Chapter 4
SLOANE
My fists are raw from pounding on the cellar door. The wood is solid, old-growth timber that doesn't give no matter how hard I hit it. I've been screaming for twenty minutes, threatening everything from lawsuits to murder, and he hasn't responded once.
The bastard locked me in his cellar.
After dragging me out of the sheriff's station with his sister story, after driving me back to this isolated cabin in the middle of nowhere, he shoved me down a set of stairs, and I've been trapped here ever since.
"Let me out!" I hammer on the door again, ignoring the pain shooting through my knuckles. "You can't keep me here! People will look for me!"
But just like the previous seventy five times I've screamed at him, there's no response.
I slide down to sit on the floor, back against the door, and try to think. My head is clearer now—whatever they dosed me with has mostly worn off, leaving me exhausted but functional. But instead of feeling the dull throb of drugs, all I feel is the nervous tension of anxiety knotting my chest.
Knowing this is somehow connected to that dead man from Queens isn't helping. The police came right out and said it was connected to organized crime and I couldn’t leave well enough alone.
What the fuck have I done, and what have I brought on myself because I was too prideful to just let them think I made mistakes?
I hear footsteps overhead, heavy boots crossing the floor, heading toward the cellar door, so I scramble to my feet, backing away from the entrance, and watch as the lock disengages. The door swings open and he descends the stairs carrying a tray.
The smell of food hits me immediately—roasted chicken, vegetables, bread.
My stomach clenches with hunger I've been ignoring for hours as I scramble backward and give him space.
I'm not stupid enough to try running again, but damn, if I had a weapon of some sort, he'd be the one locked up in the basement.
Dane reaches the bottom of the stairs and sets the tray on a small table near the cot. "You done screaming?"
"Go to hell."
"That's a no, then." He pulls out a chair and sits, gesturing to the food. "Eat. You haven't had anything since before you were drugged, and passing out from low blood sugar won't help either of us."
I want to refuse and throw the food in his face, demand he let me go.
But hunger wins. I cross to the table and sit, pulling the plate closer.
The chicken is still warm, seasoned with herbs and lightly salted.
I tear into it, barely tasting anything as I shove food into my mouth.
Maybe I'm stupid for eating something I didn't cook myself, but I'm starving and if he wanted me drugged, he wouldn’t have to hide it in food.
He could just pin me down and shoot me up.
He watches me eat without speaking. When I'm halfway through the plate, he finally breaks the quiet.
"Someone sent you here as a warning."
I stop chewing, meeting his eyes across the table. "A warning about what?"
"Someone knows who I am and where I've been hiding." He leans back in the chair, arms crossed. "That bullet around your neck was a message. They're telling me my past isn't as buried as I thought."
"Then why not just kill you? Why involve me at all?" I set down the fork, appetite fading. "If someone wants you dead, why go through this elaborate setup?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." His jaw tightens. "In my line of work, when someone wants you dead, they don't send warnings. They send hitmen. The fact that you're here, alive, means whoever did this wants to play games first."
"Your line of work." The words taste bitter on my tongue. "You mean murder for hire. You're an assassin."
"Was… Past tense. I've been retired for five years."
"Retired." I chuckle at the very thought of it. "People don't retire from being killers. Are you an idiot?"
"I stopped killing." Dane leans forward and narrows his eyes on me, and I get the feeling I've pushed a button he doesn't like having pushed. "After Queens, I walked away. I burned every contact, disappeared into these mountains, and stayed invisible. Until now."
I push the plate away, no longer able to stomach food.
"So you’re the one who shot that man in Queens?
" I can't believe what I'm hearing. I've been searching for this asshole for five years and now he sits right in front of me?
Maybe this is some cruel twist of fate and whoever drugged me is trying to help me.
Dane's silent for a long moment, studying me with those cold gray-blue eyes. "You really want to know?"
"I've spent five years trying to find out. So yes, I really want to know."
"His name was Domingo Maddox, high up in the Maddox crime family.
He'd been an ally to the Ferraro family for years, helped them move product through his territory, provided protection when deals went south.
But internal politics shifted. The Ferraros decided his usefulness had expired, and his existence became a liability.
" He pauses, and I see something flit across his face, but he masks it well. "So they sent me to fix the problem."
Domingo Maddox. The name doesn't mean anything to me—I never learned it or got access to his full file. But hearing it now alongside the clinical way Dane describes his execution makes my skin crawl.
"You killed a mobster?" This sounds about as made up as it can get. "You worked for the Mafia."
"We don't call each other mobsters anymore.
That's vocabulary from the thirties and forties, but yes.
I worked for the Ferraro family, specifically.
I was their top asset for fifteen years.
Started when I was sixteen, fresh out of juvie with nowhere else to go.
They trained me, gave me purpose, turned me into a weapon.
" He says it matter-of-factly, as though it's absolutely normal.
"I was good at it. Too good. And when they needed someone eliminated, I was the one they called. "
This talk is making my stomach turn. "How many people have you killed?"
"More than I can count." There's no hesitation in the way he speaks, and I believe him. "You follow orders and you survive."
"Until Domingo Maddox."
His expression darkens. "Until Domingo Maddox.
" Dane's face contorts and his head drops, like he’s feeling shame.
"He was a friend, or as close to a friend as someone in my position could have.
He'd saved my life, and I owed him. But the family didn't care about personal debts.
They cared about power. So I put two bullets in his chest and one in his head, knowing I'd crossed a line I couldn't come back from. "
I curl my knees to my chest and hug them as I watch this man I just met turn to a husk of himself right in front of me. His face pales, his shoulders sag. This really fucked him up.
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask quietly. "Why not just kill me and eliminate the risk?"
"Because you're not a risk. You're a victim." He leans forward, elbows on his knees, then runs both hands through his hair. "Someone used you to get to me. And they wanted you involved, which means they have plans for you too."
Fear claws its way up my throat. "What kind of plans?"
"That depends on who sent you. If it's the Ferraro family, they're tying up loose ends. If it's someone else, someone connected to Domingo Maddox, then this is about revenge. Either way, you're caught in the middle."
I stand abruptly, needing to move, to pace, to do anything other than sit still while he lays out how thoroughly screwed I am.
"This is insane. I'm a nurse. I save lives, I don't take them.
I have nothing to do with crime families or assassins or whatever twisted world you live in.
" My arms flail while I'm pacing and I can't stop them.
Fear is taking over again and making me feel panicked.
"You have everything to do with it." His voice cuts through my panic. "You were in that ER when Domingo Maddox died. You worked on him, tried to save him. Someone remembers that and blames you."
Spinning around on my heel, I turn to face him. "But I didn't do anything wrong. Someone said I made mistakes, but it wasn't me. They said they have proof, but I swear…"
"Do they?"
"I don't know." I feel gutted and weak in the knees again.
"I've replayed that surgery a thousand times in my head—my decisions, my timing, my approach.
Maybe if I'd been faster, better, more experienced, he would've lived.
Or maybe he was already dead the moment you shot him, and nothing I did would've made a difference. "
Dane stands, closing the distance between us. "It wouldn't have made a difference. I made sure of that. I don't make mistakes. That man was dead no matter what you did."
"Then why blame me?" My voice breaks. "Why drag me into this if I couldn't have changed the outcome?"
"Because grief needs a target and someone out there watched Domingo Maddox die and decided it was your fault.
" He's close enough now that I can see the scars on his hands, the old wounds from a life of violence.
"Whoever brought you here wants both of us to pay.
You for failing to save him, me for killing him in the first place. "
I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly shivering and feeling frozen. "We should go to the police. Report everything, get protection."
He actually laughs at that, a bitter sound devoid of humor. "And tell them what? That I'm a retired Mafia assassin and you're connected to one of my victims? They'd arrest me before I finished the sentence. And they sure as hell couldn't protect you from the kind of people we're dealing with."
His tone shifts to a growl as he says, "You need me."
"Then, what do we do?" The desperation in my voice is humiliating, but I can't hide it. "Just wait here while someone out there plans our deaths?"
"We wait while I figure out who sent you and why they didn't just come directly for me.
There's a reason for this game they're playing, and I need to understand it before I can counter it.
" He moves back to the stairs, pausing with one foot on the bottom step.
"You stay here, stay quiet, and stay alive. That's your job right now."
"Stay here? You're keeping me prisoner in your cellar?"
"I'm keeping you safe in the one place I can control, Sloane." He starts up the stairs, then stops and looks back at me. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry you got dragged into this. You didn't deserve it."
"Neither did Domingo Maddox."
His expression hardens. "You don't know anything about what he deserved.
You saw him for twenty minutes in an ER.
I knew him for years. He was no saint, and the world isn't worse off without him.
But killing him broke me anyway because some lines, you can't uncross. Some actions, you can't take back."
He climbs the rest of the stairs and disappears through the door. But I expect to hear the lock click shut and it doesn't. Maybe that's his way of letting me know I'm not caged, or maybe he's testing to see if I'll run again.
What I do know is that if he's right and there are men the caliber of Domingo Maddox coming after me, the police can't stop them. I dug into the wrong fucking hornet's nest and I'm going to regret that.
And if I run to the cops, Dane will get what he deserves. Maybe he should. But I'll be alone to fight these sick fucks on my own and I'll end up in a wooden box buried six feet under faster than anyone could blink an eye.
Maybe Dane's right and this is the safest place.
Maybe I just need to wait it out.
And maybe, if I do everything right, I'll make it out the other side of this still breathing.