Chapter 4 - Cornered in the Neon
The apartment in Astoria, Queens, was forty-five square feet of peeling linoleum, damp radiator heat, and drafty window frames.
Paige locked the deadbolt, threw the chain, and dropped to her knees beside the tiny closet. She dragged out an old, beat-up Samsonite suitcase from beneath a stack of cardboard boxes. Her hands worked with practiced, mechanical efficiency.
From beneath the floorboards near the radiator, she retrieved an envelope containing four thousand dollars in hundred-dollar bills, an altered Canadian passport bearing the name Elena Vance, and an old iron key tied to a length of leather cord.
The key was all she had left of her father. It belonged to a safety deposit box at a private bank in Zurich, containing the financial records that proved Don Antonio Rossi had orchestrated the massacre of both the Falcone and Moretti dynasties. If Rossi found her, she was dead. If Landon Moretti found her... she didn't know what he would do. The Morettis had always believed her father betrayed Marco.
She zipped the bag, grabbed an oversized wool overcoat, and pulled a knit beanie down over her damp hair.
She reached for the doorknob.
Before her fingers could touch the brass, the heavy wooden door was hit from the outside with the concussive force of a battering ram.
The doorframe splintered with a deafening crack. Paige was thrown backward onto the floor as wood fragments scattered across the entryway.
Before she could scramble toward the fire escape, three men in tailored black overcoats entered the room with terrifying precision. Silenced weapons were drawn, sweeping the tiny apartment with cold efficiency.
“Don’t move, Miss Larkin,” a voice said from the doorway.
Paige scrambled backward until her shoulders hit the small kitchen table. She grabbed an eight-inch kitchen knife from the drying rack, brandishing it with white-knuckled desperation. “Stay back! I swear to God, take one more step and I’ll open your throat!”
The men didn't advance. They simply split to the left and right, stepping aside to make way for the man who entered behind them.
Landon Moretti stepped over the shattered remnants of her door.
He didn't draw a gun. He looked as composed, as lethal, and as aristocratic as he had in the dining room of The Gilded Spoon, his umbrella dripping rain onto her cheap rug. Behind him, Dominic stood guard in the narrow hallway, blocking any hope of escape.
Landon’s eyes swept the miserable room—the sagging mattress, the exposed pipes, the pathetic suitcase packed on the floor—before settling on Paige. His gaze took in the wild terror in her eyes, the knife shaking in her hand, and the fierce, defiant tilt of her chin.
“You’ve lost weight, Paige,” Landon said softly, his voice cutting through the hum of the radiator.
“Stay away from me, Moretti,” she warned, her voice trembling despite her best efforts to steady it. “I don’t have anything for you.”
“You have plenty for me,” Landon countered. He took a single, deliberate step forward. Paige lunged slightly, brandishing the blade to keep him at bay.
Landon didn't even flinch. With speed that defied his large frame, his hand shot forward. His fingers clamped around her wrist like a vice of cold steel. He twisted sharply—not enough to break bone, but with enough pressure to force her fingers open. The knife clattered harmlessly against the linoleum.
In the same fluid motion, Landon pulled her against his chest, his other arm wrapping firmly around her waist, pinning her arms to her sides.
“Let me go!” she gasped, thrashing violently against his grip. “You murderer! Let me go!”
“Be quiet,” Landon murmured into her ear, his breath warm against her cold skin. He held her easily, absorbing her frantic kicks without shifting his footing. “If I wanted you dead, Paige, Dominic would have shot you through the window five minutes ago. You are leaving with me.”
“To be tortured? To be interrogated about Marco?” she spat, tears of frustration and exhaustion finally spilling down her cheeks. “I didn't kill your brother! My father didn't kill him! We were betrayed!”
Landon went completely still. His arm tightened around her, not in malice, but with a strange, possessive intensity that made her breath hitch.
“I know your father didn't kill him,” Landon whispered near her ear. “Marco told me everything before he took his last breath. He told me the Falcone girl was the only one who tried to stop it.”
Paige stopped fighting. She tilted her head back, staring up into the dark, shadowed depths of his eyes. “Then why are you hunting me?”
“Because Don Rossi knows you’re in New York,” Landon said, his voice deadly serious. “His soldiers spotted you at the diner three days ago. By tonight, they would have had your location. I am not here to execute you, Paige.”
He leaned closer, his dark gaze locking onto hers with hypnotic power.
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“I am here to take back what belongs to my family. And you are coming under my roof.”
***
