Chapter 1 - The Man Behind the Grave
“I buried you six months ago.”
The words left Claire Moretti’s mouth before she could stop them.
Rain hammered the black umbrella she had forgotten to open. Water ran down her face, mixing with tears as she stood beside the polished gravestone engraved with one name: NICHOLAS MORETTI.
The man on the other side of the grave looked exactly like him.
Same dark eyes. Same crooked line in the left eyebrow. Same small scar near the chin Nicholas had gotten at seventeen after crashing a motorcycle. Even the way he held his shoulders—still, controlled, as if the whole world could be on fire and he would not move until he decided to.
Claire’s knees nearly gave out.
The man took one slow step forward.
“No,” he said quietly. “You buried someone else.”
Claire stared at him.
Her fingers tightened around the edge of the gravestone.
“Don’t come any closer.”
His jaw tightened. “Claire.”
She flinched.
Nobody had said her name like that since Nicholas died.
“Who are you?”
He looked past her at the grave. White roses had collapsed under the rain. A glass lantern flickered weakly beside them.
“My name is Nathan Vale.”
“That’s a lie.”
“It used to be.”
Claire’s pulse jumped.
The cemetery was almost empty. A black SUV sat near the iron gates, engine running. She suddenly noticed it had no front plate.
Nathan saw her looking.
“We need to leave.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“You came here alone?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
His eyes shifted toward the trees behind her.
Everything in his face changed.
“Get down.”
Claire barely had time to react before he lunged across the grave and shoved her behind the stone.
A sharp crack split the rain.
A chunk of black granite burst off the top corner of Nicholas Moretti’s headstone.
Claire screamed.
Nathan covered her with his body.
Another crack.
A bullet struck the wet ground where she had been kneeling seconds earlier.
Nathan grabbed her wrist.
“Now do you believe I didn’t come here to scare you?”
Claire’s breath came in broken gasps.
“Who is shooting at us?”
Nathan looked toward the tree line.
“The same people who put the wrong man in my grave.”
May you like
Then he pulled a gun from inside his coat.
And Claire realized the impossible man standing over her had expected this.
