The Mafia's Forbidden Captive novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Garage
Mara waits in a K Street garage with her father's revolver to kill the mafia boss she blames for her sister; a sniper hits him first, she keeps him alive, and he orders her kept.
I waited on level three of the K Street garage with my dead father's revolver in my coat pocket.
It was ten fifty at night on a Thursday, and the concrete smelled like oil and cold rain.
My sister had written the plan in her notebook before she died.
Sartori, Thursday, K Street garage, 11 pm, parks level 3.
Lila had meant it as a warning to herself, in her neat bookkeeper's handwriting, with a box drawn around it.
I was going to use it as an appointment.
Three weeks ago she had been found dead in room eleven of the Sunrise Inn.
There were pills in her stomach that she had never swallowed on her own.
The police called it an accidental overdose and closed the file in four days.
I am an ER nurse.
I know what a body looks like when someone else has chosen the dose.
I stood behind a pillar and checked the revolver for the tenth time.
Six rounds, and my hands were steadier than I expected.
Lila's last voicemail was short, and I had played it more than a hundred times.
"Mara, it's me. Don't tell anybody where I am. Sartori's men are in the parking lot, and I'm going to talk to them."
Then a rustle, and then nothing.
She never called again.
Luciano Sartori ran the docks, the trucking and half the restaurants in Washington.
Everyone who knew his name lowered their voice to say it.
I did not lower mine.
At eleven exactly, headlights swept the ramp.
A black sedan rolled up and stopped ten feet from my pillar.
The driver got out first and looked at the stairwell, the ramp and the dark corners.
He did not look at the pillar.
Then the back door opened and a tall man in a dark coat stepped out and buttoned his jacket.
He had black hair and a long scar through his left eyebrow.
I had seen his picture twice in the paper, and the paper had not caught how still he stood.
I came out from behind the pillar with the revolver in both hands.
My mouth was dry.
"Luciano Sartori," I said.
He turned his head and looked at me, and he was not afraid.
He looked at the gun, then at my face.
"Put it down," he said quietly.
"You sent men to the Sunrise Inn," I said.
I saw him frown, only a little.
Then something cracked across the garage.
His shoulder jerked backward.
He took half a step, and the second crack hit the car window and sprayed glass across the floor.
The driver dropped flat and began shooting at the dark opening across the street.
Luciano went down on one knee with his hand clamped over his left shoulder, and blood came through his fingers fast and black.
I stood there with the revolver pointed at nothing.
I had come to kill him.
I had imagined it for twenty days, in the shower, on the plane, on the floor of Lila's old bedroom.
I had not imagined someone else getting there first.
He was going to die with her name still behind his teeth.
I dropped the gun and ran to him.
"Get behind the car," I said.
He stared at me.
"Now."
I dragged him by the collar of his coat, and he was heavier than he looked and let me do it.
We landed against the rear tire.
I tore off my scarf and pushed it into the hole in his shoulder with both hands.
He made a sound through his teeth.
"Hold this," I said, and pressed his own right hand over mine.
"You came to shoot me," he said.
His voice was low and level, though his face had gone grey.
"Stay awake."
"Why are you helping me?"
"Because you're not allowed to die yet," I said.
"There is something you owe me, and you're going to say it out loud first."
His grey eyes held on mine.
There was no gratitude in them, and that surprised me.
Mostly there was interest.
Two black SUVs came screaming up the ramp and stopped hard.
Men poured out of both with guns drawn.
One of them kicked my revolver across the floor and the others pointed their barrels at my head.
"Hands," one of them shouted.
"She's a nurse," the driver said, still lying flat.
"She pulled him behind the car."
"She was holding a gun on him," said the man standing over me.
"That's her gun on the floor."
I did not move my hands from the scarf.
"If I let go, he bleeds out in four minutes," I said.
"You can shoot me after."
For a long moment nobody spoke.
I could hear the rain running down the ramp and the engine of the sedan ticking.
The man above me cocked his pistol.
"Leave her," Luciano said.
His voice was barely there.
They all went still.
He was looking at me, and his hand had tightened on mine over the wound.
His lips were pale, but there was something hard and very awake in his face.
"Get me to the house," he said to the men.
"Not a hospital. Corvi has someone in every emergency room."
Two of them lifted him, and I went with the scarf pressed into him because there was no way to let go.
In the back seat of the SUV I kept my hands on him while the city slid past in streaks of red and white.
His head dropped against my arm.
I thought he had passed out.
Then he said, without opening his eyes, "Whose sister are you?"
I did not answer.
I had not given him a name, and he had not asked for one.
He opened his eyes and looked at the man in the front seat.
"Take her gun and leave her alive," he said.
"Keep her. She came here to kill me, and I want to know who for."
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