Chapter 5 #2
Sante is the first to respond, his answer mirroring my thoughts. “Lay low sounds an awful lot like hiding. Who are you running from?”
The woman’s eyes squeeze shut with frustration before reopening.
“It doesn’t matter. Look, I made a mistake, and I’m really sorry, but no harm was done.
Can you please just let me go?” She’s genuinely scared of whoever has her on the run, which makes me even more convinced that she’s not leaving until we get a name.
“ Who ?” Sante demands.
“You wouldn’t know him.” Her voice is suddenly weary with defeat. “And trust me, you wouldn’t want to if you did. He’s dangerous—that’s why I needed a place he would never look.”
I don’t like it, but not for the reasons I shouldn’t not like it.
I should be pissed she’s mixed us up in someone else’s drama, but instead, I feel surging rage that someone has instilled this fear and despondency in her.
It’s not my place to care. I don’t know this woman, and her problems aren’t mine, yet I find myself pulling out my gun and pointing it right at her face.
“Who?” I demand with deadly calm.
Silence presses against my eardrums. Or maybe that’s my thundering pulse. Either way, my blood pressure skyrockets.
“Who … who are you?” she whispers with dawning realization.
Whoever she’s running from isn’t the only monster in the city.
She’s leaped from the frying pan straight into the fire.
Her paling skin highlights her freckles, making her look sickeningly innocent.
How am I supposed to walk away from a face like that?
Fury over this turn of events sharpens my tongue when I answer her. “The last person you’ll ever see if you don’t give me a name.” It’s an empty threat, but she doesn’t know that, and I want answers.
She squeezes her eyes tightly shut again. Tears roll down her freckled cheeks this time, and she whispers, “His name is Biba.”
The single word ricochets like gunfire inside my head.
“Fuck!” Sante roars beside me.
She’s got the Russian mob after her. This isn’t just a case of a domestic dispute or some asshole loan shark looking for his money. She’s got the boss of the whole Russian mob looking for her.
Jesus Christ.
I don’t realize Sante and Amelie are having a wordless conversation until he addresses her in a frustrated tone. “What am I supposed to do, Mel? We don’t know what the hell she’s gotten herself into. This could draw us into a full-blown war.”
“We can’t send her out on her own,” Amelie returns in a pitiful tone that I instantly know will trump any argument Sante or I might make. “I know what it’s like to feel hunted and alone. Please help her.”
Yup. Checkmate.
“I can get her a plane ticket. I hear Colombia is a great place to disappear,” he suggests dryly. He can read the writing on the wall as well as I can.
“Is that what you would have wanted for me?” she prods, hands now hiked on her hips.
He grimaces, arms spreading wide. “What else do you suggest? I can’t put her up in a hotel forever.”
“No, but we could hide her while we figure out what’s going on and see if there’s a way to help.”
“You and I hardly have room for ourselves in our tiny apartment, let alone a guest. Not that I’d let you bring that sort of danger into our house anyway.
” He pauses, then, as if in slow motion, turns to me.
“You’ve got plenty of room, though, don’tcha, Tommy?
” His knife slides as easily into my back as the grin across his face.
Fucking traitor.
“No fucking way. It’s not happening.” I haven’t shared a living space with anyone since he and I were forced to spend a month in a barn with a dozen pigs back in Sicily.
What he’s proposing sounds just as distasteful.
I don’t share my space with anyone, let alone someone I know nothing about.
And besides that, keeping Danika near me will eliminate all hope of scraping her from my mind.
I’ll be just as much a captive as she is.
Amelie turns to face me like a cat angling itself to look larger than it is and injects every ounce of authority she can summon into addressing me. “You owe me, Tommaso Donati, for pretending to be my stalker. Don’t think I’ve forgotten about that.”
I can hardly believe what I’m hearing. “ Owe you? I took a fist to the face for that.” And I was only doing what her damn husband asked me to do.
“That was between you and your delinquent friend over there.” She nods toward Sante, then presses a finger into my chest, brows narrowing. “This is between you and me. It’s not forever. Give her a place to stay while we figure this out, and we’ll call it even.”
“Un-fucking-believable,” I breathe. “You going to say something, Sante?”
The traitor shrugs. “Yeah, happy wife, happy life.”
Amelie grins, and I know I’ve lost.
After bellowing my frustration, I turn to my friend and level him with a scathing glare. “You fucking owe me.”
He bites down on his lips to keep from laughing.
Amelie interrupts before I have a chance to sucker punch him. “You two quit standing there and get that tape off her.”
We end our stare down and do as we’re told like fucking children. As we finish removing the tape, Sante asks the million-dollar question.
“Why is Biba after you?”
Danika looks at us while rubbing her wrists and seems to debate answering. “First, I need to know who you guys are and how you know Biba.”
She’s not in a position to make demands, but I suppose I understand her need to know.
“I’m Tommaso Donati, and this is Sante. My brother is Renzo Donati—have you heard of him?
” I watch her carefully for signs of recognition, but find none when she shakes her head.
“How about the Moretti Family? Ever heard that name before?”
Her porcelain skin pales even further. “You’re Italian mafia,” she breathes.
“Now it’s your turn,” Sante pushes, all business. “What does Biba want with you?”
Danika looks from one of us to the other, wringing her hands with indecision. “I took something from him.”
Sante and I immediately look at one another as we’re reminded of a crazy day years ago when we too stole something from Biba.
We didn’t exactly mean to—we were kids taking a million-dollar car for a joy ride.
How were we supposed to know it belonged to the head of the Russian mob?
The thrill was unlike anything I’d ever experienced.
Unfortunately, Biba wasn’t particularly understanding, and the incident was a key factor in our extended stay in Sicily.
It wasn’t so long ago, yet it feels like a lifetime. What are the odds that a mere handful of weeks after our return, this woman careens into my life having committed the same sin? It can only be explained in one of three ways: a lie, a coincidence, or karma. All three options suck.
“What did you take?” I ask her.
“Something that wasn’t his to begin with, and it couldn’t be helped. I had no choice, and the thing I took is totally meaningless to him. He’s just upset and needing to make a point.”
“You’re really not going to tell us what you took?”
“It doesn’t make a difference what I took. Biba’s going to hunt me to the ends of the earth regardless.”
“Man trouble,” I muse, remembering what she’d said yesterday in front of the police station.
She stares at me with a degree of strength and conviction that surprises me. “And just like I said, there is no solution to this sort of problem. All I can do is hide.”
“Well, I hope whatever it is you took was worth it because it very well may cost you your life.”
Golden-strawberry hair waving all around her, she lifts her chin defiantly. “That’s a price I’m willing to pay.”
She thinks I’m talking about Biba.
She has no idea there’s a greater danger standing right in front of her. A man with shady morals and a penchant for taking what he wants. That man wouldn’t just kill her; he’d keep her, and her life would be forever his.