Chapter 2
The Chevy's alternator was shot.
Nicole had known it the second the owner limped it into her bay that morning—the whine, the dimming dash lights, the smell of something electrical burning itself to death under the hood.
She'd quoted the job fair, sourced the part from her salvage contact in Clairton, and spent the better part of six hours replacing it, cleaning the serpentine belt while she was in there, and bleeding the coolant system because the guy clearly hadn't done it since the Bush administration.
Now it was quarter past seven and the Valley had gone dark outside her bay doors, and she was alone in the shop finishing paperwork she should've done hours ago.
The radio played low—classic rock station out of Pittsburgh, the signal fuzzy this deep in the Mon Valley where the hills ate the signal.
She had grease under her nails that wouldn't come out no matter how hard she scrubbed, and her shoulders ached from six hours bent over an engine bay, and the coffee she'd reheated twice sat cold on her desk again.
Normal evening. Normal life. The kind of tired that felt earned.
Her uncle had taught her that. Earl Brandt, who'd run this shop for thirty-one years and never once called in sick, who'd shown a twelve-year-old girl how to change oil because she'd asked and he'd believed that was reason enough.
The shop wasn't much to look at—three bays, cracked concrete, a hand-painted sign that read brANDT'S AUTO & MECHANICAL in letters that were fading faster than she could afford to repaint them.
Folding chairs in the waiting room. A parts counter built from plywood and determination.
But it was hers. Had been since Earl's heart gave out two years ago, right there on the shop floor between bay two and the air compressor, and left her everything he had because he'd never married and never had kids and Nicole was both to him.
She was locking the register when the front door opened.
Two men. The first one filled the doorway—six-two, flat nose, hands like canned hams, wearing a sport coat that strained across shoulders built for hitting things.
The second was younger, thinner, hanging back with the lazy posture of someone who'd been told he was there to watch and hadn't minded the assignment.
Nicole's hand found the edge of the counter. Not the bat—that was behind the parts rack, three steps too far. Just the counter, solid under her palm.
"We're closed," she said.
The big one smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was the kind that said he'd practiced in mirrors and still couldn't get it right.
"Nicole Brandt?" He walked in like he owned the square footage, eyes cataloging the shop—the bays, the back door, the office with its window overlooking the alley. Taking inventory. "I'm Dominic. Mr. Morello sent me."
Her stomach dropped, but she kept her face flat. She knew the name. Everyone in the Mon Valley knew the name, the same way everyone knew which streets flooded in spring and which bars to avoid on Friday nights. Morello was weather—something you planned around and tried not to get caught in.
"I told Mr. Morello's people last month," Nicole said. "The shop isn't for sale."
"See, that's the thing." Dominic stopped at the counter, close enough that she could smell his cologne—something expensive and chemical that didn't match the rest of him.
"Mr. Morello's been real patient. Real understanding.
He appreciates that the place has sentimental value or whatever.
But patience has limits, Nicole. Everything does. "
The younger one drifted toward the bay doors and leaned against the frame, blocking the only exit that didn't go through Dominic first.
"You sign the papers by Friday," Dominic said, still wearing that broken smile. "Fair price. Better than fair—Mr. Morello's being generous because he respects your uncle's memory."
"My uncle would've told you the same thing I'm telling you."
"Your uncle's dead."
The words landed like a slap. Nicole's jaw tightened. "Get out of my shop."
Dominic's smile didn't change, but something behind his eyes did—a light going out, replaced by the flat patience of a man who'd done this enough times that the script bored him.
"Friday," he said. "Or you go in the river, and we take the shop anyway. Those are the options. I didn't make them up—I'm just the delivery guy."
"Go fuck yourself."
She saw it coming but couldn't move fast enough.
His hand closed around her throat and he drove her backward into the tool bench, wrenches and socket sets clattering to the concrete floor.
The edge of the bench dug into her spine and his fingers pressed against her windpipe—not crushing, not yet, just enough pressure to make the point that he could.
"I like you," Dominic said, his face close enough that she could see the scar tissue around his eyes, the flattened bridge of a nose broken more than once. "You've got spine. But spine breaks, Nicole. I've broken a lot of it."
She couldn't breathe. Her hands clawed at his wrist but it was like trying to move a pipe bolted to the wall.
"Friday," he repeated. "Think it over."
He let go. She hit the floor on her hands and knees, gasping, the concrete cold against her palms. Above her, Dominic straightened his sport coat and nodded to the younger one, who pushed off the door frame with the bored ease of someone who'd watched this show before.
"Nice shop," Dominic said from the doorway. "Shame if something happened to it."
They left. The door swung shut behind them.
Nicole stayed on the floor for a long time, breathing in gasps that tasted like grease and copper, her throat burning where his fingers had been.
She could still feel the pressure. Could still see that flat look in his eyes—not anger, not cruelty, just the mechanical indifference of a man doing a job he'd done a hundred times.
She got up eventually. Locked the front door with hands that shook so badly she missed the deadbolt twice.
Checked the back door, the bay doors, the office window that looked out over the alley where Dominic's car was already gone.
Every lock felt like tissue paper. Every shadow in the shop had weight and intention.
She called the police.
The woman who answered was polite and professional and utterly useless.
Had Nicole been physically harmed? Was the suspect still on the premises?
Could she come to the station tomorrow to file a report?
Nicole hung up before the woman finished suggesting she might want to consider a security camera.
A security camera. Against the Morellos.
She sat behind her desk and stared at the wall where Earl had hung his first dollar—framed, yellowed, the tape holding it to the backing starting to give.
He'd made this place with his hands. Built the reputation one honest repair at a time, one customer who came back because Nicole's uncle didn't lie about what was wrong with your car and didn't charge you for work he didn't do.
In a valley full of shops that would fleece you for a brake pad, Earl Brandt had been the real thing.
And now some silver-haired predator in a tailored suit wanted to turn it into a front for whatever the Morellos were moving through the Valley this decade.
Nicole pulled the baseball bat from behind the parts rack and set it across her desk.
Louisville Slugger, ash wood, the grip worn smooth from the summer she'd played softball before deciding she'd rather spend her afternoons under a hood than on a diamond.
It wouldn't stop Dominic Walsh. She knew that.
A bat against a man that size was a gesture, not a solution.
But it was what she had.
She thought about calling someone and realized, with a clarity that sat in her chest like a stone, that there was no one to call.
No family—her parents had moved to Florida six years ago and called on holidays when they remembered, which wasn't always.
No boyfriend—the last one had left when he realized she'd always choose the shop over dinner plans, and the one before that had tried to explain how a torque wrench worked to a woman who'd been using one since middle school.
No friends close enough for this. The neighborhood people were good people, but good people didn't stand up to the Morellos.
Good people locked their doors and looked the other way and thanked God it wasn't them.
She was alone. Had been for a while, if she was honest. Earl's death had just made it official.
Nicole turned off the shop lights and climbed the narrow stairs to her apartment above the bays.
Small space—kitchen, bathroom, a bedroom with a window that overlooked the alley and a fire escape she'd never tested.
She locked the apartment door and then stood there staring at it, knowing that lock was worth even less than the ones downstairs.
She went back down and slept in the office instead, the bat beside her on the couch, the shop's security light throwing hard shadows across the ceiling. Every sound was Dominic coming back. Every creak of the old building settling was footsteps on the concrete floor.
Friday. Three days.
She lay there in the dark with her throat aching and her uncle's shop closing in around her, and she couldn't find a single handhold to stop the slide.