The Waitress Who Saved the Mafia Boss—and Knew His Name Wasn't the Only Secret

The red dot settled on my sternum. Time seemed to slow to a crawl. I couldn't move; my limbs felt paralyzed by sheer, primal terror.

Then a wall of muscle and Kevlar slammed into me.

Dante tackled me behind a stone fountain just as a heavy round pulverized the spot where I had been lying, spraying wet soil and shattered concrete everywhere. Dante grunted, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth as he landed on top of me.

"Dante!" I gasped.

His hand clamped over my mouth. "Quiet," he ordered softly.

I looked up. His face was inches from mine, his gray eyes burning with lethal concentration. But as he shifted his weight, I felt something warm and slick soaking through his shirt, dripping onto my collarbone.

"You're hit," I whispered, pulling his hand away from my mouth.

"Grazed," he muttered through clenched teeth. "Left flank. It's nothing."

It wasn't nothing. The bullet had ripped through the fabric of his vest at an angle, tearing open his side.

From across the garden, another burst of fire forced Marco and the remaining guards to pin down behind the entrance arches. We were cut off, pinned behind a low ornamental fountain with fifty yards of open courtyard separating us from the armory.

"The shooter is on the water tower above the garage," Dante assessed, peering around the stone rim for a fraction of a second. "He has the angle. The moment anyone breaks cover, he takes them down."

He checked his rifle’s magazine. Empty. He discarded it and pulled his sidearm. "Seven rounds. In this rain, at eighty yards, with a handgun... the odds are poor."

I looked around the shattered greenhouse. At my feet lay a fallen decorative floodlight, its thick cable severed by gunfire, sparking against the wet pool of fountain water. Next to it sat an intact industrial maintenance mirror used for checking the high roof panels.

An idea, reckless and insane, flashed through my mind.

"Give me your jacket," I said.

Dante frowned at me. "What?"

"Give me your jacket! If you shoot from this side, he anticipates your silhouette. I'm going to throw your jacket and catch the glare from the floodlight with the maintenance mirror. He'll take the bait. You get one second to find his muzzle flash."

Dante stared at me, astonishment flickering across his rugged features, quickly replaced by grim respect. "You're insane, Cara."

"I'm a waitress who works Friday nights in downtown Chicago. I deal with crazy for a living. Do it!"

Dante stripped off the torn black jacket and handed it to me.

"On three," I whispered, gripping the heavy mirror frame. "One... two... THREE!"

I hurled the jacket toward the open archway while simultaneously angling the glass mirror to catch the sparking halogen glare, beaming a sharp flash directly toward the water tower.

*CRACK!*

A sniper round shattered the mirror in my hands, the shockwave vibrating up my arms.

In that exact fraction of a second, Dante leaned out from the opposite side of the fountain. He raised his handgun with both hands, steady as stone despite the pouring rain.

*BANG. BANG.*

Two shots. Eighty yards.

A beat of silence followed. Then, the heavy, metallic thud of a body rolling off the corrugated roof of the water tower echoed through the storm, landing hard on the pavement below.

Dante lowered the gun, breathing heavily. He looked down at me, his gaze fierce, raw, and completely unreadable.