CHAPTER SEVEN #2
We agreed, gathering our items. I collected my purse and cake box, careful not to jostle it too much. I really wanted to show it off to Stefano. It made me feel good when he complimented the stuff I brought home from cooking class.
We were the last ones to leave class. Terzo walked us to Eve’s car, as he did after every cooking class. I didn’t miss the way his gaze drifted around the parking lot, scanning the area.
Eve walked ahead of us, keys already in hand, still talking about how she was going to make the best noodles next week, as if she hadn’t just made a cake that tasted like the ocean.
“I’m telling you, I think I can do pasta from scratch,” she said. “And this time I won’t get the salt and sugar confused.”
Our next class should be fun. Would it be cheating if I attempted to make some noodles from scratch at home this week, just so I could be prepared for the next class? Yeah, that would probably be cheating. But since when did I play fair?
When we reached the car, Eve hit the unlock button, and the doors clicked. I opened the back passenger door and placed my cake carefully on the seat, positioning it so it wouldn’t slide around on the drive home. Eve did the same, opening the driver’s side door to place her cake in the back.
“Do you want me to follow you all back home?” Terzo asked.
“We’ll be fine,” Eve assured him, closing the back door and leaning against it.
“You sure?” he persisted, looking around the parking lot once more.
“We’re fine,” she said firmly. “Enzo has guys following me. And I’m sure Stefano has guys following Sienna. We’re good.”
I smiled at Terzo, touched by his concern.
“Thanks for volunteering, though,” I told him, meaning it. “See you next weekend.”
“Text the group chat when you all make it home,” he told us, walking backward toward his motorcycle.
“Will do,” Eve said.
I waved one final time before getting into the car. Eve started the vehicle, and then we were off, heading back to my place. But she didn’t take the usual route, instead making a small detour through the parking lots of adjacent businesses before getting us back on track.
I knew what she was doing, checking if we were being followed. We rode past the cooking class again. That black car was still there. It was the only car in the parking lot now, proving that it didn’t belong to anyone from our class.
It couldn’t belong to the cleaning staff either, because if it did, where were they? They hadn’t been in the class.
“Did you see that black vehicle that was unoccupied in the cooking class parking lot?” Eve asked, her eyes flicking to the rearview mirror.
“Yeah. I noticed it when we arrived at class. I’m pretty sure it was there last weekend, too.”
The car hadn’t set off immediate alarm bells, but seeing it repeatedly in the same location without anyone entering or exiting was suspicious. In our line of work, coincidences were rarely just coincidences.
“I’d hoped it was one of our classmates’ vehicles,” she said. “Now that all the students are gone, I’m wondering who the car belongs to.”
“The red light blinking near its rearview mirror let me know it’s got a camera on it, and it was recording when we entered and exited the class. I doubt our classmates are recording who enters and leaves the classroom,” I told her.
“Yeah, I noticed that. I think Terzo noticed too,” Eve pointed out, taking a right turn. “If he tells our guys about the car, they’ll try to stop us from coming to cooking class.”
I was already compromising on so many things, I didn’t want to give up my cooking class, also.
“I know,” I agreed with Eve. “But if we handled it ourselves and showed them they didn’t have to worry about us, maybe they would stop being so overprotective.”
Eve glanced my way quickly, a smile spreading across her face that matched the mischievous glint in her eyes.
“It’s been a while since we’ve done something dangerous,” she muttered. “I’m going crazy from being so well-behaved lately. I haven’t slapped a bitch in about two weeks.”
I chuckled, knowing the last bitch she slapped was that businessman at Tower D who’d gotten mad at her when she refused to meet with him. He’d thought he could just stop her while she was heading to her office and demand she have a meeting with him to discuss shared profits.
Hell no! Like everyone else who met with her, he had to schedule a time with her secretary. As Eve had walked away, the bastard mumbled under his breath some shit like, “I’d rather meet with the real boss, instead of his plaything anyway.”
That hadn’t just struck a nerve with my bestie; it had struck a nerve with me also. Eve had spun around and slapped his ass so hard that he’d almost lost his balance. My foot to his stomach had sent him sprawling to the ground.
Now, everyone at the Tower refused to make direct eye contact with us. And we’d been labeled as violent and unapproachable. That didn’t bother me. Now, I had fewer people coming to my office, trying to butter me up, hoping I’d put in a good word for their company with the Delucas.
I handled translations. I read over contracts in other languages and translated them into English.
I had to thank Maureen for forcing me to learn multiple languages.
But as a translator who handled important documents, what the hell made them think I would put in a good word to the Delucas for them?
“We’ve been good for too long. Let’s do something bad today,” Eve suggested.
“If we do this, we’ll have to coax our men later and apologize for being reckless,” I told her.
“Reckless? They’re the reckless ones. They’re going around killing anyone and everyone who even mentions our names, trying to get rid of those who could possibly be a threat to us.
They think we don’t know exactly what they’re up to, but we do.
We’ll just be doing the same thing they’re doing. How is that reckless?”
I was with her when she was right. I mean, if she was wrong, I’d still stand with her. But her being right meant I felt less guilty about what we were planning to do. Our guys would do anything to protect us.
They would do anything to keep us safe. We’d do the same for them. Their enemies were our enemies. If they could go on killing sprees, why couldn’t we? We were in equal opportunity relationships. If they could kill, so could we.
“So, are we doing this?” Eve asked.
“You know I’m in,” I told her.
“Great! Have you clocked the guards our guys have tailing us?”
“There are three black vehicles following us. And two white ones,” I told her. “Took me a while to spot the last two. But now that I’ve clocked them, do you think we could lose them, then double back to the cooking class to see who got into the car that was recording us?”
“We can. Pull up your GPS and put the cooking class’s location in so it can keep rerouting us back to the class. I don’t want to get lost while losing them,” she told me, her foot pressing on the gas a little harder.
“Got it.”
“Alright.” Eve glanced into the rearview mirror. “Let’s see how good they really are.”
“This reminds me of all those times we escaped the guys Maureen sent after us,” I told her, watching the screen as the route loaded.
Those had been tense days, but there was always an undeniable rush when we outsmarted the men who thought they could control us in Maureen’s name.
“They were never any match for us,” she muttered, switching lanes. “I’m hoping the DeLuca guards are more of a challenge.”
I looked over at my bestie, who was smiling, looking excited. Eve was in her element. While she enjoyed managing Tower D and being the woman the don cherished, I knew she missed getting into trouble just as much as I did.
At this moment, it felt like we were truly living. No one was attempting to control us. We didn’t have to worry about what we brought to the table or whether or not we were behaving the right way. In this moment, we were free to do as we pleased. Free to be ourselves.
Damn, I’d missed this.
I’d missed… me.