Chapter 1 Piper
PIPER
The package of money nestled in the middle of my messenger bag feels like it's burning a hole through it.
I guess that’s what a hundred thousand dollars feels like. Add in the fact that it’s illegal as shit and possibly drug or blood money, and it’s no wonder my bag feels like it may combust.
Terror laces through every nerve in my body as I walk down the rain-slicked street, every shadow making me flinch and every passing car tightening the knots already twisting my stomach.
I shouldn't be here. This isn't me. I'm not a criminal.
But tonight, I can’t help but feel like I am because I'm a mule.
No different from one of those shady people you see on TV doing drug drops and all sorts of illegal things.
It's funny. You never know what makes a person do things like that until you find yourself walking in their shoes.
Maybe, like me, they were trying to save their sister.
Maybe their younger sister is just like mine and has a penchant for landing herself in the worst trouble imaginable.
That said, this time, Lana really got herself mixed up in the mother of all trouble. And dragged me in too.
Last week, Lana was taken. Kidnapped.
I got home after doing a double shift at the hospital only to find our apartment ransacked and ravaged. And a ransom note with a picture of Lana bound, gagged, and beaten. Her face black and blue and bloody.
Apparently, she saw too much and did too much. That's all I know, but it's enough.
Since that night, I’ve been doing the devil’s bidding to get her back, dropping off packages here and there. The warning was to make sure I didn’t involve anyone else. And no police.
Lana promised me she was working her ass off at the diner to pay off her student loans. Instead, she was doing crazy shit behind my back that pissed off the Costellos, one of the most powerful mafia families in this hemisphere.
Everyone in Chicago knows to stay the fuck away from them, but Lana seems to have missed the memo. Or, knowing her, she chose to ignore it in that lackadaisical way she does with everything else.
Life is one big party to my sister. We may have the same blonde hair, blue eyes, and petite frame we got from our mother, but that’s as far as similarities go. Everything else is as opposite as night and day, light and dark, fire and ice.
At twenty-six, I'm only four years older than Lana, but the difference in our maturity levels feels like an ocean. I guess that’s because I had to step up when she was sixteen and take care of her after our parents were killed in a car accident.
On top of that, life has only been cruel to me, cutting me the rawest of deals when it came to my career in medicine. Now there’s this.
And if I so much as breathed a word to the cops, they threatened to send me Lana's head in a box.
The thought that she could already be dead sends a shudder through me, and I fight to keep my tears away. I've had no proof of life, but I can't think like that now.
Tonight is the last thing.
The kidnappers promised to return Lana if I collected this package from a seedy guy at the train station and brought it here.
I continue walking down the rain-covered streets, my legs trembling and my blood pounding in my ears like drums fueled by napalm. The address I've been given is only three blocks away. It’s a nightclub called Velvet. I know the place. It's swanky and upmarket but a front for Costello operations.
The neon sign for Velvet comes into view fifteen minutes later, casting a purple glow across the wet pavement. A line of people wait outside despite the rain. As expected, they're dressed to impress and eager to get into the city's most exclusive club.
I bypass the line, heading for the service entrance as instructed. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my fingertips.
The service alley is dimly lit, with a clinical smell lingering in the crisp night air. A hulking man with a tattoo on one side of his face stands beside a metal door, a cigarette glowing orange between his fingers.
He narrows his gaze when he sees me approaching and looks me up and down with obvious scrutiny. It's my attire. I'm dressed too casually in my light summer jacket and jeans to work here.
Summoning courage I don’t feel, I set my shoulders back and stare him right in the eye when I reach him.
"I'm here to see Donatio Costello," I say, forcing my voice to remain steady.
The man takes a long drag on his cigarette. "Nobody sees Donatio Costello without an appointment."
"I have one." I pull a small card from my pocket, black with a gold embossed dragon.
The instant the man sees it, his expression changes, and a knowing look comes into his eyes, telling me he needs no further instructions. He knows I have a package for the boss—Donatio.
What else does he know? Has he seen Lana?
"Inside. First door on the right." His reply cuts off my thoughts, and the hardness in his face and voice warns me not to ask him anything more.
He steps aside, opening the heavy door. I walk in, stepping into a narrow corridor, and he closes the door behind me, leaving me alone.
The subtle bass from the club music thrums through the walls, sounding hollow. I wipe my sweaty palms on my jeans and proceed down the hallway, praying.
The hallway feels impossibly long. It's not until I reach the center and can't hear the music anymore that I realize I'm going down. Like underground down.
My nerves spike, but I keep walking until I see the first door on the right. I knock.
"Enter, it’s open," a gruff voice calls out in a rich Italian accent. It's the same voice I've heard on the phone all week.
I open the door and walk into an elegant office with dark wood paneling and leather furniture. Behind a massive desk sits a muscular man with salt-and-pepper hair who looks to be in his late fifties.
This is the first time I've seen Donatio, yet I've imagined him so much that it feels like I know him. He's not that different from what I imagined, but he looks a lot meaner in real life.
"Piper Collins." He doesn't look up from the papers he's reviewing.
“Yes. That’s me.” My voice sounds small in the large room.
"Got my delivery?" Finally, he looks up, and the smile that slides across his face reminds me of a shark before they snatch their next meal.
I nod with the slowness of a snail and point to my bag. "I do."
“Come forward and give it to me.” He gestures to my bag.
My throat tightens, and I walk up to the desk. I open my bag and hand him the package, that prayer echoing through my heart, mind, body, and soul.
Donatio takes the package, opens it, and scans over the money inside. I hope he doesn’t think I’d be foolish enough to take any when my sister’s life is at stake.
A few minutes pass that seem like forever before a humorless grin crosses his face. "All good.”
“Can I have my sister back now?”
That smile of his widens. “Certainly, come with me.”
Hope fills my heart, and the weight of worry I've felt this past week lifts.
Lana's alive, and I'll get to take her home. That’s all that matters now.
Donatio stands and motions toward a door across from us. He leads the way, and I follow.
He takes me down another hallway. This one is endless and darker than the first.
We walk into a warehouse with crates, containers, and all sorts of packaging, but no sign of Lana exists.
I look around for her, my nerves jittery again as I feel something is wrong.
We stop by an enormous container, and when two men with guns walk out from behind it and point them at me, I realize I’m right. My blood turns to ice, and everything inside me screams to run, but I’m frozen. And run where?
I wouldn’t get any further than two steps before they gunned me down like a dog in the street.
“What’s happening?” I stutter. “Where’s Lana?”
Donatio faces me with that fucked-up smile again. "Sorry, sweetheart, you and your sister are what we call loose ends. Earlier, we sold your sister in a sex auction to the highest bidder.”
"No, please, no." My God. This isn’t happening. “How could you? You gave me your word.”
“I told you what you needed to hear.” Donatio smirks and flicks his palms over in a calm manner to show he never gave two shits about me.
“You fucking bastard. Where is my sister?” Tears I can’t hold back spring to my eyes.
“She’s either dead or on her way to fuck knows where. The men we deal with also hate loose ends. Speaking of which… it’s time for you to die. I have dinner reservations at eight.”
My stomach bottoms out, plummeting through the floor, then dread fills me. This was a trap. Everything was a trap. He set me up, and I all but ran into the spider's web, getting myself tangled in the threads of deceit and lies.
Donatio snaps his fingers, and the men come closer with their guns still trained on me. Just as they cock the hammers, gunshots ring out from behind them and bullets lodge in their heads.
Before I can process what's happening, they drop to the ground in a heap of blood and gore.
Donatio looks around to where the bullets came from and moves away just in time before more bullets are fired.
There’s a man on the upper level with a rifle. More of Donatio’s men rush out toward me. I’m about to run when a hand clamps around my arm and yanks me to a hard chest that feels like steel.
I look up and find myself staring at a face I never thought I'd see again.
Cristiano Moretti!
Cristiano Moretti, my ex. The man from my nightmares and my dreams.
My heart stutters to a stop, then races so violently that I feel dizzy.
Six years of phantom pain condense into a single breath-stealing moment.
The world around us—the gunfire, the shouting, the danger—it all fades to white noise as my body remembers what my mind has tried to forget.
That pull. That impossible gravity between us that never quite died.
His scent, that hint of sandalwood and something uniquely him, floods my senses, catapulting me back to stolen moments in his car, lazy Sunday mornings in his bed, and the last kiss before he vanished from my life.
He’s here, tall as a titan with broad shoulders, that unruly dark hair, and rich brown eyes that once looked at me with so much passion it hurt.
Cristiano Moretti was my high school sweetheart. He walked away from me six years ago when I needed him most.
But he’s here now?
How?
Why?