Chapter 3 – The Cut Brake Line

My foot instinctively tapped the brake pedal.

It sank to the floorboard with zero resistance.

Panic seized my chest. The heavy SUV was barreling down the slick, rain-soaked avenue at fifty miles an hour.

“What did you do?” I screamed at the phone.

“Take the right on 4th Street,” the gravelly voice repeated. “Use the emergency brake if you have to. If you try to go to the brownstone, you’ll hit a wall.”

The line went dead.

“Emily, what’s wrong?” Sophie asked, gripping the leather seat.

“Hold on tightly, Soph.”

The intersection for 4th Street was coming up fast. I yanked the steering wheel to the right, pulling the electronic parking brake at the same time. The tires shrieked against the wet asphalt. The SUV fishtailed wildly, hydroplaning across two lanes before violently jumping the curb and slamming into a chain-link fence.

The airbags didn’t deploy, but the jolt threw me hard against the seatbelt.

“Sophie!” I gasped, twisting around.

“I’m okay,” she whimpered, wide-eyed but unhurt.

We were in an abandoned industrial lot. The rain drummed heavily against the roof. Through the foggy windshield, I saw headlights approaching. A sleek grey sedan pulled up slowly, boxing us in against the fence.

“We have to get out,” I told her, unbuckling my belt. “Run toward the streetlights. Don’t look back.”

I pushed my door open, but before my feet hit the pavement, a man stepped out of the grey sedan. He wore a dark raincoat and held a black umbrella.

He didn’t draw a weapon. He just walked up to my open door and handed me a small, folded piece of paper.

“Luca Moretti cannot protect you from the people he works for,” the man said quietly. “Vanessa was just a distraction.”

I took the paper, my hands shaking. “Who are you?”

“Someone who knows your real last name, Emily.”

He turned and walked back to his car. The sedan reversed and vanished into the rain.

I scrambled back into the SUV and locked the doors. I turned on the interior light and unfolded the paper.

It was a train ticket to Chicago. Dated for tomorrow morning.

But it wasn’t the destination that made my blood run cold. It was the name printed on the passenger line.

Emily Thorne.

I hadn’t used that name since I was eighteen. Since the night my father was killed and I went into hiding to escape his debts.

Sophie leaned forward, looking at the ticket over my shoulder.

“Emily?” she asked softly. “Why does that ticket have the same name as the woman who signed my mother’s autopsy report?”