Chapter 17 #2
Behind me, Adriana's voice cuts through. Low and controlled. “Sonny. Get to the back. Now.”
Sonny runs back into the kitchen. One of the Russians moves to stop him.
My finger slides over the trigger. A bullet cracks and the asshole goes down hard. His screams pierce the tense air as he clutches his thigh.
I push Adriana out of the way, and she crawls over to the bar.
The other two reach for their weapons. I close the distance between me and one of the other guys and throw an elbow to his throat. He staggers, choking. I grab his gun arm and twist hard until something cracks. He drops.
When I straighten up, Shaved Head has his gun pointed at my face, his face bright red, eyes spitting ire.
“Are you ready to die, motherfucker?” His voice is tight, and he’s clearly pissed that two-thirds of his muscle is incapacitated. “Because I’m about to put a hole in your head. Drop the gun.”
I don’t move, the gun trained on him. I need to have his attention on me so that Adriana can escape to the kitchen and get out the back door with Sonny and his family, if they haven’t already bolted.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Adriana creep toward Shaved Head with a bottle in her hands.
Fuck. No.
If he turns around and sees her, he won’t hesitate to shoot. I keep my eyes on him, not giving him any indication that she’s close.
“Do you think I’m kidding, boy?” he yells. “Put the fucking gun—"
Adriana swings the bottle at his head. Glass shatters and Shaved Head crumples to the floor like a bag of cement.
We stare at each other for a second, frozen to the spot.
The guy I shot is still screaming, holding his leg. The one with the broken arm is groaning on the floor. Shaved Head is out cold in a spreading pool of blood from his scalp. I grab their guns.
Sonny stands in the kitchen doorway, his wife and daughter cowering behind him.
Adriana stares at the broken, jagged bottle in her hand like she doesn't know how it got there.
“We need to go,” I say. “Right now. Before more of them show up.”
She doesn't move.
“Adriana.”
Her eyes snap back to mine, her hand shaking.
“I just—” She looks down at the unconscious guy at her feet. “I hit him.”
“You saved my life. Now we move.”
I grab her arm and guide her toward the door. She moves like she's submerged in quicksand. Slow as shit, and we need to get far the hell away from here.
“Sonny.” I cast a look back at him. “You didn't see us. We were never here.”
He nods and doesn't ask questions. Old school. He knows how shit works.
I hustle Adriana to the car, help her inside, and peel away from the curb. Thankfully it’s dark and nobody expects Moretti’s to be open tonight, so the street is pretty quiet. No eyewitnesses means we’re safe… ish.
She doesn't say a word for six blocks. When she speaks, the words spew from her lips like they’re running a race. “People saw. They saw me… the boss… run away. While Sonny’s restaurant was destroyed. While those men—”
“Nobody saw. You handled it.”
“I ran.” Her voice cracks. “I ran, Lochlan. The Russians know they can come for me now. They weren't scared. They weren't scared of me at all.”
“They should've been. You dropped their leader with a bottle of chianti.”
“That's not—” She shakes her head, her frenzied finger twisting the hell out of her ring. “This is going to get back to the capos. That the Russians hit one of our places while I was there. That I couldn't stop them.”
I put a hand on her arm. “You survived. You won. You took out the guy who had a gun to my head.”
“I ran.” Her voice is quieter now. My gut twists at the defeat in her voice. “I had to run. If more were coming, they might have done more than just destroy the restaurant. There were only two of us. I was… scared.”
I take a sharp right and pull over on some random side street. I look up and down but nobody is around.
She's hyperventilating. Her hands grip her knees so hard her knuckles are white, her eyes way too wide.
“Adriana. Look at me.”
But she can't. She's gone. Spiraling. Staring straight ahead with no idea of what she’s looking at.
I know the signs. I've seen this before.
My mind trips back to Gavin’s panic attacks after Mom died. Poor kid would be curled up on his bedroom floor, gasping for air, convinced his heart was exploding. I sat with him for hours until I could bring him back.
“Hey.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and turn to face her. Taking her hands in mine, I say, “You're having a panic attack. It's gonna pass, but I need you to breathe with me.”
“I… can't…”
“Yeah, you can. In through your nose. Slow.”
She tries. It comes out ragged. Broken. She sputters and chokes a little.
“That's okay. Try again. In... and out.”
We breathe together. In. Out. In. Out. Her grip on my hands is crushing. I don't give a shit. It proves she’s with me.
“Now tell me five things you can see,” I say.
“What?” she rasps, still rocking back and forth.
“Five things. Look around.”
Her eyes dart left and right. “The... the dashboard. The steering wheel. My hands. Your face.” She swallows hard, her voice quivering. “Blood. On your shirt.”
I glance down. She's right. Parting gift from the fight.
“Good. Now tell me four things you can hear.”
“The engine. My heart. Traffic somewhere.” Shaky breath. “Your voice.”
“Okay, good. Now, three things you can feel.”
“Your hands.” Her grip on me tightens, her hands clammy and cold. “The seat under me. My heart... pounding.”
“Two things you can smell.”
“Leather. And... sulphur. It’s… it’s stuck in my nose.”
“One thing you can taste,” I murmur.
“Fear.” Her voice is barely a whisper. “I can taste fear.”
“That's okay. That's normal.” I wrap my arms around her and pull her into my chest. She resists for half a second, then breaks. “You did so great.”
She shudders, teeth chattering, her face pressed against my shirt. She doesn’t cry, though. Adriana DiMicheli doesn't cry, not even staring the most dangerous, dire circumstances in the face. But she's trembling like everything she's been holding together for weeks has finally unraveled.
I hold her without saying anything.
Those romance novels stashed in her suitcase… the heroes who took control, who gave the women permission to stop being strong, who held them when they fell apart.
She's never had that. I can feel it in the way she's clinging to me, like she’s desperate for approval she can never get.
“I couldn't protect them,” she whispers. “Sonny. His wife and daughter. They trusted me.”
“They're alive. They're safe.”
“Because we ran.”
“No, because we survived. There's no shame in that.” I stroke the side of her face. “If we didn’t survive, they’d have been in much more danger.”
She pulls back, her red eyes coming to focus on me. Her face is blotchy. Wrecked.
And she's never been more beautiful.
“How did you know what to do?” she asks. “The breathing thing.”
“My mom used to get panic attacks, and I learned the techniques from her. I used them with my brother Gavin when he’d have attacks after she died. Those were really bad ones.”
“How old were you?”
“Seventeen. My dad was useless, too wrapped up in his own shit to notice his kids were drowning.” I pause. “So I stepped up. Someone had to be there for them.”
Her expression softens, her fingers lacing with mine where they rest against her face. “You've been taking care of people for a long time.”
“It's what I do.”
Her other hand comes up to cup my jaw. Her thumb traces over the stubble I didn't bother to shave this morning.
“I don't know how to let someone take care of me,” she says in a choked voice. “I've spent my whole life being the one holding everything together.”
“I know.”
“This is terrifying.”
“Yeah.” I turn my head and press a kiss to her palm. “But you don't have to be the boss with me. You can just be Adriana.”
She doesn't respond. But she doesn't pull away either. We sit there, lost in each other as time ticks by.
“Take me home,” she finally says.
With one final check around, I pull away from the curb and head down the side street toward Back Bay.
When we walk into the penthouse about twenty minutes later, Reaper dashes toward us, a ball of boundless energy that’s been cooped up for hours and wants to play.
Adriana bends down to pet him, and I already see the transformation happen. The walls rebuild. The armor slides back into place. In seconds, she's going to make an excuse to shut me out, disappear into the bedroom, and process everything that just happened alone.
No.
Fuck that.
The second she straightens up, I grab her by the arm and pull her toward me.
I don’t give her a chance to pepper me with reasons why she needs to hole up by herself.
My lips capture hers. It’s not gentle or careful.
I kiss her like the world almost ended tonight, like I almost died less than an hour ago and she's the only thing that matters.
She freezes for half a second in my arms.
Then she makes this sound, desperate, raw, relieved, maybe? And she kisses me back like she's drowning and I'm air. Her hands fist my shirt. Mine tug out her ponytail and slide into her hair. We stumble around until her back hits the wall, and I press into her, pinning her there.
I break away, caging her in with my arms. “You were incredible tonight,” I whisper.
An hour ago, she saved my life.
Twenty minutes ago, she fell apart in my arms.
Now she looks at up me through hooded eyes, like she's done fighting whatever this is between us.
“Lochlan,” she says, her breathy voice making my balls ache. “Take me into the bedroom. Now.”
And that's everything.