Chapter 3 - The Headlights
The line went dead.
I stayed on the wet cobblestones, shivering in my ruined silk dress, clutching the phone to my chest.
Seven minutes passed.
The heavy glass door to the patio swung open. The wedding music spilled out again, louder this time, followed by Richard. He stepped into the rain, looking at his gold watch with a sigh of profound, manufactured disappointment.
"I told you ten minutes, Nebula," Richard sneered, stepping toward me. He reached down, grabbing my bare arm with bruising force, hauling me to my feet. "Look at you. You're a mess. We are leaving right now, and when we get to the house—"
Before Richard could finish his threat, the night exploded into blinding white light.
Four matte-black armored SUVs breached the private security gates of the country club, tires tearing across the manicured lawn, bypassing the valet entirely. They slammed into a synchronized, tactical blockade around the smoking patio, their high beams pinning Richard like a rat in a spotlight.
Richard dropped my arm, raising a hand to shield his eyes. "What the hell is this? Hey! You can't park here!"
The doors of the SUVs opened simultaneously.
A dozen men in flawless black suits stepped out into the rain. They did not speak. They did not rush. They moved with the terrifying, coordinated silence of an execution squad.
From the lead vehicle, Dante Russo emerged.
He wore a bespoke midnight-blue overcoat, his dark hair slicked back by the rain. He possessed the kind of lethal, gravitational authority that instantly sucked all the oxygen out of the air. He did not look at Richard. He looked only at me.
His dark eyes tracked over my ruined dress, my soaked hair, and finally stopped on the swelling, bloody bruise on my jaw.
A muscle in Dante's jaw feathered. It was the only sign that hell was about to break loose.
"Sir, I don't know who you think you are," Richard said, puffing out his chest, trying to slip back into his charming, authoritative facade. "But this is a private event. My wife is having a manic episode. I'm taking her home."
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Dante finally turned his gaze to Richard.
"Your wife," Dante said, his voice a quiet, surgical blade, "just asked me to pick her up."
