Chapter 2 - The Taste of Danger
Nathan’s jaw hung open, the crisp stack of one-hundred-dollar bills trembling between his fingers. The arrogant sneer that had defined his handsome face for the past three years vanished into an ashen mask of pure dread.
Everyone in Illinois knew the silhouette of Adrian Moretti. He was the shadow behind city hall, the ghost who controlled the docks, and the ruthless don whose enemies had a peculiar habit of disappearing beneath the icy waters of Lake Michigan.
"I... Mr. Moretti," Nathan stammered, his voice climbing an octave. "I didn't realize... this woman was—"
"This woman?" Adrian’s voice was velvet over razor wire. He didn’t raise his tone, yet the sound resonated down the frozen-food aisle like a death knell. Adrian slowly reached out, his tailored charcoal sleeve immaculate, and plucked the fan of cash straight from Nathan’s limp fingers. "You were offering charity, weren't you? Waving paper at the mother of my child as if she were a stray dog on Michigan Avenue."
Gasps rippled through the spectators. The woman recording lowered her phone by an inch before Adrian’s right-hand enforcer, a scarred giant named Marco, shot her a look that made her shove the device deep into her purse and scurry toward the registers.
Nathan’s fiancée, Vanessa, shrank back into the shelves of organic yogurt, her manicured hands clutching her designer bag to her chest like a useless shield.
"I didn't know!" Nathan pleaded, sweat beading along his hairline. "Claire and I... we used to date. I was just trying to help—"
"Help?" Adrian inspected the hundred-dollar bills with mild distaste. Without looking at his bodyguard, he held the cash out. Marco produced a vintage silver lighter, flicking the flame to life. Adrian dragged the edges of the bills through the fire.
Bright orange flames devoured the currency. Shoppers watched in horrified awe as several thousand dollars turned to curling black ash, drifting down onto Nathan’s polished leather shoes.
"If you ever speak to her again," Adrian murmured, stepping into Nathan’s personal space until the taller man had to arch his neck backward, "if you look in her direction, if you so much as breathe the same air she walks through... I won't burn paper next time, Nathan Vance. I will burn your family's accounting firm down to its foundation, with you locked inside the vault."
Nathan choked back a whimper, nodding frantically.
Adrian turned his back on them, dismissing their existence entirely. His dark eyes softened only when they landed back on me. My heart was slamming against my ribs so violently I thought it would crack my sternum.
He reached down, gently taking the cheap plastic shopping basket from my white-knuckled grip, and handed it off to Marco.
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"Come, Claire," Adrian whispered, his hand finding the small of my back, radiating an intoxicating, terrifying heat through my worn cotton dress. "We are going home."
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