Chapter 10 - The Edge of the Abyss
Midnight fell over the Valley of the Sun like a velvet shroud.
The penthouse suite atop the Colona Tower in downtown Phoenix offered an unobstructed, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree view of the city lights sprawling across the black desert floor. Below, the streets were calm once more. The bodies had been cleared from Symphony Hall; the police reports had been officially sealed under orders from the state attorney general; and Matteo Moretti’s primary distribution hub in Las Vegas was currently an inferno visible from twenty miles away.
Inside the master suite, Mirela was fast asleep in the center of the massive bed, clutching her one-eared rabbit, her breathing rhythmic and peaceful.
Ariel stood on the outdoor terrace, the warm desert wind whipping the hem of a dark silk robe around her bare ankles. Her knuckles were bruised from swinging the brass stanchion, her body aching with an exhaustion that went deeper than bone.
A glass door slid open with a soft hiss.
Severino walked out onto the stone terrace. He wore black trousers and an unbuttoned white shirt, a fresh bandage wrapped tightly around his left bicep where a bullet had grazed him. He held two crystal glasses of vintage brandy.
He walked to the glass railing and handed her a glass. Their fingers brushed, and the familiar, electric current sparked between them, hotter and more intense than ever.
“It is over,” Severino said softly, staring out over the twinkling city lights. “Matteo Moretti’s plane was intercepted in Denver an hour ago. He will not survive the night. The Castellane name has been wiped from Arizona’s registry. There is no one left to threaten my daughter.”
Ariel took a sip of the brandy, feeling the warmth bloom in her chest. “And what about me, Severino? The diner is gone. My old life is gone. Everyone in this city knows I stood beside you tonight.”
Severino set his glass down on the stone ledge. He turned to face her, stepping close until his commanding frame blocked out the city lights.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out two items, setting them on the wide marble railing between them.
The first was a cashier’s check drawn on a Swiss bank account, made out to Ariel Sutton, for the sum of five million dollars. Beside it lay a set of keys to a villa in Florence, Italy, and a freshly printed passport with a clean, untraceable identity.
The second item was a heavy platinum ring, set with an uncut black diamond the size of a sparrow’s egg—the ancestral crest of the Colona syndicate.
Ariel’s heart stopped. She looked up into his pale, slate-gray eyes.
“You have two paths, Ariel,” Severino said, his voice dropping into that dark, velvety cadence that made her soul shiver. “Take the check, take the keys, and take the passport. You can leave Phoenix tonight. You will never work another day in your life. You will never see a gun, never smell blood, and never have to look over your shoulder. You will be free from my ugly world.”
Ariel’s throat tightened. “And the second path?”
Severino reached out, his calloused thumb gently tracing the soft curve of her lower lip, his gaze burning into hers with raw, unvarnished hunger.
“Take the ring,” he whispered. “Stay here. Stand beside me not as a servant, not as an employee, but as my equal. As Mirela’s mother, and as the queen of this empire. I will give you everything this world can buy. I will protect you with five hundred soldiers. But you will belong to this world. And you will belong to me.”
Ariel looked at the check. Five million dollars. Freedom. Safety. Peace. Everything a poor girl from Phoenix had ever dreamed of.
Then she looked at the heavy black diamond ring. She thought of Mirela’s small, warm hand in hers. She thought of the savage, unconditional devotion in this ruthless man’s eyes.
She looked up at Severino, her lips parting, her hand slowly lifting from the cold railing to make her choice—
Suddenly, the silence was shattered.
The heavy satellite phone on the outdoor table began to buzz violently against the glass.
Severino’s gaze darkened. He didn't look away from Ariel as he tapped the speakerphone with one long finger.
Santino’s voice broke through the line, tight with an urgency Ariel had never heard before.
*“Boss. We have a catastrophic situation.”*
Severino’s jaw tightened. “Speak.”
*“It wasn't Moretti’s people who ordered the hit at the Symphony Hall,”* Santino said, breathing heavily. *“We just cracked the encrypted comms on the lead shooter’s radio. The order didn't come from Chicago.”*
Severino’s slate eyes turned to ice. “Where did it come from, Santino?”
*“From inside this city, boss,”* Santino answered, the words echoing like a death knell in the night air. *“The voice on the other end was a woman. She used your late wife’s private frequency. And boss... three armored vehicles just breached the underground parking garage of Colona Tower. They’re coming up the private elevator right now.”*
The line went dead.
Across the terrace, the red indicator light beside the private elevator chimed, switching from green to a pulsing, violent red.
Severino reached behind his back, drawing his tactical sidearm with a single, fluid snap. He stepped directly between Ariel and the elevator doors, his eyes locked on the ascending floor numbers.
He didn't look back as his left hand reached out blindly behind him, searching for hers.
“Ariel,” Severino whispered, his voice vibrating with lethal certainty. “Take the gun. Or take the ring. We have five seconds.”
Ariel’s hand reached out toward the marble ledge.
Her fingers closed tightly around the cold, heavy platinum.
May you like
The elevator chimed. The doors began to slide open.
***
