The Secret Mafia Wife Vanishes

Chapter 3 The Unanswered Call

The first bullet struck the armored window. Our convoy braked hard on the Triborough bridge as three black SUVs boxed us in.

Marco, my head of security, was shouting orders when a second round punched through his side of the windshield. Warm blood sprayed the console and my face.

He slumped against the door with his eyes still open.

Rounds hammered the vehicle from three sides. We had nowhere to move.

With Marco’s blood slick on my hand, I reached under my seat and opened a recessed panel.

Inside was a single red button. The Omega Line.

It was a direct, secure link to Dante, reserved for catastrophic failure. In three years, I had never used it.

My thumb stalled above the button. I had never let him see me helpless. The window cracked beside my head, and pride stopped mattering.

I pressed it.

The satellite link connected at once. I spoke first.

“Dante! Ambush on the Triborough bridge. Marco’s down. They’re trying to breach the car!” I yelled over the sound of automatic gunfire.

Annoyance tightened his voice. Behind him, Elena was sobbing.

“Serena, I don’t have time for your security drills,” he snapped. “Elena’s car broke down on the Palisades. She’s terrified she’s going to go over the cliff. I have to get to her. Handle it yourself.”

I opened my mouth to tell him his men were dying. The line went dead.

He hung up.

The fear drained out of me. I had spent three years waiting for one kind word from him. After that click, I wanted nothing.

One laugh escaped me, rough and wet.

“Handle it myself,” I whispered.

Fine.

I pressed my thumb to another panel. Inside sat my encrypted satellite phone, tied to the private network I had built in secret. It was my exit from Dante’s world.

I keyed in a number. The voice on the other end was Swiss, precise, and loyal only to the account number that paid him.

“Phoenix is live,” I said. “Execute contingency Delta. My location. I need extraction and cleanup. Now.”

I woke to antiseptic, a murmuring television, and fire in the shoulder where shrapnel had torn through me.

On the ceiling-mounted screen, a smiling news anchor delivered the day’s celebrity story.

“Billionaire Don Dante Moretti played the white knight today. He shut down the Palisades Parkway for a stunning brunette whose vintage sports car broke down precariously close to the edge.”

“A source says the woman is Elena Bianchi, the widow of his late brother.”

A nurse came in and checked my IV. “You’re very lucky, miss. That was a nasty wound. Should we contact your husband for you?”

I looked away from the television.

“No need,” I said. “I’m a widow.”