Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Gemma
The door's still open behind the man with the gun.
I know him. Not his name, not his face. But I know what he is. The same build as the shadow in the sedan. The same stillness. He tracked me here, which means he tracked me from the diner, which means—
My phone. It has to be my phone. Dominik gave it to me two years ago, back when he was still pretending to be generous instead of controlling. I never thought to get rid of it. Stupid. So fucking stupid.
The gun presses harder against the Audi man's skull. "What the hell are you doing in my wife's room?"
Wife.
The word lands wrong, like a rock in my stomach. I'm not anyone's wife. I identified my husband's body. I signed the paper. I watched them close the casket.
The Audi man hasn't moved. His hands are up, palms out, and his voice comes outbored. "She took my fucking car. I followed the tracker. I want my keys, and then I'm gone."
"Bullshit."
"Check the parking lot. Black Audi. Illinois plates. Run the registration if you want—it'll come back to me."
The gun man's eyes flick to me. Dark eyes, flat and assessing. "Gemma. This true?"
My name in his mouth makes my skin crawl. I don't know how he knows it. I don't know what else he knows.
Nina's hand tightens on the back of my shirt. She hasn't made a sound since the gun appeared. Four years old and she already knows when to be invisible.
"Yes." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I took his car. I thought someone was following me from work, and I panicked."
"Someone was following you from work." The gun man's mouth twitches. Not a smile. Something worse.
The Audi man shifts slightly, and the gun jabs harder. "Don't fucking move."
"I'm not moving. I'm standing here like a goddamn statue while you sort out your domestic shit." The Audi man's voice is still flat, but there's something underneath it now. Irritation, maybe. "I don't know either of you. I don't care about either of you. I want my keys, and I want to leave."
The gun man studies him for a long moment. Then his gaze cuts back to me.
"Give him the keys, Gemma."
The keys are on the nightstand. Three feet away. I could reach them in two steps.
But when I do—when the Audi man walks out that door—I'm alone with this man, his gun and whatever Dominik left behind. Whatever debt. Whatever promise. Whatever piece of me Dominik sold before he died.
I don't move.
"Gemma." The gun man's voice drops. Patient, like he's talking to a child. He's probably talked to a lot of people who didn't want to cooperate. "The keys."
Nina's fingers dig into my hip. I can feel her breathing against my back—fast, shallow, trying to be quiet.
I cross to the nightstand. Pick up the keys. The metal is cold in my palm.
"On the table," the gun man says. "Then step back."
I set the keys on the scarred table by the door. Step back until my shoulders hit the wall beside the bed.
The gun man jerks his chin at the Audi man. "Take them and get the hell out of here."
The Audi man moves slowly. His hands stay visible as he reaches for the keys, and when his fingers close around them, I catch something in his face—just for a second. A flicker at the corner of his mouth. Not fear.
He's smirking.
He pockets the keys and turns toward the door, and the gun man tracks him the whole way. "You call the cops, I'll find you. Understand?"
"Wouldn't dream of it." The Audi man's voice is light. Amused, almost. He's playing scared, shoulders hunched, movements careful—but he's not scared. I don't know how I know that, but I do.
Luca
The smart thing—the only thing—is to walk out, get in my car, and drive back to the apartment I've been rotting in for six weeks.
The woman's face when he called her his wife.
I've seen that look before. On women who flinch at loud sounds. On men who've learned to make them feel small. It's not surprise. It's not confusion. It's the kind of stillness that comes from knowing exactly what's about to happen and having no way to stop it.
The man with the gun is watching me leave. He's relaxed now, confident. He thinks he's won. He thinks I'm walking away because I'm afraid of the weapon, because I'm smart enough to know when I'm outmatched.
He's half right.
I'm slower than I used to be, weaker, and this body that used to move without thought now requires negotiation.
But he's not looking at my hands. He's looking at the woman.
That's his mistake.
I turn. Faster than my leg wants to allow. My forehead connects with his nose before he can process the movement. Cartilage crunches. Blood sprays hot across my face.
His hand jerks on the gun. I'm already moving, grabbing his wrist, twisting hard enough to feel tendons strain. The weapon clatters to the carpet. I kick it toward the bathroom, away from everyone.
"Fuck—" He staggers back, one hand to his face, blood pouring between his fingers.
I don't give him time to recover. My elbow catches his throat. He goes down hard, gasping, and I follow him to the floor with my knee on his chest and my hand around his windpipe.
The woman hasn't moved. The child hasn't screamed.
I look at them. The woman's face is pale, eyes wide, but she's not frozen. She's calculating. Measuring the distance to the door. Deciding if I'm worse than what she's running from.
I throw the keys. They arc through the air, through the open door, land somewhere on the concrete outside. The sound is small and sharp in the quiet.
"Get in the car." My voice comes out rougher than I intend. I try again, softer this time, though soft isn't something I know how to do anymore. "Take your daughter. Get in the fucking car. Wait for me."
She doesn't argue. Doesn't ask questions. She scoops the child up in one motion and she's gone.
The man beneath me is trying to breathe. I ease the pressure on his throat just enough to let air through. Not enough for him to speak easily. Not enough for comfort.
"Why are you chasing her?"
He blinks up at me. Blood covers the lower half of his face, makes his teeth look red when he smiles. That smile tells me everything I need to know about what kind of man this is.
I've seen it before. On men who hurt people for money. On men who hurt people for fun.
"Fuck you," he says. The accent is thick now that he's in pain. Eastern European—Albanian, maybe, or Croatian. Somewhere in that region where the organizations are newer, hungrier, less concerned with the old rules.
"Wrong answer."
I hit him. Not hard enough to knock him out—not yet. Hard enough to make his head snap to the side, hard enough to split his lip open against his teeth.
"Try again. Why are you fucking chasing her?"
The smile comes back. Bloody and wide and full of teeth. He's not going to talk. I know the type. He'd rather eat his own tongue than give up information, not because he's loyal but because he knows what happens to men who do.
I could make him talk. I have the skill. There are ways to break a man open that don't leave marks, and ways that leave nothing but marks, and I know them all.
But the woman is waiting in my car with her daughter, and every second I spend in this room is a second someone else could show up.
I hit him again. Harder this time. His eyes roll back. His body goes slack.
I check his pulse—still there, still steady. He'll wake up in twenty minutes with a headache, a broken nose and no idea how much worse it could have been.
I take his gun and stand. My leg screams at me. My shoulder joins in, a harmony of pain that makes my vision blur at the edges. I breathe through it. One breath. Two.
I tuck the gun into the back of my waistband and walk out of the motel room.
Gemma
Nina's arms are wrapped around my neck so tight I can barely breathe.
"It's okay," I whisper into her hair. "It's okay, baby. We're okay."
We're not okay. We're standing in a motel parking lot at two in the morning with no shoes, no purse, no money.
I should run.
The thought flickers through my head like a match striking. I should take Nina and run. Find a gas station. Call someone. Anyone.
But my feet are already numb against the frozen asphalt, and I can feel every piece of gravel biting into my soles.
The rest of my money—what little there is—sits in an envelope taped to the back of my dresser drawer in the apartment I can't go back to.
Nina hiccups against my shoulder. A wet, shuddering sound.
"Shh, sweetheart. Shh." I bounce her gently, the way I used to when she was a baby and wouldn't sleep. "Mama's here. Mama's got you."
I should not get in that car.
I know this. Every instinct I've spent eighteen months sharpening screams it at me.
Don't get in cars with strange men.
Don't trust anyone.
Don't let your guard down.
But Nina is crying, and I have nowhere else to go.
"Okay," I say. To no one. To myself. "Okay."
I walk to the Audi and slide in, pulling Nina onto my lap.
Nina burrows into my chest, her face pressed against my collarbone. I can feel her tears soaking through my hoodie.
"It's okay, baby." I stroke her hair. "We're just going for a little ride. That's all. Just a little ride."
"I want to go home," she whispers.
My throat closes.
"I know." I kiss the top of her head. "I know, sweetheart. Soon."
The lie tastes like ash on my tongue.
The driver's door slams.
I look up. He's in the front seat now, the man with the pale green eyes.
He doesn't look at us. Just reaches back, palm open.
"Keys."
His voice is flat. Tired.
I fish the keys out from my hoodie's pocket. I drop them into his hand without touching his skin.
He takes them, the engine shifts, and we're moving.
The man drives like he knows where he's going. Calm. Controlled. One hand on the wheel, the other resting on his thigh.
I am scared of him. My heart hasn't stopped racing since he walked through that motel room door.
"Who are you?"
He doesn't answer right away. Just keeps driving, eyes on the road.
"Luca," he says finally. Just that. Just his name.
"That's not what I meant."
His eyes flick to the rearview mirror. Meet mine for half a second before returning to the road.
"I know what you fucking meant."
Nina shifts against me, her breathing starting to even out. Exhaustion pulling her under. I keep my hand on her back, feeling the rise and fall of her ribs.