the dim interior of the private terminal lounge, the five words glowing like neon warning lights: We know who she is.
Beneath it, the attached image showed the exact moment on the flight when I had leaned my head onto Vincent Moretti’s shoulder, seeking a moment of safety from a stranger’s glare. Now, that staged intimacy had turned into a bullseye painted directly on my fourteen-month-old daughter, Lily.
My breath caught in my throat. The suitcases beside my feet suddenly felt like lead weights, and the cold reality of my new life in Chicago dissolved into raw, suffocating panic. Just three weeks ago, my biggest problem had been my ex-husband Ryan changing the locks and walking away with our savings. That heartbreak felt like a minor inconvenience compared to the sheer, terrifying magnitude of what I had just walked into.
Vincent stepped closer, his dark eyes instantly tracking the shift in my posture. He didn't need to look at my phone to know what had happened; the rigid tension in my shoulders told him everything.
"Emily," he said, his voice dropping into that quiet, commanding register that had silenced the complaining passenger on the airplane. He reached out, his hand hovering inches from my shoulder before pulling back, as if remembering that touch might draw even more attention. "Give me the phone."
With trembling fingers, I unlocked the screen and handed it to him.
Vincent stared at the display. The calm, untouchable composure I had admired on the flight vanished, replaced by a dark, hard glare that made the air around him feel heavy. For a second, the mafia boss—the man whispered about in hushed tones across boardrooms and federal briefings—stepped out from behind the polite gentleman who had picked up Lily's stuffed rabbit.
"Who sent this?" I whispered, my voice barely audible over the hum of the private terminal's ventilation system.
"An old associate," Vincent replied coldly, typing a rapid response into his own secure device without breaking eye contact with the screen. "Or rather, a rival who thinks he's found a leverage point. When you sit next to a man like me, enemies spend years looking for a weakness. They spent the entire flight watching us, and now they think they've found mine."
"Your weakness?" I clutched Lily tighter against my chest. The little girl let out a soft murmur, her tiny hand sleepily patting my collarbone, completely unaware that her mother had just traded a messy divorce for a criminal war zone. "Vincent, I have nothing to do with this! I met you two hours ago! Can't you just tell them the truth? Tell them I'm a random passenger you asked to play a part?"
Vincent looked down at me, and the expression in his eyes softened with a grim, apologetic sorrow.
"In our world, Emily, perception is the only reality that matters," he said quietly. "To my enemies, you aren't a random passenger anymore. You are the woman who chose to sit at my side, the woman I shielded from cameras, the woman photographed resting her head against my heart. Once an image like that starts circulating among the syndicates, explanations don't matter. Only targets matter."
Before I could process the terrifying weight of his words, the lead man in the sharp black suit—the one who had addressed him as Mr. Moretti—stepped forward. His name badge read Marcus, and his eyes scanned the perimeter of the private terminal with military precision.
"Boss, the perimeter is secured, but our digital surveillance team is flagging three separate data packets pinging our location from the public arrival gate," Marcus reported, his voice clipped and urgent. "They knew which flight we were on. Someone tipped them off the moment we boarded in New York."
Vincent slipped my phone back into my pocket, his jaw clenched tight. "Clear the convoy route. We're not going to the downtown safehouse. Too predictable."
"Where are we going?" I asked, my voice rising in panic as Marcus gestured toward the waiting black SUVs.
May you like
Vincent looked at me, then down at Lily, who was beginning to stir and rub her sleepy eyes. The decision he made in that fraction of a second was clear: he could not abandon us, because walking away from us now would be handing his enemies a loaded weapon.
"You're coming with me," Vincent said, leaving no room for argument. "And until I neutralize the threat, you and Lily are staying under my roof."
