Chapter 1: Chapter Married With Malice: Prologue

“Take these.” Creed Gentry tosses his gloves. “Before you lose all your fingers.”

His tone says he’s not backing down until I agree and there’s no time for an argument.

I don’t break stride as I shove the thick leather gloves over hands that are numb and cracked after digging through snow drifts for the past half hour.

Creed is satisfied enough to push his own hands into his coat pockets and trudge behind me.

Maybe I ought to tell him the truth, that I’d gladly leave all my fingers behind in the next snow drift if that’s the bargain to bring her back.

It’s not. Life and death aren’t negotiable.

Whoever is in charge of the universe doesn’t care that I’d offer my soul, whatever that’s worth.

It’s probably not worth much at this point. My flaws are deep and infinite. Yet if anyone is interested, I have only one wish.

I need to find my wife. I need to find her before the light disappears.

But first, I’m ready to declare war on all this fucking snow.

There’s not a single pause as the shit just keeps vomiting from the sky. There’s more snow than oxygen. You could probably drown in it. You could definitely freeze in it.

Nobody needs to tell me that time is short. I’ve understood that since the moment I realized she was gone.

“It’s my fault,” I say to the towering trees, standing rigid and indifferent to whatever human drama happens at their feet.

Icy flakes blow at a slant and the wind picks up, smothering the sound of my biggest confession.

Creed’s steps pound faster until he catches up. “Did you say something?”

This man is practically a stranger. I’ve known him and his brothers for only a day and yet they didn’t hesitate to charge straight into the storm at my side.

The sight of men confronting danger is nothing novel but I’m used to a different type of danger. The Cosa Nostra world has a limitless appetite for dead men and it gets fed regularly.

I knew this long before I took my brother’s place as our uncle’s second-in-command. Once you’re in the fold there’s an endless set of unspoken rules. Blood is drawn without flinching, all for the sake of power or revenge.

The three Gentry brothers would likely shrug if I told them my uncle is Richie Amato. No matter who I am or where I come from, they’re out here in subzero temperatures with a blizzard bearing down because they are decent men who jump in to help when someone needs to be saved.

Men like that are worth a lot more than the men I deal with. Or the man that I am.

Creed Gentry awaits my reply and I’m envious of him. His wife, and the wives of his brothers, are waiting at the resort where they’re safe.

Meanwhile, my wife is out here somewhere on this motherfucking mountain where the temperature keeps falling and deadly night will soon fall.

The resort’s security cameras showed the rental car driving off the property two hours ago, heading for the only road that winds down the mountain.

Anni, forever stubborn and tempestuous, apparently decided to take her chances in the Colorado winter rather than spend another night with me.

Maybe she figured the road wouldn’t really be impassable.

Maybe she never saw the forecast and had no idea another storm was on the way.

She knew I thought she was still at the spa. She saw an opportunity to run. From me. From us. From what we’ve become.

And yes, that is all my fault.

My fault for escalating our constant war.

My fault for failing to see what she really wanted.

My fault for not understanding her, for letting her believe I didn’t care.

I do care, Anni. I care so fucking much. Forgive me.

Regret has the most bitter taste. Right now there’s no other option than to swallow the bile and keep moving.

She’s out here somewhere.

Lost. Maybe injured.

I won’t be able to hold onto my sanity if I acknowledge a more terrible outcome.

“I think we’re just parallel to the road.” I point to a vague clearing on the right.

I’m guessing. We’re all guessing. The three Gentry men were right behind me when I confronted the manager, demanding the keys to the resort’s best emergency vehicle.

If the manager hadn’t cooperated then I would have grabbed his skinny neck and pushed a gun to his temple. Good thing he knew better than to argue. He was trembling when he escorted us to the garage and pointed to the largest Utility Terrain Vehicle.

Too much powder had already fallen and the road was tough to follow. With Creed’s brother Cord at the wheel of the cramped UTV, we followed the tire tracks to a bend in the road where the recent tire tracks disappeared. We divided up into teams of two and proceeded on foot.

Desperation is starting to set in. Frozen white garbage keeps falling from the sky. At this rate, any evidence Anni left behind will be covered in no time. This fact summons a fresh wave of dread, unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life.

“ANNALISA!”

The wind eats up her name no matter how loud I scream it.

There’s a small possibility that we’ve got this all wrong. Maybe Anni made it down the mountain after all and she’s safely waiting in the town of Sleepy Rock. My brother could have found her. At this very moment she might be sitting by the fireplace in the ranch house Cale shares with his very pregnant wife.

I check my phone but the spotty signal hasn’t improved. Before we took off from the resort, I called my brother to let him know what was happening. Cale said he’d go straight to the police chief to see about checking the trail cameras. If Anni drove by, the cameras would have picked up her movement. This is a small hope but it’s there.

Creed uses a pocketknife to cut a notch in the trunk of a nearby pine, just as he’s been doing every ten feet to make sure we can find our way back to the UTV.

My foot bumps into an object and I drop to my knees to claw away the snow. Every other time I’ve done this there’s only been a rock or a fallen tree trunk. This time there’s a tire but it’s an old tire, left behind by some other misadventure.

Creed Gentry’s boots crunch into view. When I look up, the lines of his face have deepened with grim sympathy.

He doesn’t want to say the next words but he says them anyway. “We need to head back.”

I shouldn’t feel furious with him for speaking the truth and yet I do.

Still on my knees in the snow, I make yet another desperate effort to use my phone. Creed’s gloves make my fingers clumsy and I briefly tear them off.

No calls or texts will go through. Not to Anni. Not to Cale. We’re cut off from the world up here and the phone might as well be a teacup for all the fucking good it does.

The glow of the useless phone screen swims before my eyes. Every passing second sucks another ounce of grey daylight away. The wind moans through the treetops and the snow falls faster.

Creed sighs and nudges me to my feet. “Come on. We’ll check in with the radio.”

I can barely hear him. I don’t want to turn around but he’s right.

Making our way back to the UTV is a tougher hike than the one that led us this far. The fact that my feet are growing numb only feels like a big deal when I think about what Anni must be going through. Whenever I shout her name into the wind, Creed shouts it with me.

His brothers, Cord and Chase, have already returned. They wait beside the UTV in their bulky jackets, their faces covered by thick colorful scarves supplied by Creed’s wife.

Trudging those last few yards in snow that’s up to my knees, the faint glimmer of hope that drove me back here is crushed by the dejected posture of the Gentry men. I see how their eyes go straight to their brother. Creed’s stiff head shake is the answer to an unspoken question.

We haven’t found her. No one has found her.

Bypassing the men, I dive into the cab of the vehicle and fumble for the old CB emergency radio. The passenger door creaks open and the three men crowd the opening.

“Luca.” Chase pulls down a red and green scarf. At least I think it’s Chase. The Gentry brothers look a hell of a lot alike when they’re covered in winter gear. “I was able to reach your brother on the radio. He was with the Sleepy Rock PD.”

Creed walks around to the driver’s side to clamp a comforting hand on my shoulder. The windshield is obscured by a layer of snow. The shrieks of the wind fade and I’m only able to hear the noise of my own desperate heart and the sound of Chase Gentry’s kind voice.

“Cale said the road leading down the mountain is impassable. Due to the forecast, it was blocked off to drivers a few hours ago but they checked all the trail cameras to make sure. Cale confirmed for himself that no one has come through. She didn’t make it down there, son.”

Getting stabbed through the middle of the chest would have been less painful than hearing these words. Disjointed scenes careen through my mind. She stars in them all.

Anni twirling her hair with a smile when she thinks I’m not watching.

Anni lifting her chin with a scowl when I’ve pissed her off for the millionth time.

A defiant Anni marching down the aisle in that outrageous wedding dress.

A conquered Anni trembling underneath me and begging to get wrecked even harder.

Every future mafia king deserves a queen.

My uncle said that.

Her father nodded along.

And so we were bound by the laws of the land and the laws of our families. Love was never supposed to be a factor.

Annalisa. My beautiful, tempestuous, passionate queen.

I was so lucky that I ever got to hold her in my arms.

How did I fuck up every chance to keep her?

One of the Gentry brothers speaks my name. I don’t know which one. It makes no difference.

Still, they deserve an explanation. And someone ought to hear the truth before it’s too late.

“It’s my fault she’s out here,” I say.

Chase winces and shakes his head. “No, Luca.”

“You don’t understand. My wife was running away from ME.”

The men exchange looks. In the way of brothers, they can speak without talking.

I wish my own brother was here.

Cale was always my hero so when I had the chance to step up and become his, I didn’t hesitate. I bought his freedom by taking his place at our uncle’s side and I fixed things so he couldn’t reverse that decision.

My brother would understand why I need to shove the Gentry brothers away and sprint into the woods before I can be tackled into submission and dragged back to the resort.

I WILL FIND HER.

I’ll comb through every square inch of this cursed mountain until my blood freezes.

“She didn’t make it.”

Fuck no. That’s not the way our story ends.

I love you, Annalisa.

I can’t leave this mountain without my wife.