16. Simone #2
Picking out a car I’m likely to be able to drive is the last thing I’m equipped to do.
I open the steel box on the wall that’s full of keys, grabbing for the first one that has the Mercedes symbol on it and praying it’s an automatic and not a stick shift.
When I press the button, a black sedan’s lights flash, and I make a beeline for it, throwing open the door and tossing my bag inside as I look around frantically.
Not a stick shift. Okay. I can do this. I swallow hard, knowing that I have minutes to spare, and press the button for the ignition. I hold my breath as the engine purrs to life.
I've never driven a car before. My father always insisted I have a driver, just like any other woman in my position. But I've watched enough times to understand the basics—gas, brake, steering wheel. How hard can it be?
The answer, as it turns out, is very hard.
The car lurches as I try to back out of the garage, and I have to grip the steering wheel with white knuckles to keep from hitting the wall.
The pedals are more sensitive than I expected, the steering more responsive.
By the time I manage to get the car pointed toward the street, I'm sweating despite the air conditioning.
But I'm out. I'm actually out.
Now I just have to figure out where to go.
The only way I can stay in Miami is if Enzo is willing to help me. It’s a long shot—a gamble, and I don’t know what the odds are that I’ll win. He might turn me away, say that if I’m so unpredictable, if I can’t be trusted to stick to the plan, then this would never have worked.
My resources will be thin. I have my passport, my ID—I could leave the country, but money will be a problem. On my own, I have no defense against whoever Tristan might send to get me back or Konstantin might send to finish me off.
This was stupid . I’m painfully aware of it as I try to navigate the Miami roads, searching for somewhere that might have an ATM.
The car jerks and shudders, my pressure on the gas and brakes is either too light or too hard, and I nearly get into an accident twice.
My heart is pounding in my ears, my entire body wound tight and flooded with adrenaline.
I’ve made a mistake, but I couldn’t stay there any longer.
And I can’t go back. I can only imagine what Tristan will do to me after this, if he catches me.
I'm so lost in thought that I almost miss the headlights in my rearview mirror.
At first, I don't think anything of it. It's late, but not so late that other cars wouldn't be on the road. But as I turn onto the highway, the headlights follow. When I change lanes, they change lanes. When I slow down, they slow down.
My mouth goes dry with fear. Someone is following me.
It could be Vitto, or Tristan, or the two of them together. It could be that Tristan alerted Konstantin, and he’s sent someone after me.
Or it could be someone else altogether.
I press down on the gas pedal, and the sedan responds with a surge of acceleration that makes my stomach drop, the car lurching forward. The headlights behind me do the same, staying close, matching my speed.
I need to get off the highway, need to find somewhere public, somewhere safe. I take the next exit, tires squealing as I navigate the off-ramp too fast, my hands shaking on the steering wheel.
But the headlights follow.
The surface streets are darker, more dangerous.
I make a series of random turns, the car’s speed choppy as I try to navigate the turns, taking down two garbage cans at the end of a side street when I turn too wide.
I’m hoping to lose my pursuer, but they stay with me, sometimes falling back but never disappearing entirely.
My heart is racing, my palms slick with sweat.
I can’t do this. I have no idea how to do this, and I don’t know how I ever thought I could manage to escape for long.
Panicking, I swerve down a narrow side street, hoping it will take me back to the main road. Instead, it dead-ends in an alley behind a row of closed shops, brick walls rising on either side like prison bars.
I slam on the brakes, the car skidding to a stop just feet from the wall. Behind me, I hear the screech of tires as my pursuer blocks the entrance to the alley, trapping me.
I'm caught.
For a moment, I just sit there, shaking, my hands gripping the steering wheel as I try to figure out what to do. I could run, but where? The alley is a dead end, and I'm not exactly dressed for scaling walls. I could try to ram my way past the other car, but I doubt that would work.
I hear the sound of a door opening from the other car, and I whip around, looking to see who it is.
It’s not Tristan, or Konstantin, or Vitto, or Damien.
Not any of the men I feared coming after me.
Instead, it’s a man I never thought I’d see again.
A man who disappeared like a ghost after my father’s death. A fucking coward.
He’s dressed in a dark suit that makes him blend into the shadows as he walks down the alleyway toward me. His face catches the dim light again, and I’m sure of what I’m seeing, my blood turning to ice as I stare at him from the other side of the car window.
Sal Envio.
My father’s former second-in-command. The man who did his bidding, who served him loyally, and who I always hated. Now, knowing what my father did, what kind of man he truly was, it all makes sense. But back then, I could never understand how he had a man like Sal working for him.
Sal is cruel. Misogynistic in a way that’s extreme even for our world.
All my life, I remember seeing his eyes slide over me when no one else was looking, a covetous, lustful gleam in his eyes that for a long time I was too young to understand.
When I was finally old enough to see it for what it was, it disgusted me. He has always disgusted me.
A few times over the years, I caught glimpses of him with the female members of the staff in the hallways.
I saw their fear, saw the pleasure he took in hurting them, before I always ran away.
I tried to tell my father once, but he didn’t believe me.
It was my first lesson in a fundamental fact of our world…
a woman will never be believed if a man has a different story.
I always tried to stay as far away from him as possible. But here he is, approaching me in a dark alley, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I’ve made a terrible mistake running from the only man who—despite how much I hate him—would protect me.
I have no doubt that Sal feels that Tristan stole something from him. That all of his years of service to my father meant that he was owed something , if not everything… and he was left with nothing.
I remember seeing him look at Enzo, when Enzo came to dinner just before our potential engagement was meant to be announced.
Before everything went to hell. I remember the look in Sal’s eyes—jealous and angry.
How, in that moment, I wondered if he wanted to be in Enzo’s place, and I was grateful that, at the very least, my father never considered giving me to his second-in-command.
Sal taps on my window with one knuckle, the sound sharp in the silence of the alley. After a moment's hesitation, I roll it down a few inches, my heart still pounding so hard in my chest that I think I can hear it.
"Hello, Simone," he says, his voice exactly as I remember—smooth, cultured, with just a hint of an accent. "We need to talk."
I swallow hard. "I have nothing to say to you, Sal." My voice is tight, firm. “I have somewhere to be, and you need to get out of my way.”
I put every bit of authority I’ve ever had into my voice—as my father’s daughter, as Tristan O’Malley’s wife—but Sal is entirely unaffected by it. He chuckles, leaning against the side of the car as he looks down at me through the crack in the window with narrowed eyes.
"I think you do. I think you have quite a lot to say, actually. About your new husband, about the arrangements that have been made, about the future of your father's legacy."
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. "What do you want?" I snap. “I don’t have time for this.”
Sal remains unmoved. "I want to help you. This situation—your marriage—it's not what your father would have wanted. It's not what any of us wanted."
“ Us ?” I sneer at him. I’m aware he’s a dangerous man, but something about my close proximity to Tristan since the wedding has dulled the edges of what makes Sal so terrifying. Next to Tristan, I realize, Sal seems like a shadow of a man like him—an imitation of something dangerous.
That doesn’t mean that he still isn’t a threat.
“You abandoned my father,” I snap. “Konstantin told me you weren’t there with him when they took my father down at the safe house. He said they looked for you but couldn’t find you. You’re a coward. His right hand, but you didn’t even stay with him when it mattered.”
Sal’s eyes glitter dangerously in the dim light of the alleyway.
“Your father made too many mistakes. He was a dead man walking. I made a choice—to die with him or to survive and try to preserve what he built. Now that Russian piece of shit has handed it—and you—over to the Irish.” He spits on the ground.
“I can help you, Simone. I don’t want to see your father’s legacy managed by his murderer or handed over to an outsider.
I’ll see Tristan dead and your father’s legacy handed over to someone who should have it. ”
I snort. “I suppose that someone is you?”
Sal chuckles. “No, of course not. I was meant to serve, not rule, Simone. But I choose who I serve. And the man that I think should have what your father built is the man that he always intended to have it.”
My heart stutters in my chest. “Enzo?”