Chapter 43 #2
We go low. Dew soaks the hems of my pants.
The shrub scratches my ankle where the fall into the hedges left a scrape.
I don’t think about it. Gio sets our pace, a crawl that feels like forever until all at once we’re at the hedge and swallowed by it.
Voices slide past, too close. Someone laughs again, too loud now, nerves in the sound.
Another voice tells him to shut up. Boots grind gravel ten yards off.
Gio’s hand tightens on mine—wait. A flashlight washes the hedge tops in a thin line. I press my face to the dirt and count the seconds. The beam moves on. We move with it, staying under its edge, two bodies threaded through branches.
At the break in the shrubs, he stops me with a touch and looks out.
The gate is a darker cut in the wall, iron ribs throwing thin shadows.
Two guards stand thirty feet to the right, talking in low voices, their backs turned to the gate as they look toward the front drive, where they expect Gio’s assault to come from.
Farther along, another pair crosses the lawn toward the fountain. No one is looking at this slice of wall.
Gio leans toward my ear. “Straight,” he breathes. “Don’t run; just match my pace.”
I nod, because I don’t want to risk speech, afraid I can’t control the volume of my voice.
My fingers are cold around his belt. He shifts forward, waits for the pair by the fountain to hit the far side of their arc, then moves.
We ghost out of the hedge and into the open.
The grass gives just enough under my feet to swallow the sound.
I keep my eyes on his shoulder blade and copy every angle he makes.
At ten yards, a voice barks from the opposite side of the lawn. Both guards by the drive turn. Gio doesn’t break stride at all.
The gate fills my vision. Iron. Lock plate. A dark seam where it meets the brick wall.
We reach it, and he moves me to press into the shadow of the pillar beside him, breath thin in my chest, waiting for the next move.
I don’t know what we’re waiting for. I’m afraid to ask, to draw attention to us.
Soft footfalls approach. I brace to bolt, but a shadow forms in front of us, and my throat loosens: Antonio. Another shape steps in behind him: Nico. We trade quick nods.
Antonio raises his hand, presses his thumb to the plate. A green pinprick shows. The lock releases with a small click.
Gio pulls the gate an inch, then two. He turns my shoulder, slides me through first. Cold iron grazes my arm. Gio follows, then Antonio, then Nico, easing the gate shut until the latch settles.
We keep to the wall, single file, shoulders brushing brick. The neighbor’s hedge begins twenty feet on; we slip behind it and cut across their lawn, staying in the dark strip between shrubs and house.
Another corner. A side yard. The street opens ahead. A dark SUV waits half a block down.
Gio angles me to it without breaking pace. Antonio peels off to look up and down the street, then circles back. Nico takes the rear.
We reach the car. Gio opens the back door and guides me in, then slides in beside me. Nico takes the front. Antonio drives.
It’s not until we’re well away from the house that Antonio speaks.
He checks the mirror, voice low. “You make your drop?”
Gio gives a short nod, his arm anchoring me to his side.
“The drop?” I ask, looking between them.
“Little gift we left for Russo,” he says.
The name jolts through me. “Russo?”
Gio glances down at me. “Adriano Russo.”
My brow pulls tight. “I know that name.”
He goes still under my hand. “Do you?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Everyone in Florence does. They staked out Luce di Bologna as theirs and ate there all the time. Sorrentino hated it but couldn’t do anything. He kept the rest of us away from their table as much as he could.”
“So you never had contact with them?” he asks.
“Of course I did. Sorrentino couldn’t be there all the time,” I say, recalling the way they would comb me with their eyes hungrily.
I shivered and snuggled deeper into Gio’s side.
“They would give the servers a hard time. The boys, they would torment. And the girls…” I shake my head.
“They made them uncomfortable. Which is the most polite way I can put it. So when Sorrentino wasn’t there—”
“You dealt with them,” Gio finishes.
I nod.
“You’re safe now, Bibi,” he murmurs in my ear, pulling me closer. “You’ll never see the likes of them again. I swear it.”
“You can’t watch me all day every day, Gio,” I say.
“No, but I can make sure they find dealing with us… unpleasant,” he says. “Don’t you worry about that now.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. Then I notice the direction we’re heading in isn’t toward my house or his penthouse. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll stay at Luca’s tonight. It’s safest,” he says. “They’re expecting us.”
I think about the fact that I just really want a shower, a change of clothes, and a warm bed. With Gio at my side. I’m not really up for dealing with more people, but I guess I can’t exactly turn it away right now.
Not when they risked so much to rescue me.