Chapter 7
SCARLETT
SIX YEARS LATER
The coffee in front of me has gone cold, but I still don’t touch it.
My hands are clasped hard on my lap like it’s the only way to keep me grounded while my private investigator sits across from me in this quiet Portland café and destroys what’s left of my world.
“I’m sorry, Scarlett.” Tom’s voice is gentle in that way people use when they’re about to wreck you with news. “But you asked me to find them, and I did. I just wish I had better news.”
The folder sits between us on the table, holding horrors inside like they always do.
I don’t want to open it because I already know from the look on Tom’s face that it’s going to be bad.
But I reach for it anyway because I’ve spent six years needing to know what happened to those five girls. The ones I left behind when I ran from that mansion. The ones whose faces still haunt me when I close my eyes at night.
Maya. Jennifer. Lisa. Carmen. Rachel.
I open the folder and the newspaper clippings spill out across the table between our coffee mugs.
The first one shows a mangled car wrapped around a telephone pole. The headline reads Young Woman Dies in Single-Vehicle Accident. There’s a photo of Maya from her driver’s license. She’s smiling in it. She was always smiling, even when she was terrified.
“Car crash,” Tom says quietly. “Three months ago in Ohio. Police report says she lost control on a wet road and hit the pole going sixty. Died immediately on impact.”
I flip to the next clipping with hands that won’t stop shaking. A woman’s body covered with a white sheet on the pavement below a building. Woman Falls to Death from Apartment Balcony.
Jennifer’s face stares back at me from the article.
“Ruled accidental,” Tom continues. “She was hanging Christmas lights on her balcony railing. Witnesses say she lost her balance and fell five stories.”
The next one is Lisa. Local Woman Found Dead from Apparent Overdose. The photo shows her looking gaunt and tired, nothing like the girl with empty eyes I remember from that room.
“Heroin overdose,” Tom says. “Found in her apartment by her roommate. She had a history of drug use, so nobody questioned it.”
Carmen next. Woman Drowns in Bathtub After Hitting Head. The article is short. Barely three paragraphs about how she slipped getting out of the tub and drowned in two inches of water.
And finally Rachel. House Fire Claims Life of Young Mother. Her house burned down in the middle of the night with her inside it. Faulty wiring, they said.
I stare at all five clippings spread across the table and something cold settles in my stomach.
“Five different deaths,” I say slowly. “Five different cities. All within the last six months.”
Tom nods. “All ruled accidental or natural causes. No investigations or further follow-up.”
“Because they weren’t accidents.”
“No.” He leans forward and his voice drops even lower. “I don’t think they were. Car crashes can be staged. People can be pushed off balconies. Drugs can be forced into veins. Someone can hold your head underwater. Houses can be set on fire while you sleep.”
My hands on my lap are the only thing keeping them from shaking visibly now. “Someone’s killing them. Someone’s systematically eliminating everyone who was in that room six years ago.”
I can’t believe they’re all dead.
“That’s my assessment, yes.”
The café suddenly feels too small and too exposed. I glance around at the other customers. A woman typing on her laptop, fingerless gloves keeping her warm despite the fall chill. An older man reading the newspaper. A young couple wearing matching scarves as they share a muffin.
Any of them could be watching me. Any of them could be the next one sent to kill me.
“How did you find all this?” I ask Tom.
“It wasn’t easy. Took me three months of digging through records and calling in favors. They all changed their names like you did. Moved to different states. Tried to disappear.” He pauses. “But someone found them anyway.”
I close the folder because I can’t look at their faces anymore. “I’m the last one.”
“You’re the last one I could verify, yes.”
“Which means I’m next.”
Tom doesn’t deny it. “I think you need to seriously consider going to the police with this information. All these deaths happening to women who were in the same place at the same time six years ago? That’s not a coincidence. That’s a pattern.”
“And tell them what exactly?” I keep my voice down but it’s hard.
“That I was kidnapped by a human trafficking ring but escaped when some other criminal showed up and murdered everyone? That I’ve been living under a fake name for six years?
That I have a five-year-old son I’ve been raising alone while looking over my shoulder every day? ”
“It’s better than waiting for whoever’s doing this to find you.”
“The police can’t protect me from these people.” I think about the man with storm-grey eyes covered in blood. About the casual way he put three bullets in Antonio Marchetti. About the scar on his shoulder that burns in my memory even after all this time. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Tom is quiet for a long moment. Then he slides a piece of paper across the table. “This is the number you asked me to find. Dante Moretti. He’s big in New York now. Runs his own organization. Very dangerous man, Scarlett.”
I pick up the paper and stare at the number written in Tom’s neat handwriting. Ten digits that could save my life or end it.
“Are you sure about this?” Tom asks.
“No.” I fold the paper and tuck it into my jacket pocket. “But I’m out of better options.”
I pay Tom for his work and leave the café with my mind spinning. The folder stays with me, evidence of five deaths that look like accidents but aren’t. Evidence that someone is hunting us down one by one.
Evidence that I’m next.
The drive to Luca’s school takes twenty minutes through Portland traffic and I spend every second of it checking my mirrors. Looking for cars that follow too close or appear too often. Looking for threats I might not recognize until it’s too late.
I’ve gotten good at this over the years. Paranoia becomes a survival skill when you’re running from people who want you dead, when monsters will follow you into a club and even fuck you.
Luca’s kindergarten is in a good neighborhood with security cameras and teachers who actually pay attention. I picked it specifically for those reasons. He’s safe here during the day, which is more than I can say for most places.
He comes running out when he sees my car and my heart does that familiar thing it always does when I see him.
This perfect little human I somehow created.
This beautiful boy with dark hair and grey eyes that should remind me of his father but don’t because I’ve never let myself think about that night long enough to remember details.
“Mama!” He throws himself into the backseat, shedding his coat as I help him with his seatbelt. “We made paper airplanes today and mine flew the highest in the whole class!”
“That’s amazing, baby.” I kiss the top of his head and breathe in the scent of kid shampoo and whatever they had for lunch. “Tell me all about it.”
He chatters the whole drive home about paper airplanes and his friend Aiden and the new fish in their classroom tank. Normal five-year-old stuff that makes me want to cry because this is what I’m protecting. This innocence and normalcy.
I’m so focused on listening to him that I almost miss it. The black SUV that’s been behind us for the last three blocks.
My hands tighten on the steering wheel and I take a turn I don’t normally take. The SUV follows.
No. Please no. Not now. Not with Luca in the car.
I take another turn, but the SUV keeps following.
“Mama? Why are we going this way? This isn’t how we get home.”
“Just taking a different route today, sweetheart.” I keep my voice calm even though my heart is trying to break through my ribs. “Keep telling me about Aiden.”
He keeps talking and I keep driving, taking random turns, trying to lose the SUV without making it obvious that I know I’m being followed.
But it stays there. Three cars back.
We’re on a residential street with cars parked on both sides when the SUV suddenly accelerates. It comes up fast on our left side and I have maybe two seconds to react before it swerves directly at us.
I jerk the wheel hard to the right and our car jumps the curb, bouncing over someone’s lawn and nearly hitting a mailbox. Luca screams in the backseat and I’m screaming too as I fight to keep control.
The SUV swerves at the last second and misses us by inches. It keeps going down the street and disappears around the corner like nothing happened.
My car stalls out on the lawn and I sit there shaking so hard I can barely unbuckle my seatbelt.
“Mama?” Luca’s crying now. “Mama, what happened? Did that car try to hit us?”
I twist around to check on him and he’s fine. Scared but fine. No blood, no injuries, just tears streaming down his face.
“It’s okay, baby.” I climb into the backseat and pull him against me. “You’re okay. We’re both okay. That driver just wasn’t paying attention.”
That car didn’t accidentally swerve at us. It was a message. A warning.
We know where you are. We can get to you anytime we want.
The homeowner comes running out demanding to know what the hell I’m doing on his lawn, and I apologize and move the car and drive home with hands that won’t stop shaking.
That night after I’ve checked Luca over for the tenth time and read him three bedtime stories and promised him we’re safe and nobody’s going to hurt us, I tuck him into bed and watch him fall asleep.
His room is the same as always. Toys scattered on the floor. Drawings taped to the walls. His nightlight glowing softly in the corner shaped like a rocket ship.
Normal and safe—everything I’ve worked so hard to give him.
I kiss his forehead and whisper that I love him, then I close his door and triple-check every lock in the apartment. Windows, front door, back door. The deadbolt I installed myself last year. None of it is going to be enough.
In my bedroom, I retrieve the piece of paper Tom gave me from my jacket pocket and sit on the edge of my bed staring at those ten digits.
The gun I keep under my pillow is right there. Loaded and ready. But what good is a gun against people who can make deaths look like accidents? Who can find you no matter where you run?
I pick up my phone and my hands are shaking so badly I almost drop it.
This is insane. Calling him is insane. Walking back into that world after six years of running is the worst idea I’ve ever had.
But staying here means dying. Means my son dying. And I’ve fought too hard to let that happen now.
I dial the number before I can talk myself out of it and press the phone to my ear. My heart is pounding so hard I can barely hear the ringing over the blood rushing in my ears.
It rings once. Twice. Three times.
Maybe he won’t answer. Maybe he changed his number years ago and this whole thing is pointless.
Then a voice answers. Rough and gravelly and exactly the same as it was six years ago when he told me to disappear.
“Dante Moretti.”
For a second I can’t speak. I can’t even breathe. I can’t do anything but stand there with my phone pressed to my ear and remember everything I’ve spent six years trying to forget.
That voice. Those grey eyes. The way he looked at me before I ran.
“I need help.” The words come out steadier than I feel. “Please. Someone’s trying to kill me and I don’t know who else to call.”
Silence on the other end. Long enough that I think maybe he hung up or doesn’t remember or doesn’t care.
Then his voice comes through, different now. Sharper. Alert.
“Scarlett.”
My breath catches. He recognized me. Just from my voice. After six years, he knew exactly who I was the second I spoke.
I need to say more. Need to give him a reason to listen.
“I have information,” I say, committing to the lie now because it’s the only card I have to play. “About that night.”
It’s complete garbage. I know nothing. I was too busy fighting for my life then running for my life to pay attention to whatever criminal business was happening around me.
But he doesn’t know that.
“I’ll trade you,” I push on. “Information for protection. For me and my son.”
I close my eyes and wait for his response, hoping he’ll say yes.
Hoping I haven’t just made the biggest mistake of my life for the second time.