Chapter 1 - WHEN THE LIGHTS DIEDThe scream tore through Maison Laurent like broken glass.
Arabella Vale did not scream like a woman surprised by her own name. She screamed like someone being dragged back into a grave she had spent twelve years clawing her way out of.
Then the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the salon. The chandeliers disappeared. The marble vanished. The rich women upstairs began shouting. Somewhere behind the reception desk, a phone kept ringing with those three slow notes.
Dante Serrano moved before anyone else could breathe.
“Down,” he ordered.
His men dropped low. One of them pulled Laurent behind the styling station. Another kicked over a rolling cart, sending glass bottles shattering across the floor.
Bird—Arabella—was still in the chair, shaking so hard the black wool coat slipped from her shoulders.
Dante reached for her.
She recoiled.
“No,” she gasped. “No, no, no, no—he knows.”
“Who knows?”
“The man with the gold ring.”
A bullet cracked through the front window.
The mirror behind Dante exploded.
Women screamed upstairs. Stylists crawled across the floor. A second shot punched through the salon wall.
Dante grabbed Arabella and dragged her behind the marble shampoo counter. She fought him blindly, nails scraping his wrist.
“Don’t lock me in,” she sobbed. “Please don’t lock me in again.”
“I’m not locking you in,” Dante said, pressing her head down as another shot shattered the champagne bar. “I’m getting you out.”
“My hair,” she cried.
“It’s gone.”
Her hand flew to the back of her neck. Her fingers touched the exposed skin where the broken crown birthmark had been hidden for more than a decade. She froze.
The ringing stopped.
A voice came over the salon’s sound system.
Soft. Male. Polished.
“Hello, Arabella.”
Her entire body went cold.
Dante looked toward the ceiling speakers.
The voice continued, almost amused. “I told you what would happen if anyone saw the mark.”
Arabella shook her head like a child. “No.”
“You should have stayed invisible.”
Dante’s face hardened. “Who is this?”
A pause.
Then the voice laughed.
“Dante Serrano. Your father was smarter. He died before asking questions he could not survive.”
Dante’s hand tightened around his gun.
Outside, tires screamed against wet pavement.
His lieutenant, Nico, crawled beside him. “Back entrance has two shooters. Front has at least three.”
“Roof?”
“Unknown.”
Dante looked at Arabella. Her breathing was shallow. Her eyes had gone far away, as if part of her was still trapped in whatever nightmare had taken her name.
“Arabella,” he said.
She flinched.
“Look at me.”
Slowly, she did.
“You saved my life last night. Now I’m going to save yours.”
She stared at him as if she wanted to believe him but had forgotten how.
The sound system clicked again.
“Hand her over, Dante. This does not concern you.”
Dante smiled, cold and humorless.
“That was your mistake.”
He looked at Nico.
“Smoke.”
Nico pulled a canister from inside his jacket and rolled it across the floor. Gray smoke exploded through the salon. More shots came, wild and blind.
Dante lifted Arabella into his arms.
She weighed almost nothing.
For one terrible second, her fingers curled into his shirt, and she whispered, “If he gets me back, I won’t survive it.”
Dante carried her through the smoke.
Behind them, Maison Laurent burned with gunfire, screams, and falling crystal.
At the rear hallway, a masked man stepped from the emergency stairwell.
Dante fired once.
The man dropped.
Arabella buried her face against Dante’s chest and did not look.
They burst into the alley where rain poured down like the city itself was trying to wash away the blood.
A black SUV slammed to a stop.
Dante shoved Arabella inside and climbed in after her.
As the vehicle sped away, she looked through the rear window.
On the rooftop across from the salon stood a man holding a black umbrella.
Even through the rain, she saw the gold ring on his hand.
And suddenly, after twelve years of emptiness, one name returned to her mind.
Malcolm.
May you like
Her uncle.
The man who had buried her alive while the whole world mourned her.
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