Chapter 1 - The freezing tarmac wind whipped across Chloe Cole’s face as she watched her husband’s private Gulfstream G650 taxi away without her. She was 6 months pregnant and stranded at Teterboro Airport, unaware that the black SUVs surrounding her did not belong to airport security.
Chapter 1 - The freezing tarmac wind whipped across Chloe Cole’s face as she watched her husband’s private Gulfstream G650 taxi away without her. She was 6 months pregnant and stranded at Teterboro Airport, unaware that the black SUVs surrounding her did not belong to airport security.
They belonged to the most dangerous man in New York.
The scent of aviation fuel and impending snow hung heavily in the December air. Chloe, 28, stood near the private terminal of Signature Flight Support at Teterboro Airport, the collar of her Max Mara cashmere coat pulled tightly around her neck against the biting New Jersey wind.
Just 50 yards away, her husband, Harrison Cole, the chief executive officer of Cole Logistics, was speaking furiously into his cell phone at the base of the stairs leading to his Gulfstream G650.
They were supposed to be flying to Aspen for a babymoon, a final romantic trip before the arrival of their 1st child. But Harrison had been behaving erratically for weeks. There had been late-night phone calls conducted behind locked doors, unexplained withdrawals from their joint accounts, and a sudden, desperate rush to leave the city.
Harrison ended the call. His face was completely drained of color.
He hurried across the tarmac to where Chloe stood shivering.
“Babe, there’s a problem with the flight manifest,” he said. His voice trembled slightly, and he would not meet her eyes. “I need you to wait right here. I have to go inside the terminal and sort it out with the pilot. Just stay here.”
“Harrison, it’s freezing,” Chloe protested, wrapping her arms around her swollen abdomen. “Can’t I wait on the plane?”
“No,” he snapped, louder than necessary.
He immediately softened his tone, although his eyes continued to move nervously toward the terminal gates.
“No, the cabin isn’t pressurized yet. Just wait. 2 minutes, I promise.”
He turned and hurried up the air stairs.
Chloe watched in confusion as the flight attendant pulled the heavy cabin door closed. The metallic impact echoed across the tarmac.
“Harrison,” Chloe murmured.
The jet’s Rolls-Royce engines abruptly rose to a deafening pitch. The wheel chocks were removed. The Gulfstream began to turn, its thrust sending a violent blast of icy air and grit toward Chloe.
She stumbled backward, throwing her hands over her face and coughing as the exhaust fumes swept over her.
In absolute horror, she watched the jet taxi toward the runway and gather speed.
He was leaving.
Her husband of 4 years, the father of her unborn child, was flying away without her.
Chloe reached into her Hermès handbag with trembling, numb fingers and removed her phone. She called him.
The call went directly to voicemail.
She tried again.
Voicemail.
Before the full weight of panic could settle over her, the screech of heavy tires cut through the roar of the departing aircraft.
4 matte-black Cadillac Escalades breached the secured tarmac access gate and bypassed airport security entirely. They accelerated toward Chloe in a tight formation, surrounding her and trapping her against the chain-link fence.
Her breath caught.
She stepped backward, 1 hand instinctively resting against her stomach.
The doors of the SUVs opened simultaneously.
A dozen men emerged.
They were not police officers. They were not airport security personnel. They wore dark, tailored overcoats, and their expressions were hard and unreadable.
A man stepped from the lead Escalade, and his presence seemed to remove all the oxygen from the freezing air.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, and he moved with a terrifying, predatory grace. Beneath a black cashmere topcoat, he wore a charcoal Brioni suit. His dark hair was swept neatly back.
It was his eyes that paralyzed Chloe.
They were the color of shattered ice and contained no warmth.
The man was Roman Costa, head of the Costa family, a syndicate that controlled the Eastern Seaboard’s shipping ports with an iron, blood-soaked grip.
Roman walked slowly toward her. His custom leather shoes crunched against the frost covering the asphalt.
He stopped 5 feet away and looked toward the sky, where Harrison’s jet had become nothing more than a blinking light disappearing into the low clouds.
“He actually did it,” Roman murmured.
His deep, gravelly voice sent another chill down Chloe’s spine.
“I didn’t think the coward had it in him.”
“Who are you?” Chloe demanded. Her voice shook despite her attempt to sound strong. “What do you want?”
Roman finally looked directly at her.
His cold gaze moved downward to her pregnant abdomen. A brief expression of absolute disgust crossed his features—not disgust toward Chloe, but toward the situation.
“Your husband,” Roman said, moving closer, “owes my organization $85 million. He lost it running unauthorized cargo through my ports in Baltimore and Newark. I gave him until 6:00 p.m. today to produce the wire transfer.”
Roman checked his watch, a rare Patek Philippe Grand Complication.
“It is 6:50.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chloe said, her heart pounding against her ribs. “Harrison runs a legitimate logistics company. He doesn’t owe you anything. Let me pass.”
A dark, humorless smile touched the corner of Roman’s mouth.
“He ran it straight into the ground. To buy himself a 24-hour head start to disappear into a country without extradition, he offered me the only piece of collateral he had left.”
Roman gestured toward her with a gloved hand.
“You.”
Chloe’s blood turned cold.
The tarmac seemed to tilt beneath her feet.
Harrison had not simply abandoned her. He had traded her. He had left his pregnant wife to the Mafia to save himself.
“No,” she whispered as tears began to move down her frozen cheeks. “He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t do that to his child.”
“Men like Harrison Cole care only about themselves, Mrs. Cole,” Roman said.
For a moment, his voice softened slightly before becoming hard again.
He turned toward 1 of his men.
“Get her into the car. Keep the heat high. She’s freezing.”
“Don’t touch me!” Chloe screamed as a burly man stepped forward.
“Mrs. Cole,” Roman said sharply.
The command in his voice drew her attention back to him.
“You have no money. He emptied your joint accounts this morning. You have no passport. He removed it from your bag in the car. If I leave you here, the FBI will arrest you in exactly 2 hours for the corporate fraud he committed in your name.”
He held her gaze.
“Get into my car, or I leave you to the wolves.”
Chloe stared at the ruthless Mafia leader and realized with horrifying clarity that he was telling her the truth.
She looked up at the empty sky. A profound and agonizing hatred began to replace the love she had once felt for her husband.
She raised her chin, wiped the tears from her face, and walked toward the Escalade.
The drive from Teterboro to Long Island passed in suffocating silence.
Chloe sat in the rear of Roman’s heavily armored Maybach. The heated leather seat provided the only physical comfort in a world that was rapidly collapsing around her. Beyond the tinted windows, the Manhattan skyline glittered like a bed of broken glass.
Roman sat across from her with a crystal tumbler of amber liquor in his hand.
He had not spoken since they left the airport.
He was studying her, examining her as though she were a complicated financial ledger.
“You’re not hysterical,” Roman finally observed, his deep voice cutting through the hum of the tires. “Most women in your position would be screaming, begging, or fainting.”
“Would screaming get me out of this car?” Chloe asked, staring blankly through the window.
“No.”
“Then I’m saving my energy for my child,” she said coldly.
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“I don’t deal in women, Mrs. Cole, and I certainly don’t traffic in pregnant wives. Your husband believed that throwing you to me would satisfy my anger long enough for him to disappear into South America. He thought I would torture you to send him a message.”
Chloe swallowed and wrapped both hands around her stomach.
“Are you going to?”
Roman slowly moved the liquor around his glass.
“My family has rules. We are violent men, but we do not touch women, and we do not touch children. Your husband did not know that, which proves how profoundly stupid he is.”
“Then why take me?”
“Because,” Roman said, leaning forward, “if the FBI takes you into custody, you become a federal asset.”
The faint scent of expensive cologne and gunpowder reached her.
“You know the internal operations of Cole Logistics. You know the shipping routes he used—routes that belong to me. I cannot allow you to speak to federal investigators.”
The Maybach left the main highway and followed a private road through the dense woods of Oyster Bay.
Massive wrought-iron gates opened, revealing a sprawling, fortress-like stone estate overlooking the freezing waters of the Long Island Sound. Armed guards patrolled the perimeter with trained attack dogs.
Chloe understood that she was a prisoner.
It was a gilded prison, but a prison nonetheless.
Inside the cavernous marble foyer, Roman removed his coat and handed it to a silent butler.
“Show Mrs. Cole to the East Wing guest suite. Send Dr. Aris to examine her vitals. The stress on the tarmac was not good for the child.”
Chloe stopped at the base of the grand, sweeping staircase.
“I don’t need a doctor. I need a lawyer.”
Roman turned toward her. His imposing frame cast a long shadow beneath the chandelier.
“You don’t need a lawyer, Chloe. You need a miracle. The federal indictments will be unsealed tomorrow morning at 9:00. Harrison transferred 51% of the company’s holding shell into your maiden name 3 weeks ago. Legally, you are the majority shareholder of a company that just laundered $80 million in cartel money.”
The air left Chloe’s lungs.
She gripped the oak banister to keep herself upright.
3 weeks earlier, Harrison had brought her a stack of documents to sign. He had told her they concerned the trust fund for their child.
He had framed her.
A searing, blinding rage ignited inside Chloe. The shock and sorrow disappeared, leaving behind a sword-sharp clarity.
Harrison had not merely abandoned her. He had deliberately constructed her destruction.
He had sentenced the mother of his unborn child to federal prison.
“He thinks I’m stupid,” Chloe whispered, her voice unnaturally calm.
She looked up and met Roman’s dangerous gray eyes.
“He thinks I was only a trophy wife who spent her days at the country club. He forgot that before we married, I was the lead forensic accountant at my father’s firm.”
Roman stopped with 1 foot on the staircase.
His interest was immediately visible.
“Continue.”
“Harrison locked me out of the company servers 1 year ago,” Chloe said, her voice growing stronger and echoing through the massive foyer. “But I still have backdoor access. I know exactly where the money went, Mr. Costa. I know which offshore accounts he used, and I know how to empty them before he can touch a single cent.”
Roman descended the stairs slowly and moved back toward her until he was close enough that she had to tilt her head upward to meet his eyes.
The atmosphere shifted. A dark, sudden electricity seemed to move through the room.
“Are you offering me a deal, Mrs. Cole?” he asked softly.
“I’m offering you an alliance,” Chloe replied.
She held her position despite the intimidating closeness of the Mafia boss.
“Harrison left me to take the blame, and he left you with an $80 million deficit. You have the muscle and the resources. I have the financial codes and the access.”
She drew a breath and looked directly into the eyes of a killer.
“You want your money returned. I want his head on a spike. Keep me out of federal prison, protect my child, and I will deliver Harrison Cole to you on a silver platter.”
For a long and agonizing moment, Roman Costa stared at her.
The ruthless ruler of New York’s underworld looked at the pregnant, abandoned, 28-year-old woman standing before him in a maternity coat, and he saw an equal.
A slow and terrifying smile finally appeared on Roman’s face.
It promised absolute destruction.
“Dr. Aris will examine your vitals,” Roman said, dark amusement and new respect entering his voice. “Then you will join me in my study.”
May you like
He held her gaze.
“We have a hunt to plan, partner.”
