Not sweetly now.
Not lovingly.
Like a man who had lost property.
Livia climbed down one level, then another, her bare feet slipping on wet iron. She heard Nico enter the bedroom. Heard the window slam open.
“Livia!”
She looked up.
Nico leaned out.
For the first time since she had met him, he was not smiling.
“There’s nowhere to go,” he called.
A black car turned hard onto the street below.
Not an Escalade.
A sleek sedan.
It stopped at the curb.
The back door opened.
Dante stepped out.
He looked up through the rain.
“Jump,” he said.
Livia was still two floors above him.
“You’re insane!”
“Yes. Jump.”
Nico started climbing after her.
Livia looked down at Dante.
Then up at Nico.
And in that impossible second, she understood something terrible.
Trust was not always built over time.
Sometimes it was forced into existence by the question of who you believed when the floor disappeared beneath you.
She jumped.
Dante caught her hard enough to knock the breath from both of them.
For one second, she was against his chest, rain in her hair, his arms locked around her like iron.
Then glass shattered above them.
Nico had thrown something from the fire escape.
Dante shoved her into the car.
“Drive.”
The sedan moved before the door fully closed.
Livia twisted in the seat and saw Nico standing in the rain behind them, his face pale with fury.
Dante sat beside her, breathing hard.
His coat was soaked. His jaw was clenched. His right hand was bleeding where the broken glass had cut him.
Livia stared at the blood.
“You caught me.”
His eyes stayed on the rear window.
“Yes.”
“You could have dropped me.”
“I would have broken before I let that happen.”
She looked away because she could not afford to feel what that sentence did to her.
The car sped through Brooklyn.
Dante made three calls in a language she did not understand. His voice was calm, controlled, terrifying. Men answered him instantly. Orders were given. Streets were checked. Names were spoken like threats.
At last, Livia whispered, “Where are we going?”
“A safe house.”
“I don’t want a safe house. I want the police.”
“You can have police after I know which ones are not paid.”
She almost argued.
Then she remembered her father.
Forensic accountant.
Secret file.
Heart attack.
No enemies.
All lies.
She closed her eyes.
“I found something.”
Dante turned to her.
“What?”
“A receipt. Storage unit. Under my mother’s maiden name.”
His face changed.
The boss vanished for one second.
Only shock remained.
“Where is it?”
“In my apartment.”
Dante’s eyes hardened.
“Then Nico has it now.”
“No.” Livia shook her head. “I put it in my boot before I ran.”
Dante stared at her.
For the first time, she saw something like admiration.
Then fear.
“Do you have it with you?”
She reached slowly into her boot and pulled out the folded blue paper.
Dante looked at it as if she were holding a bomb.
“Livia,” he said quietly, “that receipt may be the reason your father died.”
She stared at the paper.
Then at him.
“And maybe the reason I live?”
Dante did not answer.
But his silence told her enough.
The safe house was not a house.
It was an old bookshop with blacked-out windows and steel hidden behind antique wood. Upstairs, there was a small apartment with a narrow bed, a locked cabinet, a bathroom, and a kitchen that looked untouched.
Dante gave her dry clothes without looking at her body when she changed.
That should not have mattered.
It did.
At dawn, his men brought coffee, weapons, documents, and bad news.
Nico had disappeared.
The Bellarios knew Dante had taken Livia.
The storage unit was being watched.
And Serafina Romano, Dante’s mother, demanded to see him.
“Your mother knew?” Livia asked.
Dante did not answer quickly enough.
Her chest tightened.
“She knew about Nico?”
“She knew he was not loyal.”
“And she still let him sit at her table?”
“My mother believes love can discipline monsters.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
His agreement made her feel tired.
“Why was I never supposed to meet you?” Livia asked.
Dante looked at her.
The question had been waiting between them since the church.
He walked to the window, though there was nothing to see but black glass.
“Because Nico knew I would recognize you.”
“Recognize me how?”
“Not your face.”
“Then what?”
“The necklace.”
Livia’s hand went to her throat.
A small gold moon pendant rested against her skin. Her father had given it to her on her sixteenth birthday. She wore it every day.
Dante turned back.
“My father once came home with blood on his shirt and a gold chain wrapped around his fist. He said the man who wore it had been stupid enough to die for paper.”
Livia’s breath caught.
“No.”