Valentine’s Day, 1929
Chicago
It didn’t take long for Ceara Galloway to realize she’d made the biggest mistake of her life in getting married. Her mobster husband, Eddie “The Roach” Rocchelli, has shown his true colors and hair-trigger temper in a beating that nearly killed Ceara, and now, she’s got to get away to survive. In a daring scheme to expose Eddie’s under-the-table bootlegging operation to the authorities, she steals the proof she needs and contacts J. Edgar Hoover. Can this dangerous plan ensure her freedom and her safety?
Hagen Kane is the hand-picked one-man cavalry the Bureau Chief sends to rescue Ceara in a do-or-die mission. As Kane slowly infiltrates Rocchelli’s gang as an auto mechanic, he walks a razor-thin line, knowing at any moment his cover could be blown—and he and Ceara will both certainly be killed. When the time comes, they make a break for it, both realizing their plan has become more complicated—they are in love with one another. Escape has suddenly become more important than ever, now that there’s something to live for.
In a cross-country race for their lives, with Rocchelli and his gang hot on their tail, they must depend on every trick either of them has ever learned to survive—along with hoping for a healthy dose of luck on their side. Time is running out, and hope is running low. Can Ceara and Hagen turn the tables on Rocchelli and his men in one final stand against CHICAGO LIGHTNING?
EXCERPT
Chicago,
Illinois – Valentine’s Day 1929
Belly down on cold concrete, Ceara Rocchelli fought her way to consciousness. Stale cigarette smoke mixed with garage odors accompanied her slow ascent into disoriented awareness. Blinking away double-vision, her foggy brain recognized the thin yellow glow in the dim distance as light peeking from under a closed door. Something on the other side of that door mattered, but what it was became mired down in her muddled thinking and sank into obscurity. Her lips were sticky, and she tasted blood when she swallowed. A wish for water faded under the tantalizing lure of sleep. She was bone-deep cold and so tired. So tired…
Ceara jerked awake. What was
that noise? She held her breath, listening. There— Voices. Angry
voices. Men’s voices in the other room.
A cautious check left and right revealed darker shadows of things she couldn’t
make out, but she felt no sense of another person. Chancing she was alone, she
pushed upright, despite every part of her body protesting. The chink and rattle
of chain scraping on the concrete didn’t register in her cobwebbed mind. How
long had she been out? Minutes? Hours? When she tucked a strand of her blonde bobbed
hair behind her ear, her attention locked on the ring of metal around her right
wrist. Puzzled, she trailed her gaze along the chain attached to the metal ring
to where it wrapped around the back axle of a Model-T a few feet away.
She stared dumbly for some
moments. Then it hit her.
Panic blazed hot and fast like a
wildfire in high winds. She yanked the chain and tore at the cold circlet of
steel. Useless, her mind said. Stop fighting. Desperate seconds ticked until
her tenuous hold on rational thought got the upper hand, and she wrestled her
terror into submission.
Think! Think! How did I get here? Why am I chained?
