Chapter 31
Birdie
By dawn, I’m exhausted, scared, and about ready to tackle one of the guards to get the heck out of this penthouse. I haven’t slept.
I haven’t even really sat.
I’ve paced until my legs ached, watched the skyline go from midnight black to bruised violet to a washed-out gray that makes the whole city look tired. That silence is starting to feel alive. Like something waiting in the walls.
The two women stationed near the elevator exchange a look when I drift too close again.
“Miss Miller,” one says gently, “please sit.”
I laugh. “If I sit down, I might actually lose my mind.”
She doesn’t smile. No one in this penthouse has smiled since Francesca left. I stop near the windows and wrap my arms around myself. My reflection in the glass looks worse than I feel.
I try Lorenzo again on the borrowed phone. It goes straight to voicemail. A cold, sick feeling spreads through me. What if he never got the message?
What if he did?
What if he got there too late?
My throat tightens until it aches. I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt.
Then the elevator chimes. The sound cuts through the room like a blade. All three of us freeze. For one wild, stupid second, relief surges so hard it nearly takes my knees out from under me. It has to be Lorenzo.
One of the guards moves first, hand dropping to the gun at her hip as the elevator doors slide open.
Who steps out is not Lorenzo. It’s Federico Marino. He’s alone. And he already has a gun in his hand.
Everything inside me turns to ice.
The guard nearest the elevator reaches for her weapon.
He shoots her before she clears leather.
The sound explodes through the penthouse.
I scream and stumble backward as she drops hard to the floor.
The second guard fires at once, but Federico is already moving, proving that old men in Lorenzo’s world stay alive because they learned to kill before they learned to shave.
She goes down too.
Then it’s just him and me.
The living room that felt like a cage five minutes ago now feels like a trap with no walls at all. He turns those cold, old eyes on me and smiles.
“Miss Miller.”
My body locks. He starts walking toward me, measured and calm, gun low at his side like this is a social call and not the end of my life.
“You should have stayed in Italy where I left you,” he says. “It would have been kinder than this.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can hear it.
“You’re insane.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugs. “But I was willing to let you disappear quietly. You made things messy.”
I back away step by step, toward the windows, toward nowhere. “Francesca sent you?”
“No. Francesca disappointed me, just as she always does. But, that’s fine. I’m here to make sure Conti’s life is destroyed and that starts with you and that thing in your stomach.”
Something inside me goes very still.
He lifts the gun. Not at my head.
Lower.
My stomach.
Every nerve in my body lights with panic.
“No.”
“One life,” he says softly. “Sometimes that is all it takes to correct a mistake.”
Terror tears through me so violently it almost feels like clarity. I grab the nearest thing—a heavy crystal vase from the console table—and hurl it at him with all the strength I have.
It misses his face but catches his shoulder. He swears and the gun jerks.
I run.
Not because there’s anywhere to go. Because instinct is louder than logic. I sprint toward the hallway, bare feet slipping on polished wood, hearing him behind me, hearing his shoes strike the floor, hearing my own broken breathing.
A shot cracks behind me and glass shatters somewhere to my right. I gasp and slam into the wall near the bedroom corridor, one hand over my stomach, the other clawing for balance. There is nowhere to hide. No lock strong enough. No exit I can reach in time.
Federico rounds the corner with murder in his eyes.
“Enough,” he says.
He raises the gun again.
Then a door near Lorenzo’s room blows inward. Wood splinters, men shout, and feet pound over the floor. Federico turns. And Lorenzo hits him with a shot to the chest so hard it spins him sideways.
For one heartbeat, everything stops.
Lorenzo stands in the wrecked doorway in a dark coat, gun still lifted, his expression so cold it doesn’t look human.
Two men spill in behind him, weapons drawn, but he barely seems aware of them.
He sees only Federico. The older man staggers, blood already soaking through his shirt, and somehow still tries to lift the gun again.
Lorenzo shoots him a second time. Then a third. Federico crashes backward into the wall and slides to the floor, dead before he lands.
Silence slams down. Not true silence, of course. There are men moving. One of Lorenzo’s people is kneeling beside the wounded guard. Another is barking into a phone. Somewhere glass is still tinkling onto the floor. But for me, for one suspended and terrible second, there is only Lorenzo.
He turns toward me.
All that killing cold vanishes the instant he sees I’m still standing.
“Cara.”
I shake so hard I can barely answer. “He—he came up in the elevator—”
Lorenzo crosses the room in three strides and catches my face in both hands.
“Are you hurt?”
I stare at him.
His pupils are blown wide. There’s blood on his cuff. His breathing is ragged.
“Elizabeth.” Louder now. “Are you hurt?”
I shake my head once. “No.”
The relief that moves through him is violent. He closes his eyes and presses his forehead to mine for one brief, brutal second, as if that is the only thing keeping him upright.
Then he looks to my stomach.
His hands drop lower, carefully, stopping just short of touching.
“The baby?”
“I’m okay,” I whisper. “We’re okay.”
His whole body loosens with that just for an instant. Then the steel comes back.
He turns to one of his men. “Get the doctor here. Now.”
“Already on it.”
Lorenzo nods, then looks back at me. There’s something in his face now beneath the rage. Something so raw it nearly undoes me all over again.
“I got here as fast as I could.”
I nod, but tears are already burning. “I know.”
He glances once at Federico’s body, then back to me.
“I need to tell you what happened.”
The words settle between us, heavy and final.
I swallow hard. “Tell me.”
He takes my hand and leads me to the sofa, away from the blood and broken glass, though one of the women is still on the floor and I can’t stop looking at her.
Lorenzo kneels in front of me anyway, forcing my attention back to him.
His hands close over mine.
“It was Federico,” he says. “He ordered you moved in Italy. He paid Cesaro to do it.”
My stomach twists, knowing how hard that must have been for Lorenzo to find out.
Lorenzo keeps going, because if he stops, maybe he won’t start again.
“Cesaro admitted it before I killed him.”
My head jerks up. “You killed him?”
“Yes.”
A shiver moves through me. He sees it and tightens his grip on my hands.
“Elizabeth, listen to me. Federico wanted you gone because he knew what you were to me before I did. He wanted to preserve the marriage. Preserve his status.”
I let out a broken laugh. “That worked out well.”
“No.” There’s a pause. “Fran knew some of it. Not all. She knew you were meant to disappear. She did not know what Cesaro would do until it was already happening.”
“She came to warn me,” I admit.
I look into his eyes, knowing there’s still one more thing to ask. The worst one.
“Dante?” I whisper.
Lorenzo’s expression changes. Not harder. Worse. And I know deep in my gut that this isn’t going to be good news.
“He found Cesaro before I did.”
The blood drains from my face. “No.”
Lorenzo’s voice drops. “He went after him after you called. There was a firefight at the hotel. I got there before it was over, but not soon enough.”
No.
No no no.
“He’s dead?” The words come out in a whisper.
Lorenzo doesn’t look away.
“Yes.”
Something in me folds.
Not because I loved Dante the way Lorenzo once thought. But because he was kind to me. Because he offered me safety when I had none. Because he answered every time I called.
Tears spill before I can stop them.
Lorenzo rises, only to sit beside me and pull me into him. For once, I don’t fight it. I cry into his shoulder for a man who didn’t deserve this end, while the man holding me is the one who had to witness it.
“He knew the truth,” Lorenzo says quietly into my hair. “About the baby. About you. He told me he was helping you survive.”
That almost makes me cry harder.
I pull back enough to look at him. “Did you kill him?”
The question hangs there.
His eyes darken with something like grief. “No.”
I nod once and a strange, ugly kind of relief moves through me. Because that would have been unforgiveable.
“There’s more. Cesaro was sleeping with Fran. He was the father of her baby,” Lorenzo says. “Not me.”
For one stunned second, I can only stare at him. Then I think of Francesca’s face. The numbness. The way she looked at this bright place with such quiet pain.
“Oh my God.”
“I offered her a divorce. Protection for her and the baby.”
That surprises me enough to steal my next breath.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
I look at him. His eyes look ten years older than they did yesterday. And yet somewhere in all of this, he did something kind.
As if he knows what I’m thinking, his mouth twists. “Don’t make me noble. I’m not in the mood.”
A laugh escapes me through tears and his face softens for one second at the sound. Then he stands and puts a little distance between us, as if what comes next requires room.
“Elizabeth.”
Something in his voice makes me go still. He reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out an envelope. Sets it on the marble table in front of me.
“What’s that?”
“Everything you need to go back to Kansas City.”
My heart stumbles but he goes on before I can speak.
“There’s a house there under another name. Security, but at a distance. Enough money that you never have to ask me for anything. Doctors. Lawyers. Anything you need.” His jaw tightens. “You can have your own life. Your own name. Your own choices.”
I stare at the envelope like it might explode. He’s giving me freedom. The thing I begged for. The thing I thought he would never, ever choose over keeping me close.
“I’m done deciding for you,” he says. “If you want Kansas City, you have it. If you want me nowhere near you, say the word and I will stay away.”
My eyes burn.
“Why are you doing this?”
The answer comes without hesitation.
“Because I love you.”
The room goes still all over again.
He says it standing in the wreckage of everything—his marriage, his loyalty, the old life collapsing around him—and somehow that makes it feel more real, not less.
His voice roughens, but he doesn’t look away.
“I love you enough to let you hate me in peace if that’s what you want. I love you enough to send you somewhere I cannot follow if it means you get to breathe without fear. And I love you enough that I will not use our child to keep you here.”
The tears come harder now, hot and blinding and impossible to stop.
Because this is all I wanted and the last thing I expected.
I stand on legs that still feel shaky and look at the envelope.
Kansas City. I could go back to the place where Sienna and I were so happy.
Where our friends are. But it would be a life where Lorenzo is only a ghost and the father of my child and the man I once loved too dangerously.
Then I look at Lorenzo.
My voice shakes. “Do you really think I want Kansas City if you’re not in it?”
“Elizabeth—”
“I love you too,” I whisper, and there it is, the truth that has been clawing at my ribs for weeks. “I hate that I do. I hate how much easier you make it to be afraid than to trust. But I love you.”
His eyes close for one second like the words physically hit him. When they open again, they’re glass-bright and fierce and entirely too human.
I take one step toward him. Then another.
“But if we do this,” I say, “there are no more cages. No more deciding for me. No more using protection as an excuse to own me.”
He nods at once. “Done.”
“No lies.”
“None.”
“No wife.”
A grim, almost stunned smile touches his mouth. “Only until you’re ready to say yes.”
I search his face, looking for the arrogance, the loophole, the Conti in him that might still twist a vow into a command.
I find none.
“What would you have done if I choose Kansas City anyway?” I ask.
Pain flickers through him, but he answers steadily.
“Then I put you there myself and I spend the rest of my life making sure no one touches you.”
That does it. I close the distance and kiss him.
He makes a broken sound against my mouth and pulls me into him like he has been dying not to.
His hands frame my face, then slide to my waist with reverent care, stopping there as though even now he can’t quite believe I am choosing this. Choosing us.
When we break apart, both of us are breathing hard.
I whisper, “I don’t want Kansas City.”
His hands tighten. “What do you want?”
I look him in the eyes and give him the one thing he’s been asking for since the beginning. The truth.
“You,” I say. “But this time, I want you with me. Not over me.”
A shuddering breath leaves him.
“Elizabeth,” he says, like my name is the only prayer he’s ever meant.
And because I can’t resist, I add, “The only time I’ll accept you being over me is in our bed.”
He laughs and then he kisses me again, gentler this time, while dawn finally burns through the windows and turns the whole bright penthouse gold.
Outside, the city keeps moving Inside, blood still stains the floor.
Nothing is fixed. Not really. Dante is still dead.
Francesca still has to be freed. The war Federico started will not end cleanly.
But Lorenzo’s hand settles over mine on my stomach, and for the first time in what feels like forever, the future does not look like a prison.
It looks like a choice.
And this time, we are both making it.