Page 2 of Savage Enemy

Nonna had arranged for a friend from the old country to put me up in her place in Brooklyn. The woman had promised Nonna she would love me like a granddaughter and help me start my new life as Valerie Salera.

Clouds drifted past the skyline, and sunlight warmed my cheeks, shoulders, arms, and my soul, burning away the shadows of my former life.

Face tilted toward the sky, I sighed.

As far as anyone knew, I was dead.

A soon-to-be distant memory.

The clock started ticking the moment the paid truck driver crashed into my father’s car. I had to move fast, stay on track, getting out of Chicago before my family found me. My father had connections everywhere. Associates in every corner of the world, so it seemed.

All except one.

New York.

A formal treaty between Chicago and New York kept the families from crossing into each other’s territory.

No business. No bloodshed. And no visits to say hello or fuck you.

Those who broke the treaty faced severe punishments—if they made it back alive.

Valentina Moscatelli could be taken captive in New York, enslaved, or sent back to my father, but Valerie Salera? She was no one. Just a poor Italian girl trying to put food on her table and a roof over her head.

I slid my hand into my bag and gripped the train ticket until my knuckles turned white. A one-way ticket from Union Station to Penn Station in Manhattan.

Sunlight slipped through the bag’s opening and glinted off the small pistol I’d stolen from my big brother Marco’s closet.

The ferry’s arrival whistle blew, startling me, and I slammed my bag shut to hide the gun.

With my head down beneath a dark blue Cubs cap and my hair falling like a curtain around my face, I stepped onto the dock with the crowd and headed west toward the train station.

Sweat trickled down my back, and my pulse pounded in my ears. I kept checking over my shoulder during the entire thirty-five-minute walk, expecting to see my father’s men trailing me.

Or worse—my twin brother Aris.

If he found me, I wouldn’t go back. I’d throw myself in front of a bus before I let that sadist touch me again.

His bruises and scars marked my body, a testament to years of cruelty. I could only imagine what he would do now that I’d jeopardized the family’s multimillion-dollar deal with the Russians.

I had no doubt.

Aris would hurt me. And our father would let him.

The evil bastard wouldn’t just beat me. He would force our little brother Santo to watch. A sweet nine-year-old, still untouched by the realities of our life. Aris would kill Santo’s soul in front of me, because he knew how much I loved my baby brother.

I stepped into Chicago’s iconic train station.

With my head down and eyes up, I scanned the great hall and found a spot to press my back against the cool marble wall and watch for familiar faces while keeping mine hidden.

A man nearby sat on a bench, talking into his phone.

“Such a shame,” he said. “Pretty young thing. But her father’s a monster. Everyone knows Moscatelli’s no better than a common criminal. Lives in that mansion on the Gold Coast, pretending he’s legit. I swear, the city would be better off withouthim. He’s probably the reason there are so many guns on the street.”

The stranger wasn’t wrong.

If anything, he underestimated my father.

Saul “The Pianist” Moscatelli ran a lot more than guns. He profited from half of the heroin in Chicago, and he also had no problem dealing death. He also had city officials on his payroll or in his debt—including the mayor and the police chief.

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