Chapter 1 - Shadow of the Citadel
The air in the subterranean parking garage smelled of stale exhaust, wet concrete, and the metallic tang of fresh blood.
Maya’s back was pressed hard against Dante Moretti’s chest. His breathing was shallow, a silent, ragged rhythm that told her every movement cost him agonizing pain. He had undergone a four-hour emergency procedure to extract a poisoned wire catheter from his thoracic cavity less than two hours prior. Medically, he should have been in an induced coma in the Intensive Care Unit, hooked to a ventilator and a continuous morphine drip.
Yet here he stood, broad-shouldered, lethal, and holding a silenced 9mm pistol in his free hand.
"Quiet," Dante repeated, his voice barely more than a gravelly rasp against her ear. "If you make a sound, they will shoot us both, and I am currently not in a position to kill four men before they pull their triggers."
Maya forced her trembling limbs to lock into place. Across the dimly lit garage, near the concrete pillar marked Level B2, two men in dark suits stepped into the yellow pool of overhead light. Maya recognized one of them—it was Marcus, Dr. Halpern’s surgical assistant who had allegedly "fainted" right before Dante was brought into the operating room. He wasn't fainting. He was setting up the board.
"She saw the wire, Marcus," the second man hissed, nervously adjusting his jacket. "Halpern pulled it out right in front of her. If Moretti wakes up and the cops question the surgical team, she’s going to talk."
"Halpern is being taken care of as we speak," Marcus replied coldly, drawing a snub-nosed revolver from his belt. "Find the girl. Check her car, check the staff locker room. The internal team wants no loose ends before sunrise."
Maya’s pulse hammered against her ribs like a trapped bird. Dr. Halpern. They were going to kill the attending surgeon, and now they were hunting her.
Dante didn't wait for the men to move closer. Keeping his arm wrapped tightly around Maya’s waist, he dragged her backward into the deep shadows behind a concrete support beam. The sheer physical effort forced a muffled groan from his throat, and Maya felt a sudden, sickening warmth soaking through his hospital gown and onto her scrubs.
His surgical sutures were tearing.
"You're bleeding out," she whispered frantically, her medical instincts overriding her terror. "You're going into hemorrhagic shock if you don't sit down!"
"I'll die sitting down," Dante growled softly, his cold gray eyes fixed on the shadows where Marcus was searching. "Stay behind me."
Before Maya could protest, Dante stepped out from behind the pillar. His posture was imposing, his spine straight despite the agony tearing through his torso. He raised the silenced pistol with frightening precision.
Phfft. Phfft.
Two muted pops echoed through the subterranean air.
Marcus dropped instantly, his body collapsing onto the hood of a parked sedan before sliding to the oil-stained floor. The second man gasped, reaching for his weapon, but Dante fired a third shot with surgical accuracy. The man folded in half and went still.
Silence reclaimed the garage, heavy and suffocating.
Dante didn't lower the gun. He stood over the bodies for three long seconds, ensuring there was no movement, before his knees gave out. He crashed against the side of an SUV, sliding down until he was sitting on the cold concrete, clutching his right side.
"Dante!" Maya dropped to her knees beside him, her hands instinctively pressing against his bandaged abdomen. The white gauze was completely crimson. "You idiot! You just ruined the internal repair on your sub-clavian artery!"
Dante looked up at her through a haze of shock and pain. His pale face was slick with cold sweat, but his gray eyes remained unnaturally clear, locked onto her face.
"You didn't run," he noted, his breath coming in ragged gasps.
"I'm a nurse, not a coward," Maya snapped, pulling a roll of medical tape and sterile gauze from her scrub jacket—supplies she had habituated herself to carry. She pressed down hard on the wound, causing Dante to hiss through his teeth. "Hold this. Press hard."
"They know who you are, Maya Ellis," Dante said, ignoring the agony in his side. "Marcus had your file. They know where you live. They know about your mother's lupus treatment. They know about your brother at the community college."
Maya’s hands froze over the bloody gauze. A cold wave of horror washed over her, far more terrifying than the sight of the gun or the bodies lying ten feet away. "What?"
"This wasn't a random hit. It was a coup," Dante explained, his voice dropping into a dangerous, dark timbre. "My inner circle... someone sold me out. And anyone who saw that poison wire is a target. You go home tonight, and my enemies will use your family to draw me out. Or they'll just butcher you to erase the evidence."
"I have to call the police. I have to get my mother out of the house—"
"The police are paid by the same men who paid Marcus," Dante interrupted, reaching up with a heavy, blood-stained hand to grab her wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. "You call the precinct, you give them your location, and you sign your family's death warrant."
"Then what am I supposed to do?!" Maya cried, tears of frustration and terror finally spilling down her cheeks. "I saved your life! I did my job! I don't belong in your world!"
"You entered my world the moment you pulled forty centimeters of death out of my chest," Dante said softly. He leaned his head back against the car tire, his eyelids fluttering as loss of blood began to take its toll. "You come with me now. I protect your family. You keep me alive long enough to tear down the men who did this."
A black luxury sedan sped down the garage ramp, its tires screeching against the concrete. Maya flinched, preparing to run, but the vehicle pulled up directly in front of them. The driver’s side door opened, and a tall, heavily scarred man with a militaristic posture stepped out, drawing a weapon before recognizing Dante.
"Boss!" the man exclaimed, rushing forward. "We got the signal from your tracker. What happened?"
"Viktor..." Dante muttered, his voice fading fast. "Secure the girl's family. Right now. Bring them to the Citadel. No one touches them."
"Understood, sir." Viktor looked at Maya, his expression unreadable, before helping Dante to his feet.
Dante leaned heavily on Viktor, but before he was loaded into the back seat, he turned his head to look at Maya one last time. "Decision time, Nurse Ellis. Do you trust the system that left you broke and defenseless... or do you trust the devil who owes you his life?"
Maya looked down at her hands, covered in Dante Moretti’s blood. She looked at the two dead hitmen lying in the shadows. She thought of her sick mother resting in their small, vulnerable house on the South Side, completely unaware of the storm gathering over their heads.
May you like
She wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve and stepped toward the car. "If my mother misses a single dose of her medication, Mr. Moretti, I'll finish what that wire started."
A faint, dangerous smirk touched Dante's pale lips just before he lost consciousness and slumped into the leather interior.
