Chapter 1 - The Night I Refused the Most Feared Man in Manhattan and Found His Guards Waiting Outside
The black SUV blocked the alley before I reached the subway.
I kept one hand inside my purse. My phone was already unlocked.
"Mr. Moretti would like to see you," the taller guard said.
"He knows where I work. He can make a reservation."
The man looked startled. I took advantage of it and stepped toward the street.
"Your sister is alive."
I stopped so quickly my wet shoe slipped.
Maya had been missing for eleven days. I had told the police she wouldn't disappear without her medication. They had told me adults sometimes needed space.
The guard held out a photograph. Maya sat in a hospital bed, her dark braid across one shoulder. A newspaper lay open beside her. Its date was yesterday.
I grabbed the picture. The corners were warm from his hand.
"Where is she?"
"Mr. Moretti will explain."
I wanted to scream. Instead I called Julian at the bar and gave him the SUV's license plate, loudly enough for both guards to hear. Only then did I climb inside.
Lorenzo waited in a quiet office above the lounge. No champagne. No performance. He had taken off his jacket and rolled his sleeves to his elbows.
"Your sister witnessed a murder," he said.
"Then call the police."
"I did. Someone inside the department told the killer where she was hiding."
He placed a second photograph beside the first. In it, Maya stood with a man wearing a silver tie clip shaped like a compass.
"My business partner," Lorenzo said. "Victor Sloane."
I recognized the face from a charity billboard near the hospital.
"Why tell me?"
"Because he thinks you're the only person Maya trusts. He plans to use you to draw her out."
"And what do you want?"
Lorenzo's eyes went to the ring on his hand.
"A public marriage. To me."
I laughed once. It sounded ugly.
"You think I can be bought?"
"No," he said. "I think you can be threatened. And I want the people threatening you to believe they'd have to come through me."
He slid an envelope across the desk. Inside was a medical bracelet with Maya's name.
May you like
On its underside, scratched into the plastic, were four words.
DON'T TRUST THE HOSPITAL.
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