Chapter 1 - The Mechanic Who Fixed the Wrong Man’s Mustang
Oil, Blood, and Broken Vows: The Mechanic Who Hid in Plain Sight and the Syndicate Boss Who Saw Through the Shadows
The silence in the garage was so absolute that I could hear the faint, rhythmic ticking of the Mustang’s cooling engine block.
Tony Mercer had taken a very deliberate step backward, effectively leaving me stranded on an island of concrete with the devil himself.
Dante Moretti did not look like a man who spent his life surrounded by grease, stolen goods, and violence.
He looked like a storm wrapped in a charcoal bespoke suit.
He was tall—imposingly so—with shoulders that filled the doorway of his glass-walled office upstairs and eyes as cold and dark as Lake Michigan in December.
He didn’t speak.
He just stared.
I kept my chin tucked, the brim of my grease-stained baseball cap pulled low over my eyes.
I was acutely aware of the rough canvas of my coveralls, the heavy canvas binder cutting into my ribs, and the thundering of my own heart.
I forced my shoulders to round, shifting my weight into a slouch that Michael used to adopt whenever our father was yelling at him.
Be small, be invisible, be Eli.
“Tony,” Dante said.
His voice was a low, resonant baritone that didn’t need volume to command the room.
“Tell me why my car, which has been sitting in your bay for three days, was just fixed by a kid who sweeps the floors.”
“Mr.
Moretti,” Tony stammered, wiping his hands on a rag with frantic energy.
“We checked the spark plugs, the ignition coils, the fuel injectors.
The computer diagnostics—”
“It’s a sixty-seven, Tony.
It doesn’t have a computer,” Dante interrupted smoothly.
He didn’t look at the manager.
His dark eyes remained entirely fixed on me.
“What did you find, kid?”
I cleared my throat, forcing the pitch down, praying the tremor in my chest didn’t bleed into my vocal cords.
“Vacuum leak, sir.”
“A vacuum leak.”
“Yes, sir.
Hairline crack in a rubber hose tucked under the intake manifold.
It was sucking in excess air, throwing off the fuel-to-air ratio.
That’s what caused the misfire.
The idle was too lean.”
Dante took a slow step forward.
The faint scent of bergamot, expensive leather, and gun oil washed over me, obliterating the smell of exhaust and solvent that usually dominated the shop.
He stopped inches from my steel-toed boots.
I kept my gaze locked on the silver buckle of his belt.
“Look at me when you speak, Eli.”
The fact that he knew my fabricated name sent a shockwave of ice down my spine.
I tilted my head up, keeping my expression entirely blank, playing the part of a terrified, respectful kid.
Up close, Dante Moretti was devastating.
Sharp jawline, five o’clock shadow, and eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
“Who taught you to listen to an engine like that?” he asked softly.
“My older brother,” I lied, though it was half-true.
Michael had taught me everything.
While my father was grooming me to be a society wife, Michael was sneaking me into the carriage house on the Lake Forest estate, teaching me how to strip a carburetor and bleed brakes.
“Your brother,” Dante mused.
“He a mechanic?”
“He’s dead, sir.”
A flicker of something unreadable passed through Dante’s eyes.
He stared at me for another long, excruciating moment.
He looked at the smudges of grease on my cheek, the oversized flannel collar swimming around my neck, and the dirt ingrained beneath my fingernails.
For a second, I thought he saw it.
I thought he saw Elena Russo standing there in a dead man’s clothes.
“Tony,” Dante said, finally breaking the stare and turning away.
“Yes, Boss?”
“Eli doesn’t sweep floors anymore.
Move his toolbox to Bay Four.”
Tony choked on a breath.
Bay Four was the private bay.
It was isolated at the back of the building, blocked off by frosted glass partitions.
It was where Dante’s personal vehicles were kept, and where the cars that needed to completely disappear were brought.
“Boss, Bay Four?
But Eli is just a—”
“Did I stutter, Tony?”
“No, sir.
Right away, sir.”
Dante walked back toward the steel staircase leading to his office.
He paused on the second step and looked back over his shoulder.
“Clean up the Mustang, Eli.
May you like
Then come see me in the office.
We have to discuss your new salary.”
