Chapter 4 - THE SEEDY MOTEL IN GREEN BAY
The motel room smelled of damp carpet, stale bleach, and cheap cedar air freshener.
Emily sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress, her coat still zipped to her chin, watching the neon sign of the Starlite Motor Inn blink a rhythmic red glare across the cracked plaster ceiling.
It was 3:00 AM.
She had spent her last forty-eight dollars on a Greyhound ticket to Green Bay—far enough from Chicago to lose herself, close enough to the Canadian border if the pursuit got too close.
Her stomach gave another sharp, sickening wrench.
She doubled over, hugging her knees to her chest, biting her lower lip until she tasted copper.
"Don't," she whispered to the empty room, tears finally breaking free and spilling hot down her cheeks. "Don't give up now. Not now."
She had known about Valentina for three months.
She had found the hotel receipts in the pocket of Alessandro's wool coat when she sent it to the dry cleaner. She had seen the way Valentina looked at him across the boardroom table during the summer acquisitions.
She had stayed anyway.
Because she had foolishly believed that the baby—the child they had prayed for through three miscarriages and five years of sterile fertility clinics—would anchor him.
She had believed a mafia boss could be softened by a nursery.
What a fool she had been.
Alessandro didn't want a family; he wanted a crown, and Valentina Russo—daughter of the New York syndicate boss—was the jewel encrusting it.
A sudden, sharp rap sounded at the door.
Emily froze.
Her heart leaped into her throat, hammering so hard she could hear the blood rushing in her ears.
"Housekeeping," a gruff, muffled voice called from the dark outside. "Open up for linen check."
Emily didn't breathe.
She crept off the bed, her boots silent on the stained carpet, and peered through the tiny fish-eye peephole in the door.
A man stood in the shadows of the open-air walkway. He wasn't wearing a housekeeping uniform. He wore a dark trench coat with the collar turned up against the sleet, and his right hand was shoved deep into his pocket.
Thomas Vance.
Alessandro’s most ruthless enforcer.
"I know you're in there, Mrs. Vitale," Thomas’s voice came through the wood, flat and devoid of any human warmth. "The boss is waiting in the car. Open the door before I kick the hinges off."
Emily’s blood turned to ice water.
She backed away from the door, her eyes darting frantically around the squalid room.
There was no back exit. Only a narrow bathroom window overlooking a two-story drop into a muddy alleyway.
The doorknob rattled violently.
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A heavy metal boot-heel slammed against the frame, splintering the deadbolt.
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