Catching Bianca: A Dark Mafia Romance (Shadows of Obsession Book 4)
Catching Bianca: Chapter 1

It’s the worst feeling when you’re yanked from a blissful dream.

One second, you’re blanketed in the most wonderful scenario and the next you’re so disoriented it takes you a few seconds to pin down where you are.

Tightly drawn curtains would leave the tiny room pitch-black were it not for the flickering TV screen. I sit up in my bed, unsure for a moment what woke me up.

“Get dressed,” Vaughn commands, making my head snap left. He’s by the bed, in his wheelchair, a travel bag on his lap, open and empty.

In the artificial blue light, his features look terrifying. Dark, swollen half-moons under his eyes, ashen skin, sunken cheeks, chapped lips… a grotesque image straight from a horror movie. My heart’s rhythm picks up. Memories break through the sleepy dam in my brain.

“Now, Bianca. They’re here.”

They.

Either Noretto’s or Willard’s men. I swallow hard, stretching my hands and legs and shaking my head to dislodge the sleepiness fogging my mind.

“Where?” I ask, shoving the covers aside, adrenaline flooding my system like a disease.

Vaughn’s already by the coffee table, unplugging his tech and shoving everything into the travel bag at the speed of light.

For a fifty-something-year-old shadow of a human being in a wheelchair, he’s surprisingly fast.

And surprisingly calm.

“Three men,” he says in a hushed, stilted voice, turning his wheelchair around as he continues packing the equipment.

He looks almost see-through. Pale to the point where his skin has acquired a ghastly grayish tint. Eyes like a porcelain doll’s: beady and lifeless. He’s a dead man walking. The burden on his shoulders weighing him down.

He doesn’t say it out loud, but the sacrifice he made to get me out of Noretto’s claws eats away at him little by little.

He traded one daughter for another.

And I’m not even his actual daughter to begin with. We don’t share DNA. I’m just his late wife’s illegitimate child. A teenage mistake she left at an orphanage.

Why he sacrificed his relationship with Hailey, his flesh and blood, to help me might forever remain a mystery. Vaughn doesn’t talk about it. No matter how many times I broach the subject, I’m met with the same old reply.

“My relationship with Hailey wasn’t salvageable. Carter’s sunk his claws too deep. My daughter’s gone. There’s nothing left of that sweet little girl she once was. She’s not mine anymore. She’s his.”

Resignation twists his features whenever he gives that speech. Resignation and pain. So much pain it’s a miracle it hasn’t killed him. It is killing him… slowly.

“Forty-five seconds,” he tells me as if I’m not moving fast enough and need encouragement.

I’m on my feet, throwing a pair of sweats over my PJ bottoms and pulling on a matching hoodie. My head spins as I power through the haze, darting into the en suite.

All our belongings are in two small suitcases, packed and ready to go. I zip them up, my fingers trembling so hard it takes three tries.

“Twenty seconds!” Vaughn denotes from the living room as I wheel both suitcases out, leaving them by the door.

We’ve done this before. Three times, but never in the middle of the night. No wonder my moves are a bit sluggish.

I trip over the suitcase as I dart to the bedside table for my useless, sim-card-less phone, headphones, and a worn copy of my favorite book. Vaughn’s by the door, having shut off the TV’s view of the street outside.

I mentally chastise myself for not glancing that way while the surveillance footage was running. I should’ve checked what spooked him this time.

“Ready?” he asks through gritted teeth, his voice tight. “You’re too slow, Bianca.”

“I’m ready, I’m ready!” I pant, joining him at the door, every nerve ending in my body crackling like fireworks on the fourth of July.

My knees are weak, panic not far from pulling me under. A few deep breaths take the edge off, but everything inside me pulsates as Vaughn yanks the door open, wheeling himself out.

He speeds down the corridor as quietly as possible, shushing me over his shoulders when I break into a sprint behind him. Easy for him to shh when he’s in a wheelchair that barely makes a sound. My feet stomp across the thin, cheap carpet, thudding around like little claps of approaching thunder.

I’m not sure what time it is, but it must be the middle of the night. The window at the end of the hallway tells me it’s still dark outside. I chase after Vaughn, struggling to keep up. I’m hauling two suitcases, my purse, my pockets are stuffed with my small belongings, my book is under one arm and…. fuck.

I forgot my jacket.

Damn it!

My first instinct is to blurt the information out for Vaughn. That’d be a mistake. I bite my tongue, remembering the fury I faced last time I forgot the damn thing.

It took me—correction cost us—seventeen seconds as I ran back to grab it, and I didn’t hear the end of it for weeks.

Never turn back, Bianca. Never. It was reckless. You could’ve gotten hurt. They could’ve been just around the corner.

They… the ones looking for us.

No way am I turning back again and facing Vaughn’s disapproval for the foreseeable future. One overbearing monologue repeated ten times over was quite enough, thank you very much. He let it go the first time, after two weeks, only because it was our first evacuation. He gave me some grace, but now… the fourth time around, he expects me to be much smarter.

We turn the corner. Vaughn summons the elevator, his fingers tapping an impatient rhythm against the wheelchair while concentrating on the screen counting down the numbers to our floor. I glance around, half expecting a menacing guy in a balaclava hot on our tail, gun drawn, murder on his to-do list for the night, but the corridor is empty. Empty and silent.

I almost jump out of my skin, letting out a startled yelp when the doors slide open with a ding.

“In,” Vaughn snaps, already inside the narrow elevator, turning his wheelchair to face me.

I wheel the suitcases inside, my heart pounding in my ears. The fear infesting my system grows potent enough to cut my legs from under me.

It wasn’t half as bad last time we were running.

Maybe because, last time, we left in the middle of an uneventful afternoon and only because Vaughn spotted two men in dark suits sitting out in the street in a black BMW.

This time, I have no idea what he saw.

What if he spotted Blaze? Or Carter himself?

What if a whole army of mafia men is heading this way?

What if we’re surrounded?

What if we’re about to die?

It doesn’t help that my brain still hasn’t had enough time to wake up. My body is electrified with adrenaline, but my brain is lagging. It’s been sixty seconds since Vaughn woke me. Any other day, I’d need about thirty minutes and a cup of strong coffee to function like a normal person.

“Load the suitcases while—”

“I know,” I clip, cutting him off. “I remember. Suitcases in while you do your part, then wheelchair in, and off we go.” My voice is hoarse, fear dripping from every trembling word.

He nods, his shoulders hiking up when the elevator stops at an underground parking lot. Gun in hand, Vaughn scans the vast space before pushing his wheels as hard as possible. The car sits opposite the elevator, ready for a quick getaway. Though considering it’s an old piece of junk, the word quick doesn’t work.

He grabs fake number plates from the trunk, sticking them on while I throw the suitcases onto the back seat. There’s not enough room in the trunk for our luggage and his wheelchair.

Twenty seconds later, he adjusts his useless legs behind the wheel. Once the wheelchair is stashed away, I take the passenger seat, buckling up, my butt sliding about the worn leather while Vaughn reverses out of the parking space, wheels squealing against the asphalt.

I check the clock on the dashboard. Two-thirty in the morning. I had less than two hours of sleep. No wonder it’s taking me so long to get my bearings.

I was never good at waking up in the middle of the night.

Vaughn navigates the narrow city roads for ten minutes, heading toward the interstate. Ten silent, tense minutes because I keep my mouth shut, waiting until we clear the ‘danger zone’: his name for the ten-mile radius from our hideout.

His eyes jump between the road and the rearview mirror every couple of seconds, checking if we’re being followed. His face is calm at first glance, focused, but under the cold mask, I spot the telltale signs of nerves.

Vaughn’s not as stoic as he believes himself to be. A muscle feathers his jaw, eyebrows bunch in the middle, knuckles whiten under the pressure. He’s gripping the wheel with all his might. So hard that I get the impression his hands are spasming.

“What did you see?” I ask when he levels the speed, cruising down the interstate a few miles an hour over the limit. Not enough to draw the cop’s attention, but enough to tell me he can’t get out of Kentucky fast enough.

“Three men,” he replies what feels like minutes later. “All dressed in black. Composed, walking down the street, glancing around, checking the cars, windows… I know the type.”

My head hits the backrest. Questions materialize at the tip of my tongue one by one, then dissolve before I can voice them or conjure plausible answers.

“Are you—”

“Yes, I’m fucking sure,” he snaps, his teeth grinding. The anger slides off his features when he glances my way, shame and guilt taking its place. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I shouldn’t let my emotions get the better of me, but I’m just… I’m worried about you.” He reaches over, gently squeezing my hand twice. “I’ve been in this game my entire life. I know how to spot foul play from a mile away. They were looking for us.”

I’m not convinced; though, on the other hand, we’ve been in the same place for eighteen days.

That’s unheard of.

Our last hideout kept us safe less than a week before Vaughn spotted ‘unusual activity’ outside and initiated the evacuation protocol.

The man knew what he was doing. On our first night on the run, he drilled the procedure into my head the entire mad drive from Noretto’s to the first safe hiding spot.

He told me about the years he spent working as a cop. He told me about the long list of notorious criminals he’s brought to justice, but even knowing the details of his bright career, there’s something extraordinary about his analytical thinking.

Vaughn’s methodical. Composed. A master at planning quick escape routes. We vacated all our previous quarters in under sixty seconds and never left a single thing behind.

Save for my jacket just now.

I’ve lost count of the survival rules he’s dished out over the past two months, but ‘pack light’ stuck hard. Rule number five, I think. Or maybe it’s seven…

Either way, I listened when we stopped at my tiny, rented apartment in Cleveland on our way to Detroit and only packed the bare minimum.

Our track record of evacuations doesn’t scream in favor of Vaughn’s “I know how to spot foul play,” but I don’t dare say it aloud. The chill sliding down my spine successfully seals my mouth.

He hates being questioned. He expects my trust… expects I’ll follow him like a devoted puppy. Every minuscule digression, every doubt creeping into my voice sets him off.

He becomes cold, distant, downright rude… and then he apologizes profusely, claiming my safety and well-being are his utmost priority.

“Willard or Noretto?” I ask, hoping he’ll believe I’m buying his half-assed reason for fleeing in the middle of the night.

“Willard would’ve sent his closest team. Broadway, Koby, Ryder… they’d be here. Unless he decided to show up himself, which is doubtful. My bet is Blaze.”

I’m not sure which option is worse. They both want Vaughn dead.

“Where are we going this time?”

“Get some sleep,” he says, his hold on the wheel relaxing a touch. “It’s a long drive to Ohio.”

My head snaps toward him so fast I feel a crack at the back of my neck. “Ohio? Why? Isn’t that where—”

“It’s always darkest under the streetlamp, sweetheart,” he interjects, making no fucking sense whatsoever. “We’ve been hiding in remote locations this whole time and they keep replaceing us. It’s time we try hiding in plain sight.” There’s a finality in his tone, a silent don’t you dare question my decisions.

Given that my questioning of his decisions always blows up in my face, I clamp my teeth together, silently stewing. Ohio and Pennsylvania are the two states we should avoid at all costs, in my humble opinion. Illinois, too, considering Willard’s most ruthless associate—Dante Carrow—controls the entire state. At least that’s what Vaughn said.

“Where in Ohio?” I ask.

“Dayton.”

I’ve never been there.

I’ve never been to any of the places Vaughn’s taken me to.

It’s not like I can sightsee. We stay locked in our accommodation, only leaving for supplies. Even then, only to the closest store.

It’s suffocating, though still a better fate than being locked in Noretto’s bedroom…

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.