POV: Leo
The air in the mountain pass was thin and tasted of iron. Snow drifted lazily through the beams of the motel floodlights, but it didn't feel like Christmas. It felt like a graveyard.
Vitelli stepped forward, the crunch of his designer boots on the frozen gravel sounding like breaking bone. He looked exactly as he had three years ago smooth, arrogant, and entirely devoid of a soul. He was flanked by four men. They didn't stand like bodyguards; they stood like executioners, their hands resting near the holsters of their tactical vests.
"Merry Christmas, Ghost," Vitelli said, his voice a silk ribbon over a razor blade. "You've led us on quite a chase. I thought you'd retired to a beach somewhere. I didn't realize you'd traded your empire for... this."
He gestured vaguely toward the rusted motel and then, with a sickeningly slow tilt of his head, toward Ava.
