Chapter 1 - The Man Who Already Knew Her Name
Ava Carter had learned to survive by counting everything.
Sixty-three dollars in her purse. Two hundred thirty-seven dollars for her three-year-old daughter Emma’s prescription. Eight days since she had injured her ankle. Eighteen months since Jake Martinez—the father of her child—had stolen her inheritance and disappeared.
Those numbers were why Ava was still limping between tables at Marino’s Diner on a freezing November night in Seattle when three dangerous-looking men entered the VIP section.
The man in the center was Luca Castellano.
Ava did not recognize him immediately. She only noticed the expensive black suit, the quiet authority, and the way his men watched every entrance while Luca watched her.
When Ava’s injured ankle gave out, a pitcher shattered across the floor. Luca stopped her from picking up the glass and discovered she had been working on the injury for more than a week.
Then Ava heard one of his men call him “Boss.”
The name Castellano followed.
Suddenly every rumor Ava had heard about Seattle’s underworld became real.
She refused Luca’s help, but when her ankle collapsed again, he lifted her into his arms and carried her through the diner in front of everyone.
He took her toward a private doctor despite her protests.
Then, inside his SUV, Luca made a mistake.
He mentioned Emma.
Ava had never told him she had a daughter.
Worse, she had never told him her own name.
When she demanded the truth, Luca finally produced surveillance photographs.
Jake Martinez was alive.
He had been photographed only three days earlier outside Marino’s Diner.
A second photograph showed Jake meeting an unknown man beside a black sedan.
Written on the back were two words:
EMMA CARTER.
Ava demanded to know what it meant.
Luca looked at her with the expression of a man who had arrived too late to prevent something terrible.
Then he gave her the answer that changed everything.
Jake was the reason Luca had come to the diner that night.
And Ava suddenly understood that Luca Castellano had not rescued her by coincidence.
May you like
He had been looking for her.
---
