Chapter 1 - 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.
Then come see me in the office.
We have to discuss your new salary.”
For the next three weeks, I lived in a state of suspended terror.
Working in Bay Four meant isolation, which was a blessing for my disguise but a curse for my nerves.
I was no longer lost in the chaotic background of pneumatic drills and loud mechanic banter.
I was in a sterile, perfectly lit garage, working on machines worth more than the life insurance policies of everyone in the building combined.
And Dante Moretti was always watching.
He didn’t hover, but he made his presence known.
He would come down in the evenings after the rest of the shop had clocked out, bringing a tumbler of amber liquid and a stack of ledgers.
He would sit on a leather stool in the corner of my bay, doing his business in silence while I worked under the hood of a bullet-riddled Cadillac or a pristine Aston Martin.
The physical toll of being Eli was becoming agonizing.
The chest binder restricted my breathing, leaving me lightheaded when I had to heave heavy tires or wrestle with rusted suspension bolts.
I was constantly exhausted, terrified to sleep deeply in my cheap apartment for fear of talking in my sleep, terrified of waking up to Marcus Bellamy’s enforcers kicking down my door.
Every time Dante spoke to me, it felt like a test.
“You don’t talk much, Eli,” he remarked one Tuesday night.
It was past midnight.
Rain was lashing against the frosted glass of the garage doors.
I was underneath a Mercedes G-Wagon, draining the transmission fluid.
“Not much to say, Mr.
Moretti,” I replied, my voice echoing slightly off the concrete floor.
“You don’t drink with the boys on Fridays.
You don’t talk about women.
You don’t complain about the hours.”
I saw his polished black shoes step into my line of sight, stopping just beside the oil catch pan.
“You work like a man who’s running from something.”
My wrench slipped, barking my knuckles against the sharp edge of the transmission pan.
I bit down hard on my lip to stop the sharp, feminine gasp that tried to escape.
I swallowed the pain, sliding out from under the chassis on the creeper, wiping my bleeding hand on a rag.
“I just need the money, sir,” I said, keeping my head down.
Dante crouched.
It was a fluid, athletic movement that reminded me he wasn’t just a businessman; he was a predator.
He reached out and caught my wrist before I could pull my hand away.
His fingers were warm, rough with calluses of their own.
My breath hitched.
His thumb brushed over the bleeding scrape on my knuckles.
“Small hands for a mechanic,” he noted, his voice dropping an octave.
“Gets me into tight engine bays,” I countered, tugging my arm.
He didn’t let go immediately.
His dark eyes scanned my face, drifting from the fake shadow of dirt I rubbed on my jawline every morning, up to the heavy cap I never took off.
“You smell like lavender soap, Eli.
Not industrial grease like the rest of them.”
Panic, icy and sharp, clawed at my throat.
“It’s the cheap stuff from the dollar store.
I’ll switch to something else.”
He finally released my wrist.
“Don’t.
It’s an improvement.”
He stood up, towering over me again.
“Get that fluid changed and go home.
You look exhausted.”
As he walked away, I leaned my head against the cold steel of the G-Wagon’s bumper, squeezing my eyes shut.
He knows.
He has to know something is wrong.
But the alternative to staying was running, and running took money.
I had saved nearly three thousand dollars, stashed under the floorboards of my apartment.
It still wasn’t enough to buy a solid fake passport and disappear to Europe.
I needed two more months.
Just two more months of being Eli.
The illusion shattered on a Thursday in late November.
Chicago had frozen over, the streets slick with black ice.
The garage was quiet, most of the crew having left early to beat a coming blizzard.
I was alone in Bay Four, finishing a brake job on Dante’s armored Range Rover.
Dante was upstairs in his office.
The radio on my workbench was playing a local news station on low volume.
I tuned it out, lost in the rhythm of tightening lug nuts, until a familiar name cut through the static like a knife.
“…update on the disappearance of Lake Forest heiress Elena Russo.
It has been nearly eight months since the twenty-five-year-old vanished on the eve of her high-profile wedding to logistics magnate Marcus Bellamy.
The Bellamy family has just announced a staggering two-hundred-thousand-dollar reward for any information leading to her safe return.
Authorities still suspect foul play, though Mr.
Bellamy insists she may be suffering from a psychological episode…”
I froze.
The heavy pneumatic torque wrench slipped from my hands, clattering violently against the concrete.
Two hundred thousand dollars.
Marcus wasn’t just looking for me anymore.
He was putting a bounty on my head.
In a city like Chicago, that kind of money would make neighbors turn on each other.
It would make every cop, every informant, and every desperate criminal on the street look twice at every dark-haired woman they passed.
“Drop something?”
I jumped, whirling around.
I hadn’t heard the door to the bay open.
A man I didn’t recognize was standing inside my bay.
He wasn’t Dante, and he wasn’t one of our mechanics.
He wore a heavy wool overcoat, his face scarred and weather-beaten.
One of his hands was buried deep in his coat pocket.
“Shop’s closed,” I said, pitching my voice low, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
“Customer entrance is around front.”
“I’m not a customer,” the man said, stepping further into the light.
His eyes darted around the expensive cars, then settled on me.
“I’m looking for a guy named Tony.
Heard he runs this chop shop.”
“This is a legitimate restoration business,” I said, stepping backward, subtly reaching behind me toward the workbench.
My fingers brushed the cold, heavy steel of a crowbar.
“You need to leave.”
The man smiled, revealing stained teeth.
He pulled his hand from his pocket.
The overhead fluorescent lights gleamed off the suppressed barrel of a 9mm pistol.
“I ain’t leaving, kid.
My boss has a message for Moretti.
Tony’s gonna deliver it.”
He leveled the gun at my chest.
“Where is he?”
Time slowed.
Adrenaline, pure and blinding, flooded my veins.
This was a hit.
A rival outfit sending a message to Dante.
“I don’t know,” I lied.
The man stepped closer, raising the weapon.
“Wrong answer, grease monkey.”
“Hey.”
The voice came from the catwalk above.
The gunman flinched, looking up.
Dante Moretti stood at the top of the steel stairs, a silencer-equipped pistol already drawn and aimed with terrifying casualness.
His face was a mask of absolute, terrifying calm.
“You’re in the wrong bay, friend,” Dante said.
The gunman didn’t hesitate.
He swung his weapon up toward the catwalk and fired.
The
pfft
of the suppressed shot was followed by a spark of metal on the railing near Dante.
I didn’t think.
I just reacted.
I grabbed the heavy crowbar, lunged forward, and swung it with everything I had at the back of the gunman’s knees.
Bone crunched.
The man screamed, collapsing, but as he fell, his finger spasmed on the trigger.
The gun went off a second time.
A line of white-hot agony tore across the top of my left shoulder.
The force of it spun me around, and I hit the concrete floor hard, knocking the wind out of my lungs.
Above me, two more muffled shots rang out in quick succession.
The gunman slumped forward and didn’t move again.
I lay on the floor, gasping for air, clutching my shoulder.
Warm, wet heat was rapidly soaking through my flannel shirt and the thick canvas of my coveralls.
Footsteps clattered down the metal stairs, fast and heavy.
“Eli!”
Dante slid to his knees beside me, kicking the dead man’s weapon away.
His hands were on me instantly, his cold, composed demeanor fractured by something that looked entirely too much like panic.
“I’m—I’m fine,” I gasped, trying to sit up, but the pain made the room spin.
“It just grazed me.”
“Shut up and stay still,” he snarled, pressing his hand hard over the wound on my shoulder.
I hissed in pain.
“You stupid kid, why did you rush a man with a gun?”
“He was… going to shoot you,” I managed to say, my vision blurring at the edges.
“I had him.
I always have him.”
Dante’s jaw was clenched tight.
He looked over his shoulder toward the main garage doors.
“Tony!
Get in here!” he roared.
“Don’t,” I panicked, grabbing his wrist with my good hand.
If Tony came in, if they called a mob doctor, they would take off my clothes.
They would see.
“Please, no doctor.
I can patch it.
Just a scratch.”
“You’re bleeding through three layers of clothes, Eli,” Dante said grimly.
Without asking permission, he reached for the collar of my coveralls and grabbed the heavy brass zipper.
“No!”
I shrieked, batting his hands away, scrambling backward like a cornered animal.
“Don’t touch me!
I said no!”
Dante froze.
He looked at my terrified, wide eyes.
He looked at how desperately my hands were clutching the front of my clothes, shielding my chest, despite the blood pouring down my arm.
The air in the garage seemed to stop moving.
Dante’s eyes narrowed.
The panic in his expression slowly morphed into a dark, razor-sharp realization.
He looked at my face, really looked at it, stripped of the slouching posture and the shadows of the cap that had fallen off when I hit the ground.
He looked at my jawline, the shape of my eyes, the lack of an Adam’s apple beneath the oversized collar.
“Tony,” Dante called out, his voice deathly quiet now, echoing through the empty shop.
Footsteps approached the frosted glass doors.
“Boss?
I heard—Jesus Christ!”
Tony yelled as he saw the body on the floor.
“Lock the front gates,” Dante commanded without taking his eyes off me.
“Kill the security cameras.
And do not come into Bay Four.
If you open this door, I’ll put a bullet in you myself.
Understood?”
“Y-yes, Boss.”
The heavy deadbolts of the bay doors clicked into place.
We were entirely alone.
Dante stood up slowly.
He holstered his weapon at the small of his back.
He reached to a nearby workbench, picked up a pair of heavy trauma shears from a first-aid kit, and walked back to me.
“You can take the coveralls off yourself, or I can cut them off,” Dante said, his voice entirely devoid of emotion.
“But you are bleeding out on my floor, and I am going to stop it.
Choose.”
I pressed my back against the tire of the Range Rover.
I was trembling so violently my teeth were chattering.
The game was over.
The lie was dead.
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.
May you like
“I have money.
I can leave tonight.”
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