Chapter 2 - THE CURVY ACCOUNTANT AND THE ABYSS
The entire ledge tilted like the leaf of a folding table.
With a roar that shook the surrounding pines, twenty tons of ice, rock, and snow broke away from the mountain flank, plunging straight down into the black maw of the ravine.
Luca didn't hesitate. Years of street combat and syndicate turf wars had wired his nervous system for pure, instantaneous reaction. As the earth dropped out from under the woman, he lunged forward, sliding across the slick ice and diving over the lip of the abyss.
His heavy hand clamped around the collar of her burgundy coat just as her body vanished over the edge.
The sudden dead weight nearly jerked Luca over after her. His shoulder slammed hard against the frozen granite of the remaining ledge, a bolt of blinding pain shooting up his collarbone. He grunted, his fingers digging desperately into the fabric and bunching it into his fist as he anchored his boots against a buried outcropping of tree roots.
Below him, the world was empty air and crashing debris.
The woman dangled suspended in the freezing void, sixty feet above the jagged boulders of the creek bed, held entirely by Luca’s single grip on her collar and the sheer strength of his core.
“Hold on!” Luca roared, his voice straining against the gale.
“I—I can’t!” she sobbed, her breath coming in ragged, hyperventilating gasps. Her arms flailed in the freezing air, her boots kicking uselessly against the sheer rock face. “The weight—the pack is dragging me down!”
Luca’s dark eyes dropped. Only now did he notice the heavy, military-grade canvas rucksack strapped securely across her back beneath the wool coat—a pack fat with bulky files and heavy hardware.
“Drop the bag!” he shouted.
“I can’t! It’s all there! The ledgers!”
“If you don't drop it, we both go over! Let the straps go!”
With a frantic, sobbing cry, the woman twisted her shoulders, fumbling with the frozen plastic buckles of the tactical harness across her chest. With a sharp snap, the heavy rucksack broke free, plummeting down into the darkness with a heavy, satisfying crash against the rocks far below.
Instantly, her body felt lighter.
Luca planted his heels firmly against the frozen root, gritted his teeth until his jaw ached, and pulled upward with every ounce of his formidable strength. Muscles screamed in his forearms and back as he dragged her dead weight up over the jagged lip of the snow shelf.
They both collapsed onto the hard, frozen earth a few feet back from the edge, chest-heaving, choking on the freezing air and swirling snow.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The wind screamed around them, but the only sound between them was the ragged, desperate sound of their breathing.
Luca rolled onto his side, glaring down at the young woman sprawled beside him.
Now that she was out of the shadows and under the faint wash of the G-Wagon’s headlights, he could finally take her in. She wasn't the typical rail-thin socialite or fragile moll he was used to crossing paths with in Milan’s high-society underworld. She possessed a lush, unapologetically full-figured silhouette—soft curves swallowed by the oversized coat, thick hips, and thighs that spoke of a body built for strength rather than runway starvation. Her face, despite the raw frostbite on her cheeks and nose, was strikingly symmetrical, dominated by large, intelligent brown eyes that were currently flashing with a potent mix of terror and furious adrenaline.
“Are you out of your absolute mind?” Luca barked, his voice cold enough to freeze water as he hauled himself to his feet and towered over her. “I told you I was getting you out, and you fought me like a cornered cat!”
The woman pushed herself up onto her elbows, shivering uncontrollably. She pulled her bruised, raw wrists close to her chest, glaring back at him with an absolute lack of appropriate fear.
“I told you not to cut the rope, you arrogant Neanderthal!” she snapped back, her voice shaking with cold and fury. “That wasn't a death trap! It was an anchor line! I was belayed to the bedrock ten feet down the ridge so I wouldn't slide off while I cleared the snow off the data drop!”
Luca stared down at her, stunned into silence for a full three seconds.
“A… belay line?”
“Yes! A dynamic climbing rope rated for three thousand pounds!” She struggled to her feet, though her knees buckled instantly beneath her. Luca instinctively reached out, catching her by the upper arm before she could pitch forward into the snow again. Her body was radiating an alarming lack of heat. “You cut the anchor line, you idiot! You nearly sent me—and three years of corporate forensic evidence against the Marcelli syndicate—straight to the bottom of the ravine!”
Luca froze. His grip on her arm tightened imperceptibly.
Marcelli syndicate.
May you like
His dark eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, boring down into her brown eyes.
“What did you just say?”
