Chapter 4 - The Missing Heiress Beneath the Coveralls
With shaking, bloody fingers, I reached for the zipper of the coveralls and pulled it down to my waist.
I slid my good arm out of the sleeve, wincing in agony as I carefully pulled the fabric over my bleeding left shoulder.
I unbuttoned the blood-soaked flannel shirt and let it drop.
I sat before him in nothing but my heavy boots, the rolled-down canvas coveralls, and the tight, restrictive bandages binding my breasts flat against my ribs.
The bullet had ripped through the fabric at my collarbone, slicing a deep, bloody groove across the skin.
Dante stared at the binding.
He stared at the pale, smooth skin of my shoulders, the delicate curve of my neck, and the long, raven-black hair that had been pinned up and hidden inside the cap, now tumbling loosely around my face.
For a full minute, neither of us breathed.
Then, Dante Moretti dropped the shears.
He took a slow, deep breath, running a hand through his dark hair.
A dark, terrifying chuckle rumbled in his chest.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he whispered.
He stepped closer, kneeling in the pool of my blood.
He didn’t look at my chest.
He looked directly into my eyes.
“I was wondering why a twenty-five-year-old mechanic listened to classical music while he worked, had hands softer than a pianist, and flinched every time Marcus Bellamy’s name was mentioned on the radio.”
My blood ran instantly cold.
“You… you knew?”
“I knew you were hiding,” Dante corrected, reaching for a thick square of gauze and pressing it gently against my wound.
I gasped, leaning into the pain.
“I thought you were a runaway from one of the other families.
A rat, maybe.
A kid who got in too deep.”
He leaned in close, his dark eyes glittering with dangerous intelligence.
“But I didn’t think I had the missing princess of Lake Forest sweeping my floors.
Hello, Elena Russo.”
Tears, hot and humiliated, finally spilled over my eyelashes.
“Are you going to sell me to him?”
I choked out.
“For the two hundred thousand?”
Dante’s hand stopped moving.
The air around him suddenly felt charged with a lethal, suffocating pressure.
“Do you think I need Marcus Bellamy’s pocket change?”
Dante asked softly, dangerously.
“He’s powerful, Dante.
He’s—”
“He is a glorified truck driver,” Dante sneered, his lip curling in utter disgust.
“He moves boxes.
He bribes city aldermen.
He thinks because he can intimidate a weak man like your father, he owns this city.”
Dante leaned closer, his face inches from mine.
“I own this city, Elena.
And no one takes what is in my garage without my permission.”
“I’m not a car, Dante,” I whispered.
“No,” he agreed, his eyes dropping briefly to my lips before snapping back to my eyes.
“You’re much more dangerous.
You’re a woman who cut off her hair, bound her chest, and walked into a mafia chop shop to avoid marrying a monster.
That takes a specific kind of insanity.
Or a specific kind of bravery.”
He secured the gauze with medical tape, his touches surprisingly gentle for a man with blood on his hands.
“You can’t stay here as Eli anymore,” he said quietly.
“If a stray bullet didn’t expose you, a slip of the tongue would have.
Bellamy’s men are tearing the city apart.
If they find you here, it starts a war.”
“Then let me go,” I pleaded.
“I have money.
I can leave tonight.”
“You wouldn’t make it to the state line,” Dante said flatly.
“Marcus has eyes on every bus terminal and train station.
No.
You’re not running anymore.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
Dante stood up, offering me his clean right hand.
May you like
“You’re going to come upstairs with me.
We are going to get you a clean shirt, pour a very large drink, and figure out how to destroy Marcus Bellamy.”
