8. Elio
8
ELIO
I followed my sister’s intel on finding Georgia’s workplace and grabbed a coffee at a place across the street. I watched the building. With a newspaper as a cover, albeit an old-fashioned one, I watched the entrance, while also looking for anyone else who was doing the same.
It didn’t take long to see the other man watching the building.
He wasn’t nearly as casual as he thought he was, lingering outside the office on a motorcycle, a messenger bag slung over his shoulder as his disguise. Amateur hour and confirmation that the Ravelli family had indeed decided to get to Georgia. It made sense. With the threat of Bellisario in custody and out of reach, and Georgia being the only living relative, there was no other way to send a message.
I had to get her back to Jersey and married quickly so I could move her into Casa Nera, the sprawling De Sanctis compound that Renato called home. I had to make sure Alfredo Bellisario understood that his precious daughter was our hostage.
I was distracted from my thoughts by the sight of a dark-haired woman leaving the atelier. Everything in the street seemed to stop around me. Noise died away; cars stopped moving on the road. The world held its breath as I got my first glimpse of the girl who had shaped my world.
No, not a girl anymore… a woman.
And she was beautiful.
The promise of her youth had blossomed beyond expectation. For a second, I couldn’t look away. For a second, my pulse sped up, my heart remembering that once, a long, long time ago, it had known how to beat. It only lasted a second before the familiar coldness I’d spent more than a decade perfecting surged through me, providing comfort and distance. Georgia Bellisario — no, Conti — wasn’t someone I knew. I’d known a wild and shining girl, a burning flame, captured in a moment of reckless youth, a moment that had cost me everything. The woman before me now? I didn’t know her, and I wouldn’t. I didn’t care enough to. I didn’t care much about anything. That was the legacy of my childhood love.
The waitress dropped a tray behind me, and the world crashed back into life.
Georgia walked across the courtyard in front of the building. I didn’t need to check if it was her. It was obvious. She crossed the street and headed toward a park.
The guy on the motorcycle shifted around, speaking to someone on the phone. Reporting in.
I paid for my coffee and went out to the street, taking a cigarette I had no intention of smoking from a pack in my suit jacket and holding it between my lips. The guy on the motorcycle hadn’t glanced at his surroundings even once. No situational awareness whatsoever.
Georgia went into the park and found a bench just inside, still in sight of the road. I put the cigarette in my mouth and watched her. She made no move to call anyone or browse her phone. She just stared into space for a while then stood. As soon as she was on the go, I was behind her.
I had to take out the guy on the motorcycle sooner or later, but I wouldn’t do that until I had to. Keeping a low profile would be the best strategy here.
Georgia wandered up a busy sidewalk, and the motorcycle guy followed. Seconds later, I followed as well. Weaving in and out of the crowd, I kept the back of her head in my sights, as well as the guy carrying a motorcycle helmet.
She jumped on a bus just before it eased away from a stop. I hailed a cab to follow.
Before too long, she left the bus, and I paid my cab and followed her on the sidewalk again. Her head was swiveling back and forth. Once or twice, her eyes nearly met mine. Could she feel me watching?
She went into a hotel, and I settled at a coffee shop across the street to watch her. I pulled up the hotel on my phone and checked for other exits, then messaged my sister, the De Sanctis eyes in the sky, to monitor the back doors.
The biker had parked right outside the hotel and was talking on the phone. I wasn’t close enough to hear, but I imagined he was shooting a rapid stream of Italian down the line, asking for instructions.
When Georgia failed to emerge after half an hour, the biker got impatient and went inside. I followed slowly. Inside the hotel was a bank of elevators on one wall and a banquet hall and restaurant on the other. The biker was still on the phone, pretending to be a courier of some kind.
I settled into a seat that faced the street, but had a handy mirror angled just right to keep an eye on the elevators. Then she appeared. Walking with another woman, she went into the restaurant.
The biker waited, so I waited until his back turned then made my way into the restaurant. I asked for a seat near the door and sat out of Georgia’s eye line. I could see her, though. I could see her… and I couldn’t look away.
She ate as if she hadn’t seen food in a week. She talked and laughed, her beautiful face creasing into easy smiles.
She licked her lips, and my body turned to stone. I could still remember the taste of her… the only woman I’d ever wanted. The only one I’d ever touched. The fact that she still affected me just as much as she had then, despite the fourteen cold years between us, pissed me off.
Her friend got up and went toward the bathroom. In her absence, a movement from the biker grabbed my attention. He’d finished his furious conversation on the phone.
The Ravelli rival was lingering near a flower arrangement, sticking out like a sore thumb. He was going to do something. I stood, ready for whatever he was about to do.
Then, he turned and saw me.
I didn’t have anything particularly identifiable about me, but still, the reaction was immediate. He flinched and reached into his jacket.
The fool was about to shoot up a room full of people, for no reason other than the pure fear he felt at seeing me. It should have stroked my ego, but it was too much of an inconvenience.
He drew a gun, and his first shot went wide. Screams filled the air, and people dove for cover. I couldn’t spare a look for where the first shot went. I was running toward the shooter before he could line up the next shot. I caught him around the waist and bore him to the floor. He landed hard, his hand flying upward. Unfortunately, he didn’t drop the gun. I reared back and punched him, two hard shots to the jaw, and reached for the gun. As I took it from his hand, he managed to turn it toward me. I fell to the side as two shots rang out, hitting the ceiling above us. A millisecond faster and they would have gone directly into my chest.
Shit . Had Zio Sal gotten the information late? The Ravelli family was already here and already armed. I’d flown commercial and had yet to pick up a gun. All I had was my training and whatever weapon I could grab. Just now, that looked likely to be a salad knife. It would just have to do.
I punched the biker one more time and reached out and grabbed his fallen helmet. Bringing it around in a hard arc, I clocked him with the heavy object just under his chin. The knockout sweet spot, and he was down.
I couldn’t afford to forget where I was. Sure, I could get away with garroting someone in a dark and dingy corner of a Neapolitan nightclub with just a baseball cap and shades as a disguise, but this was different. I had the shades on, but otherwise, I was perfectly visible, in front of about a hundred witnesses and cameras, in broad fucking daylight. Not only that, but killing a random, errand-running, Ravelli made man wasn’t my mission today.
My mission was hiding somewhere. I got to my feet. It was deathly silent apart from the tinkle of glass still falling from a shattered chandelier.
I walked around, inspecting the various heads of the people huddling and hiding. Finally, I made out the toe of the sneaker I had noticed Georgia wearing. She was under a table. Clever girl.
I stopped just in front of her for a moment. Fate had brought us full circle. I could just leave her here and tell Renato that I’d been too late. I’d be forgiven. We were late to this party, clearly. The Ravellis were already in place. If not for gross incompetence, they’d have her right now. I could just walk away and abandon this woman to her fate, as she’d abandoned me to mine, a lifetime ago.
I reached for the table and flipped it back easily. A wave of murmurs rose. Everyone was too shit-scared to look up and see what was really happening. They had no idea if it was the gunman walking around or someone else. I could use that to my advantage. Georgia was staring stubbornly at the floor, her arms over her head like that could protect her from anything. Like that could protect her from me.
I snagged a spoon from a nearby table and pressed it into my palm.
“Get up,” I commanded.
She tensed, unwilling to move. I didn’t want to haul her up. I didn’t want to touch her more than I had to. I knew from experience how poisonous her touch was.
“Get up, now, or I’ll shoot a person in this room every ten seconds until you do,” I warned her. Sure, I didn’t have a gun, but she didn’t know that.
Still, she failed to move. Even as a grown woman, a widow, no less, she was stubborn as fuck.
“Ten, nine, eight,” I started.
She lurched to her feet, gasping as her palms pressed against the broken glass on the floor.
“I’m up. Don’t hurt anyone else.” Her voice was yet another thread to the past. It was still her, just deeper. Richer, somehow. She sounded genuine, but I knew better.
Georgia Bellisario had never cared about anyone but herself.
“I won’t as long as you do what I say, but every second we waste here, their lives are in danger.” My impatience to get out of the room before the cops showed up was making me rough. She flinched and then looked up and met my eyes.
Her look felt like a slap. My reaction was hidden behind my shades. I had to get it the fuck together. I couldn’t afford to show weakness, especially in front of this woman.
I reluctantly wrapped a hand around her arm and tugged her to me. Clearly, she wasn’t going to move without some encouragement. She stumbled and fell against my chest. I ruthlessly shoved her away to put some distance between us.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked, her eyes searching for mine behind my dark shades.
“Wherever I want,” I said simply. Here wasn’t the place or time to explain to her how fucked she was.
“What?! You can’t!” she exclaimed in a squeaky voice.
“And who is going to stop me?” I asked, with an edge of arrogance to my tone that I knew would piss her off. To cement my control, I pressed the end of the spoon into her side, hidden from view.
She stiffened, clearly believing that I had a gun pressed against her. I fucking wish I did. Everything would go more smoothly once I had a proper weapon in my hand.
“You can’t just steal a person,” she stuttered as I put her in front of me and started forward.
“I can do whatever the fuck I want,” I murmured to her.
She gasped and squirmed as I pushed her through the side door and into a short hallway, heading for the emergency exit at the end. Alarms had gone off, and there was no one in sight.
Then Georgia stopped and stomped her foot on top of mine, as hard as she could. It would be laughable if I were the kind of man partial to a good laugh. Instead, her bravery and stubbornness only pissed me off. I whirled her against the wall, pressing the hilt of the spoon harder into her side. I put my other hand at the base of her neck and squeezed slightly.
“Let’s be clear. If I say jump, you say how high. I say kneel… you hit the fucking deck, got it?”
“Or?” she panted, her dark eyes wild with fear, her pulse thundering under my fingers.
“Or – you’ll die,” I told her with perfect confidence. Sure, I wouldn’t be the one to kill her, but I was pretty sure the Ravellis would.
She blinked at me, and a tear dashed down one cheek. It nearly transfixed me for a second. While our past had hardened me into an empty, frozen shell of a man, she still burned as brightly as ever. Her emotions were so potent, I wanted to pull back before she infected me with all that feeling.
Messy and uncontrollable. Chaos bottled in one volatile package.
“Got it?” I pulled myself back to the very real threat of the cops busting in at any second.
I pressed her pulse point a little harder when she failed to respond.
“Got it,” she spat at me. Defiance, even now?
My topolina hadn’t changed. Not at all.
“Good, because I won’t repeat myself. Now, move.”