Carmella And Eli

She walked toward the end of Bluewater Pier, sandals tapping over sun-warmed boards. Fishing boats knocked softly against their ropes below. Gulls cried from the railings, harsh and insistent, while the seaside district woke behind her in bursts of metal shutters and delivery trucks. She kept her face turned toward the water, letting the wind pull at her long jet-black hair. Her white curtain bangs whipped across her cheeks, and she tucked them back with an irritated sweep of her fingers.

A quiet morning. That was all she wanted.

She reached the last bench and sat with her knees drawn close. The deep blue stretched beyond the shallows, darker where the ocean floor disappeared. Her shoulders tightened.

Not too close, she told herself.

A wave struck the pilings beneath her. The impact shuddered through the boards and up her spine.

Carmella bit the side of her nail, then stopped when she remembered her mother’s voice. She dragged her fingers through her hair instead, catching on a tangle.

“Brilliant plan,” she whispered. “Run away to the ocean and panic at the ocean.”

A gull dropped something onto the bench beside her.

Carmella flinched so hard her bag slid from her shoulder.

The gull hopped away, watching her with one bright, vicious eye. What it had dropped was not food. It was a small black package wrapped in oilcloth, tied with thin cord. One corner had split open, showing a strip of white paper beneath.

She looked down the pier.

A fisherman stood near the bait kiosk, his back turned. Two tourists leaned against the railing, taking photographs. Farther inland, a dark sedan idled beside the curb, its windows tinted nearly black.

Carmella’s fingers hovered over the package.

“Not mine,” she said.

The wind lifted the loose edge of the oilcloth. Beneath it, a silver charm flashed - a tiny cat with one bent ear.

Cookie’s collar charm.

Carmella stopped breathing.

She snatched up the package and pressed it against her chest. Cookie wore that charm every day. Carmella had bought it after the cat vanished for three hours as a kitten, returning with a torn paw and no explanation. The charm had been the only thing she could attach to Cookie’s collar without the cat immediately destroying it.

But the package was not Cookie. It could not be.

Her phone buzzed.

Carmella nearly dropped the parcel. The screen showed Leo’s name.

“Leo?”

Only static answered.

Then his voice came through, low and hurried. “Carm, where are you?”

She glanced toward the dark sedan. “Why?”

“Don’t tell me. Just leave.”

“Leo, what is happening?”

The line crackled. Somewhere behind him, a door slammed.

“Bluewater?” he asked.

Carmella stood. “How do you know I’m at Bluewater?”

“Because they know.”

The call ended.

For a second, the pier seemed to tilt beneath her feet. She looked toward the curb again. The sedan’s engine remained running. A man stepped out, tall and broad in a pale shirt, and lifted his phone to his ear.

Carmella shoved the package into her bag.

She moved inland, trying not to run. The boards groaned beneath her sandals. Every sound sharpened - the scrape of rope, the gulls, the distant bell of a crossing signal. Her halo tattoo prickled beneath the collar of her shirt as though the skin around it had tightened.

At the bait kiosk, the fisherman caught her arm.

“Miss.”

Carmella jerked back. “Don’t touch me.”

His hand released her immediately. He was older, sunburned across the nose, with a cigarette tucked behind one ear.

“Your cat left that,” he said.

Her stomach dropped. “What cat?”

He nodded toward the package. “Black one. Came through here before dawn. Collar charm caught on the crate. I saw the man following it.”

“Cookie doesn’t come here.”

“Didn’t say it was your cat.” His gaze moved past her shoulder. “Said it was black.”

The man from the sedan had reached the center of the pier.

Carmella’s pulse kicked hard. She forced herself to keep her voice steady. “What man?”

The fisherman’s expression changed. “You should go.”

“I asked what man.”

“Tall. Black hair. Expensive watch. Didn’t belong among the fishermen.”

A cold line slipped down her back despite the summer heat.

The fisherman leaned closer. “He asked about a girl with white hair in front.”

Carmella’s hand rose instinctively to her bangs.

“Go,” he said again. “Now.”

She turned and ran.

Her bag struck her hip with every step. The pier narrowed ahead where a maintenance gate blocked the main path. A red sign warned PRIVATE - NO ENTRY, but the lock hung open. Carmella slipped through just as the man shouted behind her.

“Carmella!”

Hearing her name from a stranger made the world contract.

She pushed into the maintenance corridor beneath the pier. The temperature dropped immediately. Damp concrete pressed close on either side, and the water moved below through gaps in the flooring, black and restless. Carmella gripped the rail, careful not to look down.

“Carm!” the man called. “Stop.”

She kept going.

At the corridor’s end, a service ladder climbed to a narrow street behind the seafood warehouses. Her fingers shook as she pulled herself upward. Halfway there, the package slipped from her bag and landed on the grate below.

Carmella froze.

The oilcloth had torn wider. A white card slid free and fluttered against the metal.

She climbed down two rungs, snatched it, and saw the writing.

Three blue doors. One empty chair. Ask for the winter account.

Beneath the words was a symbol: a sharp black crown over the initials E.V.

She had seen that mark before, printed discreetly on the glass doors of a downtown tower. Eli’s company. Eli’s operation, if Leo’s guarded silences meant what Carmella thought they meant.

Her hand tightened around the card.

A second line had been written along the bottom in smaller letters.

Leo is not the only one near your home.

The man reached the corridor entrance.

Carmella climbed.

She burst into the alley behind the warehouses and slammed the gate shut. The lock was broken, but she wrapped the chain around it anyway and ran between stacked crates. A truck horn blared as she crossed the service road. A driver shouted. She did not stop.

Only when she reached a crowded market street did she duck behind a stall selling woven beach bags. Her lungs burned. Her hair clung to her neck, hiding the halo tattoo beneath damp strands.

The vendor stared at her. “Are you all right?”

Carmella nodded too quickly. “Fine.”

The vendor looked past her toward the alley. “You don’t look fine.”

“I said I’m fine.”

The sharpness in her voice made the woman recoil. Regret struck immediately. Carmella lowered her gaze.

“Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry. I just need somewhere safe to make a call.”

The vendor’s expression softened, but her eyes remained wary. “There’s a coffee shop across the street.”

Carmella thanked her and crossed without waiting.

Inside the coffee shop, the air-conditioning raised gooseflesh along her arms. She chose the table farthest from the windows and placed the package in front of her. The black oilcloth looked harmless now. Almost neat.

Her phone showed four missed calls from Leo.

She called back.

He answered on the first ring. “Tell me you’re not still at the pier.”

“I’m not.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere public.”

A pause. “Did they give you anything?”

Carmella looked at the card. “Who are they?”

“Carm - ”

“Who are they, Leo?”

His silence told her more than his words could have.

She pressed the phone harder to her ear. “The package had Cookie’s charm.”

“That wasn’t Cookie.”

“I know that.”

“Then why did you touch it?”

“Because I thought it was a message from you.”

“I would never send you something like that.”

“You sent me nothing. You left me standing on a pier while someone watched me.”

Leo exhaled shakily. “Listen to me. Take the card to the contact.”

“What contact?”

“You know who.”

Carmella stared at the black crown beneath the initials. “I don’t know anything anymore.”

“Carm, if Eli’s people find it on you - ”

“Eli?”

The name landed between them.

Leo went quiet.

A barista called out an order behind her. Cups clinked. Someone laughed near the front window. Carmella felt separated from all of it, trapped inside a thin, soundless room.

“You know Eli,” she said.

“Not like you think.”

“That sentence has never made anything better.”

“Go to the old arcade on Harbor Street. There’s a woman at the back counter. Give her the card. Don’t tell her your name.”

“Why would I trust her?”

“Because she’s the only person I can reach.”

“And you?”

“I’m trying to keep them away from the house.”

Carmella stood so fast the chair legs scraped the floor. “What does that mean?”

The call ended again.

For several seconds, she remained frozen. Then she looked through the window toward the street.

A black sedan rolled past the coffee shop.

The same one.

Carmella placed the card inside her phone case. She wrapped the package in a napkin and pushed it into her bag. Her hands were steadier now, not because she felt calm, but because fear had finally become useful.

She left through the rear door.

Harbor Street cut through the oldest part of the seaside district, where faded signs hung over narrow storefronts and the pavement buckled around rusted drains. The old arcade had been closed for years. Its windows were painted black, its neon sign missing half its letters.

Carmella pushed through the side entrance.

Dust stirred beneath her sandals. Dead machines lined the walls, their screens dark and their buttons sticky with age. At the back counter, a woman in a gray coat sat beneath a broken security monitor.

She looked up.

Carmella stopped three steps away.

“Are you Leo’s contact?”

The woman’s eyes dropped to Carmella’s phone case. “You shouldn’t have come here.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

“Give me the card.”

Carmella did not move. “First, tell me what it means.”

The woman’s face tightened. “It means Eli’s company has been tracking a delivery route through your neighborhood.”

“My neighborhood?”

“Your house.”

The word struck harder than the warning on the card.

Carmella pulled the message from her phone case. For one moment, she considered tearing it in half. If she destroyed it, she could walk out. She could go home, find Cookie asleep on the bed, and pretend Leo’s fear belonged to someone else.

But her family’s faces rose in her mind. Her mother at the kitchen counter. Her father checking the locks. Leo asking if she was awake.

She placed the card on the counter.

The woman snatched it and unfolded the package beneath it. Her gaze caught on the cat charm.

“Where did you get this?”

“A gull dropped it beside me.”

“That’s impossible.”

“So was a man knowing my name.”

The woman read the card again. Her color drained.

Carmella leaned forward. “What is the winter account?”

The woman looked toward the arcade entrance.

A motorcycle engine growled outside.

The sound rolled through the walls, deep and controlled. The woman folded the card and shoved it into her coat.

“You need to leave,” she whispered.

“Who is that?”

The woman did not answer.

The door opened.

A tall man stepped inside, black hair swept back from a hard, unreadable face. Tattoos disappeared beneath the sleeves of his dark shirt and climbed the side of his throat. His grey eyes found Carmella immediately.

For an instant, his expression remained cold.

Then his gaze dropped to the cat charm in her hand.

“Carmella,” Eli said.

She took one step back.

The woman behind the counter reached for the message, but Carmella caught her wrist. The card was gone. The evidence had been handed over, yet the cost had arrived before she could escape it.

Eli’s eyes lifted to hers.

“Where is Leo?” he asked.

Carmella curled her fingers around Cookie’s charm. “Why is your company watching my family?”

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.