Wrath of the Mafia Soldier (Costa Vendetta #8)

Chapter 1

PRIYA

The human knee is a stupid piece of engineering.

Patellas track incorrectly. Cartilage wears down to nothing. Ligaments snap under the slightest amount of improper torque. Humans spend their entire lives walking around on two biological hinges held together by fluid and hope. My job is to fix them when that hope inevitably fails.

Mr. Henry groans on the therapy table. His right leg is elevated. My hands press firmly against the swelling around his joint, assessing the heat and the fluid retention.

He complains about the pain, the exercises, and the fact that I do not let him cheat on his reps.

My thumbs dig into the tight muscle of his quad. A sharp exhale escapes his lips.

He accuses me of enjoying his misery.

A smirk pulls at the corner of my mouth.

My clipboard rests against my hip. I wear a bright plum-colored scrub top and a mustard yellow cardigan.

The colors are loud. They are deliberate.

The world is entirely too gray, and this city too cold.

If I have to spend ten hours a day inside a clinic smelling like rubbing alcohol and athletic tape, I refuse to look like a ghost while doing it.

I tell him he wouldn't be in misery if he stopped trying to play pickup basketball with men half his age.

He mutters about youth being wasted on the young.

My hands move systematically down his calf.

Rigid clinical structure. This is my religion.

Every movement has a purpose. Each exercise has a measured outcome.

If you follow the protocol, the body heals.

There is no chaos in a well-managed physical therapy regimen.

Chaos lives outside these doors. Chaos is glass shattering at night, the smell of gasoline and smoke.

Chaos is waking up to find the building next door hollowed out by a mafia firebomb, its collateral damage melting the siding off my own life’s work.

The memory tries to push its way up my throat.

My jaw locks shut. The metal of my pen clicks sharply in the quiet room.

I don’t think about the fire. I don’t talk about the fire.

I rebuilt the clinic from the studs up. The insurance company fought me.

The city inspectors fought me. The lingering smell of ash fought me for six straight months.

I won. This space is mine. It is clean, it is safe, and it is strictly controlled.

Emotions do not heal torn ligaments. Focus does.

I finish Mr. Henry's session. I write down his homework on a bright pink sticky note and slap it onto the back of his phone where he cannot ignore it. He thanks me gruffly. He limps out the front door, the bell chiming a cheerful goodbye.

The clinic empties. The silence rushes in.

Evening settles over Chicago. Sunlight through the front windows shifts from pale gold to bruised purple. Shadows stretch long across the linoleum.

My closing routine begins. Another non-negotiable structure.

First, the equipment gets wiped down. The smell of bleach and lemon cuts through the sterile air. Second, the patient files go into the fireproof safe. Third, the blinds are drawn tight. No gaps. No slivers of a view from the street.

I grab my heavy wool coat from the back hook. The fabric is a striking teal. It wraps around me like armor. My keys jingle loudly in the empty space.

The front door is glass and steel. It took three weeks to source after the old one shattered from the heat of the blast next door. I pull it shut behind me. The deadbolt clicks into place. The secondary lock turns with a satisfying snap.

The street is immediately different from the clinic.

Cold wind rips down the concrete canyon of the neighborhood.

The temperature has plummeted in the last hour.

Moisture hangs in the air, threatening sleet.

The L train rattles somewhere in the distance, a low metallic screech that vibrates up through the soles of my boots.

Streetlights flicker to life, casting sickly yellow pools onto the cracked pavement.

My car is parked one block away.

My boots hit the sidewalk. The rhythmic tapping of my heels usually blends into the ambient noise of the city.

Tonight, the sound is too loud.

Something’s wrong.

The atmosphere in the street changes. The ambient hum of the neighborhood drops away. The stray cats that usually pick through the alley dumpster are gone. The elderly woman who smokes on her fire escape is nowhere to be seen. The block is abandoned.

A predatory weight settles at the base of my neck.

My boots stop moving. The decision is not conscious.

The street is a stage. Someone is watching it.

Logic dictates that I should keep walking. A woman alone in Chicago after dark doesn't freeze on the sidewalk when the hair on her arms stands up. She gets to her car. She locks her doors. She drives away.

My boots remain glued to the concrete.

The weight is too specific. It is not the vague, chaotic danger of a mugger in an alley. It’s organized. It’s intentional. It’s a heavy, suffocating blanket of focus.

My chin lifts. The biting wind whips a loose strand of dark hair across my mouth.

I scan the perimeter.

The recessed doorway across the street is the only blind spot on the block. Plywood and spray paint cover the storefront beside it. The burned-out auto shop next to my clinic, two years gutted and boarded over, is a scar I keep my back to.

A shadow separates itself from the deeper darkness of the recessed doorway.

My breath solidifies in my lungs.

A man stands across the street.

He doesn't flinch. He doesn't retreat into the shadows. He remains still.

The stillness is not normal. Humans fidget. They shift their weight. They adjust their coats against the cold. They look at their phones.

This man does none of those things. He holds his space like a weapon resting on a table. Loaded. Unbothered. Waiting.

The streetlight catches him.

He is massive. Six-foot-three of lean, athletic muscle wrapped in black clothing. The build is economical. There is no bulk for the sake of vanity. It’s the lean, efficient frame of a soldier.

Salt-and-pepper hair, cropped close to the skull.

A matching salt-and-pepper beard, trimmed close to the jaw.

More pepper than silver in both. The short cut frames a face carved out of granite.

Deep, dark brown eyes lock onto me. They are fast. They are assessing.

They take inventory of my teal coat, my boots, my stance.

He was watching something behind me. I know this with certainty. His angle, his position, his focus. Whatever it was, it sat in my corner of the block.

But he’s not watching the building anymore.

He is watching me.

He thinks he can just stand there and intimidate me? Please. I have survived my life burning down around me. I have dealt with screaming insurance adjusters and pain-medicated patients. A stranger lurking in a doorway isn't going to make me cower.

A heavy, geometric tribal tattoo wraps around the left side of his throat. The ink disappears beneath the collar of his jacket. The sleeves of his coat are pushed up, revealing more thick black ink covering both arms. The sharp glint of a gold watch catches the yellow streetlight.

No chain. Just the watch and the ink.

The silence becomes physical. Twenty yards of cracked asphalt might as well be a live wire.

He is evaluating a threat.

I cross my arms over my chest. The teal wool of my coat bunches up. I stare right back.

He expects me to drop my gaze, to hurry down the street, to scurry into the safety of my car like a frightened rabbit. The men who stand in shadows always expect the world to yield to their quiet violence.

I don’t yield.

My chin tilts up another fraction of an inch.

A muscle feathers along his square jaw. His eyes narrow. The assessment shifts from tactical to something different. The complete, unnatural stillness of his body breaks.

He steps off the curb.

The combat boots he wears make no sound on the pavement. A man that size should make noise. He should thunder. He should crack the concrete. Instead, he glides. It’s a terrifying, predatory grace.

He crosses the centerline of the street.

My flight instinct finally kicks in. The alarm bells in my head shriek. My hand tightens around my keys. The serrated edge of my house key digs into my palm, a tiny focal point of pain to keep my mind sharp.

Running is a bad idea. Running triggers the chase.

I plant my feet.

He steps up onto my side of the sidewalk.

His physical mass blots out the streetlights. He eclipses the wind. The temperature spikes.

He stops exactly three feet away. It’s close enough to be a threat, but just far enough away to keep me from swinging my keys at his throat. He knows what he is doing. He is mapping the space.

A potent, unexpected scent washes over me.

Salt. Iron. Sun-baked earth.

It doesn't belong in Chicago. It doesn't belong in the freezing damp of an urban winter. It smells like a war zone in a desert. It smells like blood and heat and ancient things. The metallic tang of iron coats the back of my tongue.

My meticulously constructed armor splinters. The cracks spiderweb through my logic.

"You're out late."

His voice matches the rest of him. It is gravel and ruin. It is low, devoid of inflection, yet edged with command.

My eyebrows jump. A bark of disbelieving laughter pushes past my lips before I can stop it.

"You're standing in an abandoned doorway staring at a building in the dark, and you're lecturing me about my schedule?"

The words are sharp. Sassy. They are my defense mechanism. Humor and bite keep the terror at bay.

His eyes widen by a fraction of a millimeter. It is the only sign of surprise he allows. Most people probably apologize to this man. Most people probably stutter.

"I wasn't lecturing," he states flatly.

"Sounded like a lecture." I shift my weight to my left hip. The mustard cardigan peeks out from beneath my coat. "Sounded like a terrible opening line from a guy who forgot how to talk to civilians."