Chapter 4 - The Poisoned Bride
I raised my trembling hands in the air.
"Please don't shoot," I begged, tears streaming down my face.
June stared at me for a long moment before slowly lowering the weapon.
"You brought a lot of trouble to my quiet town, Claire," she said sternly.
"Or should I call you Amelia?"
My blood ran cold at the sound of my real name.
June stepped aside and motioned for me to come inside the dark shop.
"I used to be a cleaner for the Chicago syndicate twenty years ago," June revealed quietly.
"I recognized you the moment you rented that room, but I mind my own business."
She locked the heavy deadbolt and began loading her pockets with shotgun shells.
"There is a ten million dollar bounty on your head, placed by the Calloway family," June explained.
"Every criminal in the South is currently hunting you down."
I felt a wave of nausea wash over me.
"I can help you disappear into Canada, but we have to leave right now," June offered.
I nodded quickly, but then I remembered my grandmother's ring upstairs in my room.
It was the only piece of my family I had left in the world.
"I need two minutes to run upstairs," I said, already moving toward the staircase.
I rushed into my bedroom, but the window was wide open.
The ring was missing from the nightstand.
Instead, a strange silver cell phone was sitting on the bed, ringing loudly.
I picked it up with shaking hands and pressed it to my ear.
"Hello, Amelia," Savannah Calloway's sweet, venomous voice purred through the speaker.
"I have your precious little ring."
I looked out the open window into the darkness.
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"I also have fifty armed men surrounding your building," Savannah whispered cheerfully.
"And we just finished soaking the entire perimeter in gasoline."
