Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
DENVER
Dante
Of all the cities Lorenzo could have sent me, it had to be Denver.
I downshift as I take the curve onto I-70, the Ducati responding like an extension of my body. The night air cuts through my leather jacket, cold enough to sting. I don't mind. The cold keeps me sharp.
The Rocky Mountains rise in the distance, snow-capped and indifferent. Beautiful, I suppose. If you're the type to notice that sort of thing.
I'm not. Not today.
Today I'm here for business. A debt that's three months overdue. Some tech entrepreneur who thought he could borrow from the Sartori family and disappear into the mountains. Thought distance would protect him.
It won't.
Lorenzo didn't even have to ask. I volunteered.
Denver, I said, when the name came up in the meeting. I'll handle it.
Nico looked at me. That knowing look he gets sometimes, the one that makes me want to put my fist through his face. He didn't say anything. He never does. But he knows.
They all know.
She lives here.
Marina Reeves. Sophia's best friend. The woman I carried out of that apartment two years ago, her blood soaking through my shirt. The woman who told me to leave her hospital room and never come back.
I left.
I've been leaving ever since.
But I know her address. Her work schedule. The route she takes to the bus stop every morning. The coffee shop she goes to on Saturdays.
I know everything.
Monitoring, I tell myself. Making sure she's safe.
I take the exit toward downtown, weaving through traffic.
The GPS on my phone directs me toward the address Nico provided. Some office building in LoDo. Our debtor has been hiding in plain sight. Working a consulting job. Living in a nice apartment. Acting like he doesn't owe us two hundred thousand dollars.
He's about to learn that distance doesn't erase debt.
I stop at a red light. A woman crosses in front of me, brown hair, average height. My chest tightens for a half-second before I see her face.
Not her.
Never her.
I've done this a thousand times. Seen her in every crowd, every street corner, every flash of brown hair and blue-green eyes. It's pathetic.
The light changes. I accelerate harder than necessary.
The thing about Marina is—
No. I'm not doing this. Not today.
Today is business. Clean, simple, professional. I'll find Webb, explain the situation, collect what's owed. If he cooperates, he walks away with a warning and a payment plan. If he doesn't...
Well. That's why Lorenzo sent me.
I pull into a parking garage two blocks from the target location. The Ducati's engine echoes off concrete walls as I find a spot near the exit. Always near the exit. Old habits.
I kill the engine and sit for a moment, helmet still on. The silence presses in.
She's three miles from here. Maybe less.
I checked this morning. Pulled up the tracking app I'm not supposed to have, the one that pings her phone's location.
I pull off my helmet and run a hand through my hair. The cold air hits my face. Good. I need it.
The office building is quiet at this hour. Most of the lights are off, but I spotted the glow from Webb's corner office from the street. Third floor, east side. Working late.
Good. Fewer witnesses.
I take the stairs. Elevators are traps. Too easy to get boxed in, too many variables you can't control.
Third floor. I push through the fire door and walk down the carpeted hallway. Generic corporate art on the walls. Motivational posters. Excellence Through Innovation. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work.
Christ.
Webb's office is at the end. The nameplate on the door reads Marcus Webb, Senior Consultant. Light spills from underneath.
I don't knock.
The door swings open and Marcus Webb looks up from his desk. For a moment, his face is blank. Confused. Then recognition hits and the color drains from his skin.
"Mr. Webb." I close the door behind me. "We need to talk."
He's younger than I expected. Mid-thirties, soft around the middle, the kind of guy who played lacrosse in college and peaked at twenty-two. His hands are shaking as he sets down his pen.
"I—how did you—" He swallows hard. "I was going to call. I swear, I was going to—"
"You owe the Sartori family two hundred thousand dollars." I don't raise my voice. I never do. "It's been three months."
"I know. I know, I just—" He stands up, knocking his chair back. "Things got complicated. The investment didn't pan out like I thought, and then—"
"I don't care."
He flinches. Good.
I move further into the office. Nice space. Big windows overlooking the city. Expensive desk. The kind of office that says I'm successful while hiding the rot underneath.
"Here's what's going to happen." I stop three feet from his desk.
Close enough to see the sweat beading on his forehead.
"You're going to give me what you have tonight.
Cash, wire transfer, I don't care. Then you're going to set up a payment plan for the rest. Twenty thousand a month until the debt is cleared. "
"Twenty thousand a—I can't—"
"You borrowed the money, Mr. Webb. You knew the terms."
His eyes dart to the left. Toward a door I hadn't noticed before. Private bathroom, maybe. Or a closet.
"I have some cash," he says. Too fast. "In the safe. Let me just—"
He moves toward the door.
Something's wrong.
The way he's walking. Too eager. Too relieved. A man facing down a Sartori enforcer doesn't look relieved unless he thinks he has a way out.
I shift my weight, hand moving toward the gun at my hip.
Webb reaches the door. Opens it.
And I hear it.
The distinctive click of a safety being released.
I'm already moving when Webb spins around, but he's faster than I expected. He throws himself to the side as a figure emerges from the doorway behind him—big guy, hired muscle, gun already raised.
My Glock clears the holster.
The first shot isn't mine.
It catches me in the left side, just below the ribs. The impact spins me sideways, but I'm still firing. Two shots. Three. The hired muscle drops, a red bloom spreading across his chest.
Webb is screaming something. I can't hear it over the ringing in my ears.
He's got a gun now too. Where the fuck did he—
I fire again. The bullet takes him in the throat. He staggers back, hands clawing at his neck, and then he's down. Twitching. Still.
Silence.
I stand there for a moment, gun still raised, scanning the room. The hired muscle isn't moving. Webb isn't moving. Blood pools on the expensive carpet.
Then the pain hits.
I look down. My left side is wet. Dark. The bullet went in clean, but I can feel it—still in there, lodged somewhere it shouldn't be.
"Fuck."
I holster my gun and press my hand against the wound. Blood seeps through my fingers. Not arterial. Not yet. But bad enough.
I need to move.
I'm on the bike before I can process what happened.
The Ducati roars beneath me, eating up blocks as I weave through traffic. My left hand is pressed against my side, blood soaking through my shirt, my jacket. Every bump in the road sends a fresh wave of pain through my ribs.
Think. Focus.
We have a protocol for this. Every Sartori soldier knows it. You get hurt, you call the number. A doctor shows up, wherever you are. No questions, no hospitals, no police reports. Clean and simple.
I've never needed it.
Twenty years in this life and I've never taken a bullet that stuck. Grazed, sure. Cut, beaten, broken—all of that. But never this. Never a piece of metal lodged somewhere inside me, grinding against things it shouldn't touch every time I breathe.
I pull over in an alley. Lean against the brick wall. Pull out my phone.
The screen is slick with blood. My blood. I wipe it on my jeans and stare at the contact list.
One call. That's all it takes.
My thumb hovers over the number.
The world is starting to blur at the edges. Blood loss. Shock setting in. I know the signs. I've seen them in other men. Men who didn't make it.
I should call.
Instead, I pull up a different app. The one I check every morning. The one that shows me a little blue dot on a map of Denver.
She's home.
I close my eyes. Her face swims up from the darkness. The way she looked at me in that hospital room, broken and bruised and still so fucking beautiful it hurt to breathe.
Leave, she said. Don't come back.
I left.
But if I'm going to die tonight—
I open my eyes. Shove the phone in my pocket. Kick the Ducati back to life.
The ride is a blur. Streetlights smear into streaks of gold. My vision tunnels. I run two red lights, maybe three. A car horn blares somewhere behind me.
I don't care.
I just need to see her face. One more time. That's all.
Her building is a four-story walk-up in a quiet neighborhood.
I park the bike at the curb. Nearly fall getting off. Catch myself on the handlebar, leaving a bloody handprint on the chrome.
The front door is locked. Security panel. I lean against the wall, trying to think through the fog in my head.
Then the door opens.
A kid in a pizza delivery uniform steps out, box balanced on one hand, phone in the other. He doesn't even look at me as he passes.
I catch the door before it closes.
Inside. Stairs.
Four flights.
I've climbed mountains. Fought men twice my size and walked away standing.
Four flights of stairs nearly kills me.
By the third, I'm counting each step like a prayer. By the fourth, I'm not sure I'm going to make it.
But I do.
Her door is at the end of the hall. 4B. I've memorized the number. Dreamed about it. Imagined knocking a thousand times.
I never did.
Until now.
I lean against the doorframe. Raise my fist. Knock.
The sound is weak. Pathetic. I try again, harder.
Footsteps inside. Light, careful. She's checking the peephole. Of course she is. She's smart.
"Who is it?"
Her voice.
Christ.
Her voice cuts through the fog like a blade. Clear and sharp and real. I close my eyes. Let it wash over me.
Two years. Two miserable fucking years of watching her from the shadows, and her voice still does this to me.
I should leave.
I should turn around, go back down those stairs, call the number, do the smart thing. She told me to stay away. She meant it. And here I am, bleeding on her doorstep like some wounded animal crawling home to die.
This isn't fair to her.
I push off the doorframe. Take a step back.
"Dante."
My name. Just my name. But it's enough.
Silence.
Long. Heavy. The kind of silence that stretches into forever.
I wait for her to tell me to leave. Wait for the sound of her footsteps walking away. Wait for the rejection I deserve.
Instead, I hear the locks.
One. Two. Three.
The door opens.
And there she is.
Marina Reeves.
She's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.
I try to speak. Try to explain. Try to say something—anything—that makes this okay.
Instead, my knees buckle.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is her face.
There she is.