At 8:07 the next morning, four black SUVs surrounded the little diner where Emma Carter made $4.35 an hour plus tips.
Chapter 1
PART 1: THE STRANGER IN THE RAIN
836 words
Twelve men in dark suits stepped onto the sidewalk.
Every customer inside went silent.
Emma was holding a coffeepot when the last SUV door opened.
The man who emerged was the same stranger whose broken car she had fixed in the rain less than ten hours earlier.
Except now he was not stranded.
He was not helpless.
And judging by the way grown men inside the diner suddenly stopped breathing, his name was not Lucas either.
Emma tightened her fingers around the coffeepot.
Her manager whispered, “Oh, God.”
The stranger looked through the glass, found Emma immediately, and started walking toward her.
Less than twelve hours earlier, Emma had simply thought he was an arrogant rich guy who did not know how to tighten a battery cable.
The night had begun with smoke.
Thin gray smoke climbed from beneath the hood of a black luxury sedan stranded on County Route
19 outside Chicago.
Rain hammered the pavement.
Emma was twenty-four, exhausted, and carrying two grocery bags whose paper handles were beginning to tear.
She had just finished fourteen hours at the Sunrise Diner.
Her shoes leaked.
Her back hurt.
Her mother’s prescription refill had cost twenty-eight dollars more than Emma expected, which meant she had put the electric bill back into her purse unopened.
She had enough problems.
Then lightning split the sky.
Emma saw the man beside the car.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
Expensive black suit.
White shirt soaked at the collar.
Dark hair dripping rain.
Dead phone in one hand.
For a second, she considered walking past.
Then he looked down the empty road.
What she saw on his face stopped her.
Not anger.
Not entitlement.
Loneliness.
“Car trouble?” she called.
The stranger turned sharply.
“That is one way to describe it.”
Emma stepped closer and glanced beneath the raised
hood.
“Battery?”
“I don’t know.”
She looked at him.
“You don’t know?”
His jaw tightened.
“I usually pay people to know.”
Despite herself, Emma laughed.
“Well, those people aren’t standing out here getting soaked with you.”
Something almost like amusement passed through his expression.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
There was the smallest pause.
“Lucas.”
His real name was Luca Romano.
Emma knew none of that.
To her, he was simply blocking the engine.
“Move, Lucas.”
His eyebrows rose.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re standing where I need to stand.”
Men twice Emma’s age normally asked permission before entering Luca Romano’s office.
Yet the soaked waitress in cheap shoes had ordered him aside as casually as if he were blocking a refrigerator.
Luca moved.
Emma placed her groceries beneath the hood and leaned over the engine.
“You smell that?”
“Yes.”
“Probably the cable heating because the terminal’s loose.”
“You can tell that
by smelling it?”
“My father owned a garage.”
She reached into her canvas shoulder bag and pulled out a small adjustable wrench.
Luca stared.
“You carry that around?”
“My dad said a woman should know how to fix a car before she trusts one.”
“Smart man.”
“He was.”
The answer came too quickly.
Luca heard the past tense but did not ask.
Emma tightened the battery terminal and wiped rain from her eyes.
“Try it.”
Luca turned the key.
The engine coughed once.
Then roared.
Emma smiled.
“There you go.”
She picked up her groceries.
Luca stepped out again.
“How much?”
“For what?”
“You fixed my car.”
“So?”
“So I should pay you.”
Emma looked almost offended.
“Helping somebody shouldn’t cost money.”
Luca stared at her.
In his world, everything cost something.
Information.
Protection.
Silence.
Loyalty.
Even affection usually came with an invisible invoice.
He opened his wallet and removed several hundred-dollar bills.
Emma laughed.
“No.”
“Take it.”
“No.”
“It isn’t charity.”
“And this wasn’t business.”
He lowered the money slowly.
“At least let me drive you home.”
“No, thank you.”
“It’s pouring.”
“I noticed.”
“It isn’t safe to walk alone.”
Emma looked pointedly at his watch, tailored suit, and car worth more than her apartment building.
“Neither are mysterious rich men on lonely roads.”
For the first time in weeks, Luca laughed.
A real laugh.
Emma turned away.
“Goodnight, Lucas.”
He watched her disappear beneath the broken streetlights until the rain swallowed her completely.
Seven minutes later, three vehicles came flying around the bend.
Men in dark suits spilled onto the road.
Enzo Marchetti jumped from the lead SUV, furious.
“You disappear from the route, your phone dies, and your tracker stops moving. We thought—”
“My battery cable was loose.”
Enzo stared at him.
“What?”
Luca looked toward the road where Emma had vanished.
Then one of his security men leaned over the open hood.
His expression changed.
“Boss.”
Luca turned.
The man held up the battery cable.
“This didn’t loosen itself.”
The amusement disappeared from Luca Romano’s face.
And suddenly the waitress who had stopped to help him was no longer just a stranger who had done something kind.
She was a witness.
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