Chapter 5 - Vows in the Shadows
The heater in the catering van blasted lukewarm air that smelled of old coolant and burnt coffee. Outside, the Catskills had become a featureless wasteland of swirling white. The windshield wipers thumped rhythmically, struggling against the heavy buildup of sleet, while the headlights illuminated only ten feet of snow-choked asphalt ahead.
Mia’s hands were clamped onto the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white. Her heart hadn't slowed down since the glass shattered in the bedroom. Every shadow on the tree-lined road looked like an ambush; every gust of wind felt like a sniper’s bullet.
In the rearview mirror, she watched Enzo Romano.
He had managed to pull a heavy insulated catering blanket around his broad shoulders. He sat braced against the van’s ribbed metal wall, his head tilted back, breathing through his nose in measured, deliberate intervals. The physical toll of the escape was obvious—his skin had a sickly, translucent sheen, and his body occasionally shuddered with tremors—but the lethargy of the coma was gone. His eyes were wide, sharp, and constantly moving, tracking the road behind them through the rear windows.
“You’re doing well,” Enzo said quietly. The gravel in his voice had smoothed out, revealing the rich, dark baritone that had once commanded thousands of men across New York.
“I’m terrified,” Mia admitted, her voice shaking as the van fishtailed slightly on a patch of black ice. She corrected the slide with a practiced twitch of the wheel. “I’m a waitress, Mr. Romano. I serve miniature quiches to hedge fund managers. I don't smuggle mafia dons through shootouts.”
“Enzo,” he corrected softly.
She glanced at him in the mirror. “What?”
“My name is Enzo. Call me Mr. Romano again, and I’ll think you’re working for my accountant.”
A fragile, hysterical bubble of laughter rose in Mia’s throat, but she swallowed it down. “I don't think your accountant would have spilled coffee on your face.”
“No,” Enzo murmured, his gaze dropping to the floor of the van for a brief second before locking back onto her reflection. “He wouldn't have. He would have stood by and watched Dante turn off the machines. Tell me about your brother.”
The abrupt change of subject caught Mia off guard. “Leo? He’s seven. He has an autoimmune disorder—atypical aplastic anemia. His bone marrow doesn't produce enough platelets. He needs specialized immunosuppressants imported from Switzerland every four weeks. If I miss a single payment, the hospital drops him from the trial program.”
“How much?” Enzo asked.
“Twelve thousand dollars a month,” Mia said, her voice dropping to a whisper. “My parents died three years ago in a car crash on the FDR Drive. It’s just me. I work three jobs. I clean offices in the morning, work the lunch shift at a diner in Queens, and do high-end catering at night. I was twenty-two hundred dollars short for this month’s payment. That’s why I took the Catskills dispatch in a snowstorm.”
Enzo leaned his head against the cold steel of the van wall, watching the back of her head. He had spent his entire life surrounded by people driven by greed, pride, or fear. Loyalty in his world was an expensive commodity, bought with laundered cash and enforced with lead. Yet here was a girl who had stepped in front of an executioner's gun not for an empire, but for a sick child in a hospital bed.
“The hospital is St. Jude’s on the East Side?” Enzo asked.
“Presbyterian,” she corrected.
“Consider it handled,” Enzo said. “Forever.”
Mia shook her head, keeping her eyes glued to the snowy road. “You don't owe me anything. Just… when we get to the city, let me go to the hospital. Don’t drag me into your war.”
“It’s too late for that, Mia,” Enzo said, and the cold reality in his tone made the hair on the back of her arms stand up. “Dante saw your face. Salvatore Valetti’s men saw you drive me out of the gates. To them, you aren't a bystander anymore. You’re the weapon that destroyed Dante’s coup. If I drop you off at Presbyterian tonight, you won't survive long enough to see your brother wake up.”
A cold dread seized Mia’s chest. The van suddenly felt very small, very fragile, and completely cut off from the rest of the world.
“Then what do I do?” she asked, panic creeping back into her voice.
“You stay at my side,” Enzo said, leaning forward, resting his forearms on the back of the passenger seat just inches from her right shoulder. The heat radiating from him was palpable, a magnetic, commanding presence that filled the entire cabin. “You become my shadow until Dante and Valetti are in the ground. I need a witness who isn't compromised by the syndicate. The Commission meets at dawn at the Brooklyn Navy Yard to ratify the transfer of the shipping terminals. Dante needs that meeting to legalize his theft.”
“And you’re going to stop him?”
“I am going to destroy him,” Enzo replied without a shred of hesitation. “Dante thinks I am a ghost. He will walk into that boardroom believing he has won. But before I walk through those doors, I need to know where you stand, Mia Vance.”
Mia slowed the van as they approached the highway ramp. The blizzard was howling off the Hudson River now, shaking the chassis with vicious gusts.
“I stand with my brother,” Mia said, turning her head slightly to look directly into Enzo’s silver-gray eyes. There was no subservience in her gaze, only a fierce, unyielding defiance that matched his own. “If keeping you alive keeps Leo safe, I will drive this van straight into hell for you. But the second this is over, you let us go.”
Enzo studied her face—the faint smudge of coffee on her cheek, the fierce fire in her hazel eyes, the curve of the mouth that had broken his two-year slumber.
May you like
“A fair trade,” Enzo whispered, reaching out with a calloused, scarred finger to gently wipe the streak of coffee from her cheek. His touch was shockingly tender for a man who commanded an army of killers. “Drive to Manhattan, Mia. Let’s go reclaim a kingdom.”
***
