Chapter 14 Cristiano
Chapter fourteen
Cristiano
“Are you really sure?”
Cristiano turned his focus down to his beautiful wife, who’d tucked herself under his arm again and was staring up at him with wide, searching eyes like she didn’t already know he’d do fucking anything for her.
“Yes, Foxglove. I’m really sure.” He cupped a hand over her cheek, keeping his other arm locked around her waist. “I never should have pushed to move us back into the tower. I’m sorry, baby. ”
Felicity smiled and stretched her arms around him. “It’s not that I won’t miss the penthouse. It’s just … being underground when those bombs went off freaked me out, you know?” She pressed a kiss to his palm. “That doesn’t mean you have to build us something, though. There are plenty of houses.”
Cristiano lifted her properly into his arms and turned them toward the car at the edge of the lot.
“Fuck that. I promised you whatever you wanted.” She’d had too many nightmares from that day.
One fucking day of chaos, where both of them had nearly died.
In the immediate aftermath, all he’d wanted was to heal up and get his home repaired so he could get out of his cousin’s house.
She hadn’t admitted until after they’d moved back in, when the nightmares kept coming, that so many of them were from how close she’d come to being crushed by the building they were living in.
He felt like an asshole for making her go back.
“Hey.” Felicity grabbed his face with both hands as he came to a stop beside the car. “I’m okay. I’m okay, and you’re okay, and that’s what really matters to me.”
Cristiano tightened his grip of her until he was able to steal a short, wet kiss. “I know, baby. But I’m still gonna get you a fresh start, on solid ground, like you deserve.”
She giggled, dancing her fingers over the back of his jaw. “A very sweet, yet ironic thing to say while you’re holding me like five feet off the ground.”
His lips twitched. “We really gotta work on your depth perception.”
She pulled herself closer and lowered her voice, despite that they were alone. “You may need to take me somewhere more private for that, husband.”
Cristiano groaned and forced himself to set her down—slowly, by dragging her against as much of him as he could. Then he reached past her and pulled open the passenger door. “Get your sexy ass in the car before I bend you over the hood.”
Felicity was still lowering herself into the seat, another laugh trailing between them, when his phone started buzzing in his pocket.
He made sure she was settled and that he’d gotten the door shut before he yanked the offending device free. A scowl bent his lips as he glanced at the screen. Who the fuck would be calling him from Indiana? It’d probably been at least four years since his last trip there.
He accepted the call anyway, just in case it was important. “Talk.”
A male voice he couldn’t immediately place cleared its throat nervously on the other end of the line. “Ah, forgive me … is this Cristiano De Salvo?”
Cristiano ducked into his seat and tugged the door shut, but he refrained from making another move. “You called me.”
“Right, right. It’s just, it’s been a few years since you gave me this number, I wanted to be sure.” The man cleared his throat again. “This is Raul Campo, from Fort Wayne—”
Recognition dawned and Cristiano grunted.
“I remember. Been a while. I assume you aren’t suddenly calling me to shoot the shit?
” He put the phone on speaker and reached for his seatbelt.
He didn’t care if Felicity overheard whatever the old ex-military detective had to say.
He didn’t keep secrets from his wife, and his cousins didn’t expect him to.
Felicity, for her part, had already buckled in and tended to reflexively stay quiet when someone she didn’t know was on the phone. Unless she had a strong point to make.
“No, no,” Campo said quickly. Something made a clacking sound in the background on his end of the line, but his tone held no indication of concern.
“I’m calling because something just came to me that I figured your family would want to know.
” He drew an audible breath. “A woman was in here a couple of minutes ago inquiring for my services…. She wanted me to track down Eleonora De Salvo and pass along all relevant contact information, as much as I could find.”
Cristiano flexed a hand over the wheel. It had only been a couple of days since he’d heard there was someone poking around for information on Mama El.
But Mikey’s digital trail had led back to Chicago.
He sucked in a hard breath and rolled the engine over.
“Tell me everything you remember about this woman, and everything she said. Be specific.”