Chapter 2 - THE MAN WHO TOOK A BULLET FOR ME
The first time Vincenzo Mercante saved my life, I thought he was going to die in my arms.
Blood spread across his white shirt as I pressed both hands against the wound beneath his ribs.
“Stay with me,” I whispered.
His dark eyes remained fixed on mine.
“Violet…”
“Don't talk. Please.”
“Your mother…”
His fingers closed around my wrist.
“Isabella DeLuca.”
Then his eyes shut.
For one terrible second, I forgot how to breathe.
“Vincenzo?”
Nothing.
“Vincenzo!”
The study doors burst open.
A tall man with a scar through his left eyebrow rushed inside, followed by four armed guards.
“Boss!”
He dropped beside us and pressed two fingers against Vincenzo's neck.
“He's alive.”
My knees nearly gave out.
“Get Morales here,” he ordered. “Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves.”
Two guards lifted Vincenzo carefully.
I tried to follow, but the scarred man caught my arm.
“Who are you?”
“Violet Anderson.”
His expression changed.
Not with recognition.
With fear.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“It's my name.”
He stared at me for another second.
Then he released my arm.
“I'm Giovanni Russo. Everyone calls me Gio. If you want to stay alive, you do exactly what I say.”
I looked toward the blood on the carpet.
“Someone just tried to kill him.”
Gio's jaw tightened.
“No,” he said. “Someone just tried to kill you.”
Twenty minutes later, I sat outside a private surgical suite in the east wing of the mansion.
I had never seen a house with its own operating room.
Then again, I had never been sold by my boyfriend to a mafia king.
My dress was stained with Vincenzo's blood.
A woman in blue scrubs approached me.
“I'm Dr. Elena Morales. The bullet passed through soft tissue. We stopped the bleeding. He'll survive if there are no complications.”
I covered my mouth.
Relief hit so hard it almost hurt.
“Can I see him?”
“Not yet.”
Gio appeared behind her.
“Doctor, I need a word.”
They stepped away.
I heard only fragments.
“Entry wound…”
“Sniper…”
“Trajectory…”
Then Gio said something that made my stomach turn.
“The shooter had the girl's photograph.”
I stood.
“What photograph?”
They both looked at me.
Gio hesitated.
Then he took out his phone.
On the screen was a surveillance image of the man who had fired from the woods beyond the mansion.
Beside him, on a small tablet, was a photograph of a little girl.
Brown hair.
Blue eyes.
A yellow birthday dress.
I knew that photograph.
It had been taken on my sixth birthday.
My mother had disappeared two weeks later.
“Where did he get that?” I whispered.
Gio studied me.
“That's what we need to know.”
I stared at the screen.
My mother had always told me she worked as a nurse.
She had been gentle and quiet. She sang while cooking dinner and kissed my forehead twice before bed.
Then one morning she went to work and never came home.
The police said she had abandoned us.
My father believed them.
He drank himself to death three years later.
I had spent most of my life believing my mother had chosen to leave me.
Now a sniper had carried my childhood photograph into the woods.
“Who was Isabella DeLuca?” I asked.
Gio went completely still.
“Where did you hear that name?”
“Vincenzo said it before he passed out.”
Gio looked toward the operating room.
Then back at me.
“Isabella DeLuca was supposed to be dead.”
My heart began pounding.
“Supposed to be?”
“Eighteen years ago, a woman with that name was killed in a fire outside Philadelphia.”
“My mother disappeared eighteen years ago.”
Gio closed his eyes briefly.
“Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
He took a breath.
“Isabella was the accountant for the DeLuca family. She discovered someone was stealing money from three criminal organizations and laundering it through legitimate businesses.”
“Who?”
“We never found out.”
“Then why does Vincenzo know her name?”
“Because his father spent eighteen years trying to find the evidence she took.”
I gripped the edge of a chair.
“Evidence?”
“A ledger. Names, dates, payments. Enough to destroy some very powerful people.”
I thought of my mother singing in our tiny kitchen.
Of the yellow dress.
Of the way she had held me so tightly the night before she vanished.
“She didn't abandon me,” I whispered.
Gio said nothing.
And somehow his silence was worse than an answer.
That evening, Vincenzo woke.
I entered his bedroom to find him lying against white pillows, an IV attached to his arm.
His face was pale.
But his eyes were open.
“You should be resting,” I said.
He looked at my bloodstained dress.
“Are you hurt?”
I almost laughed.
“You were shot.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No. I'm not hurt.”
He exhaled slowly.
“Good.”
I moved closer.
“Who was my mother?”
His expression darkened.
“Violet—”
“Don't lie to me.”
He looked toward the door.
“Gio told you about the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Then he told you half the truth.”
I felt cold.
“What's the other half?”
Vincenzo held my gaze.
“My father wasn't searching for Isabella because he wanted her evidence.”
“Then why?”
“Because he promised to protect her.”
My throat tightened.
“Why would your father protect my mother?”
“Because eighteen years ago, she saved my life.”
I stared at him.
“How?”
“I was fifteen. There was an attack on our family home. Isabella found me wounded in the cellar and got me out before the building burned.”
A memory stirred.
My mother had once come home with a bandage around her hand.
She told me she'd burned herself at work.
“Did you know who I was when Derek brought me here?”
Vincenzo hesitated.
That was answer enough.
“You knew.”
“I recognized your mother's eyes.”
“You knew, and you didn't tell me?”
“I needed to be certain.”
“Certain of what?”
He reached toward the bedside drawer.
Inside was a small silver necklace.
A heart-shaped pendant.
My breath caught.
I knew that necklace.
My mother had worn it every day.
“Where did you get that?”
“She gave it to my father the night she disappeared.”
I took it with trembling fingers.
There was a tiny scratch across the back.
I remembered making that scratch with a toy key when I was five.
It was hers.
It was real.
I turned the pendant over.
“Does it open?”
Vincenzo nodded.
I pressed the clasp.
Inside was a folded strip of paper.
Three words had been written in faded blue ink.
TRUST NO MERCANTE.
I looked up slowly.
May you like
Vincenzo was staring at the message.
And for the first time since I had met him, the most dangerous man in Chicago looked genuinely afraid.
