Chapter Fifteen
Stephanie
My feet screamed the second I put my weight on them in the heels.
There was no time to harp on that, though, as Venezio grabbed my hand and pulled me back out of the office. This time, we turned to the left, going toward the back of the building.
There was a doorway, then a hallway up.
There was a small room above with no clear exit until Venezio reached up to pull down a set of stairs like you’d find for an attic.
“What are you doing?” I asked when he ducked down to gather up my skirt, then started to lift it.
“Getting the skirt out of your way. You gotta go up.”
There was a hint of desperation in his voice. And for someone who was always so laid-back, the sound had me taking the edge of my skirt and shoving it between my thighs, then keeping them clenched as I climbed up the six small steps.
“Push the cover up,” Venezio demanded.
I did just that.
I expected to exit into an attic or unfinished room.
But I was on the roof.
The air was cool enough to nip at me as Venezio’s jacket slipped off my shoulders and fell downward.
“Just keep going,” he said.
There was a pause, then I heard the steps below me creak and shift as Venezio followed me up.
I had no choice but to move onto all fours on the dirty rooftop for a moment before pushing up to my feet.
By the time I did, Venezio was there with me, offering me his jacket, but this time holding it open so I could slip my arms in.
Only after that did he reach down to grab the steps, pulling them back up, and putting the cover back down on them.
His gaze scanned the rooftops. Looking for what, I had no idea.
“How is he here?” I asked, my voice a shaky whisper. “He wasn’t on the train. How did he know where we were?”
And why the hell would he be following us?
“Your clutch,” he said.
“My clutch?”
He reached toward me, his hand going to the interior pocket of the jacket I was wearing and pulling out my tiny clutch that I didn’t remember him having.
“You left it on the table,” he explained.
“What are you doing?” I asked as he pulled it open and started to sift around.
“Mother fucker.”
I could barely see what was in his hand before he was moving toward the side of the building, hauling back, and sending it sailing it off into the darkness.
“What—” I started.
“Tracker,” he said, grabbing my hand. “We have to move. Right now.”
With that, he was once again pulling me along with him. We moved across the rooftop, then down the rickety old fire escape.
“Venezio!” I yelped as I dropped down first.
And a low, angry growl met me.
“Don’t move,” he called, rushing down behind me.
“Bitch, get the fuck out of here,” a voice said as I backed up against the wall while the dog dropped down slightly and snarled harder.
“Get your fucking dog,” Venezio snarled as he dropped down and moved to step in front of me.
“Who the fuck—”
“I said get your fucking dog,” Venezio snapped, his tone so cold that a shiver racked my system.
I didn’t know what had the man jumping to do what he was told. Until I looked at Venezio and saw his arm extended.
And in his hand?
That was a gun.
He had a gun?
How did he have a gun?
Where had he hid a gun?
As soon as the man had the dog by the collar, Venezio was reaching back, grabbing my wrist, and pulling me with him toward the entrance to the other building.
“You have a gun,” I said dumbly, as we moved into the warm building, the change in temperature making my skin burn.
“I do,” he said, lowering it down by his side but not putting it away.
“Why do you have a gun?”
He stayed silent on that as he walked through the building, then led us to the front door.
“Babe, listen, we are going to need to run again.”
“Why can’t we stay here and call the police?”
“Just trust me here.”
I had no reason to trust him. I clearly didn’t know him well enough if he was someone who carried a gun with him all the time and knew to look for things like trackers in my purse.
But there was no time to think on that as he tucked the gun away, threw open the door, and ran out onto the street, still holding onto my wrist.
I had no choice but to follow unless I wanted to be dragged.
Each step felt like a hot poker to the blisters on my soles.
Down one street.
Up the cross.
Down the next block.
Another.
“Please,” I begged, tears pricking my eyes. “I need to stop.”
My chest hurt, each breath feeling like drawing in icicles directly into my lungs. And my feet. God, my feet.
“Babe, we have to keep going,” Venezio said, slowing his pace, but still pulling me along.
“Why?” I panted. “Why? Why can’t we go to the police?”
“Look, babe, I—fuck.”
The tone in his voice, the look on his face, they had me running without another question, knowing how close the first bullet had come to hitting him, how near the second one had been to me.
My body was attuned to Venezio’s, sensing the shift in his muscles before he turned toward a cross street or down an alley between buildings, allowing me to be prepared and move in unison with him.
My thigh muscles screamed, making me wish I’d been a lot more dedicated to a regular workout routine than I’d been in a long time. My lungs were just as angry. Though, whether that was due to a lack of cardio, or trying to draw in freezing cold air was anyone’s guess.
My feet…
No. We weren’t going to talk about my feet.
“Okay. Breathe,” Venezio demanded when he pulled me down a claustrophobically small alley between a busy bar and a bodega. “Here,” he added, finding several plastic crates and lining them up so I could sit down and take the pressure off my burning feet.
I sucked in deep, greedy breaths, ignoring the pain in my lungs as I did so.
My whole body felt hot and cold somehow at the same time.
Venezio, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be struggling to breathe at all.
“I don’t… how…”
“Any fool, once they found the tracker, would have circled back in the other direction,” Venezio said.
Okay.
That made a certain kind of sense.
And maybe I would have come to that conclusion myself as well, given a few moments to think it through.
I glanced at Venezio, finding him looking down the long alley, his hand poised over his waistband where I now knew a gun was hiding.
Like he was waiting—and prepared—to shoot.
My brows drew together as I watched him, my mind trying to piece the bits of the night together to create some sort of picture that made sense.
Everything had been normal. Okay, a little spicier than normal. But otherwise normal. No creepy characters lingering about.
But as we walked out of that bathroom, I’d been aware of Venezio tensing, even before he could have possibly seen anyone since I hadn’t.
The second he did, though, he somehow knew we had to run.
Why?
Did he know him?
If he did, why would he assume the man was there to harm him?
Was he some sort of enemy?
But who the hell had enemies?
Ones who would place trackers in purses or chase you through a busy city with a gun?
That kind of thing didn’t happen to normal people.
Hell, normal people in the city didn’t carry guns, period.
So why did Venezio have one?
“Venezio,” I called, tone guarded.
“Yeah?” he asked, turning back.
“What the hell is going on?” Before he could answer that, another question tumbled out, one that maybe had more to do with my feelings than the situation. “Who are you?”
Venezio’s face tightened. He sucked in a slow, deep breath. His shoulders went slack.
Like he knew this would be coming.
Like he was dreading it regardless.
“I work for the Costa Family.”
Costa family? Who the hell was the… wait.
“The Costas? Like… like the biggest donors the charity has?” I asked. I mean, it wasn’t exactly an uncommon name, especially in a city that had a large Italian population. But it felt too coincidental not to draw that conclusion.
“Yes, them.”
“Okay. But… what does that have to do with this?” Was there some assassin out to murder a member of a wealthy family?
“The Costas,” he tried again, with emphasis.
“I heard you.”
“Family.”
“Yeah…”
“Family, babe. As in Family.”
“I don’t…”
But just then, the other meaning of that word clicked.
It hadn’t been anywhere near the forefront of my mind because, well, according to the news and the cops, the mafia hardly existed anymore in New York.
I’d actually dated someone who’d been really into mob movies and history when I was younger. And even he’d said that once the RICO Act went into effect, the mafia pretty much fell apart.
But maybe… maybe that wasn’t true.
Or it wasn’t true anymore.
It certainly explained why Venezio was so calm, why he had a gun, why someone was after him.
“The mafia. You work for the mafia.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t… I don’t understand. Wait,” I said, my stomach sinking. “Are you… like… washing money through my charity?”
A strange, completely inappropriate snort escaped Venezio at that. “No, babe. We’re not washing money through the charity.”
“What’s funny about that?”
“The idea that you bring in enough money for us to wash money through your charity.”
It was idiotic to be offended by that, given the circumstances, but there was nothing rational about emotions.
“Then why do they donate so much?”
To that, Venezio sighed out a breath, then reached backward to rub the back of his neck.
And that was a universal sign of guilt.
“What did you do?” I didn’t mean for it to come out as a snarl.
But this charity was important to me, dammit.
If he and his mob buddies compromised the integrity of it, if they involved me in something illegal, it might not only shut down the charity (and leave kids with nothing on Christmas) but I could go to prison.
“Babe, we really shouldn’t get into this right now. We need to keep moving.”
“Well, I’m not going anywhere with you until you give me some answers. So unless you plan on throwing me over your shoulder and carrying me away, we are going to talk about this right here.”
“Okay. Alright,” he agreed, glancing out the alley again before focusing on me. “You inherited this,” he said.
“Inherited. From the old director?”
“Yes. He’d been a willing… partner.”
“In what?” I bit the words off.
“Importing.”
“Drugs? Are you moving drugs through my charity?”
“No, babe. No,” he added more firmly as I crossed my arms. “It’s goods. Everything from jewelry to electronics.”
“Things that ‘fell off the back of a truck’ then?”
“Something like that.”
My heart sank as it suddenly made sense.
Why someone like him, who didn’t seem charity-minded, suddenly showed up at my door. Why he’d been so eager to do the most boring of tasks: unloading and sorting the toys from the trucks.
Betrayal was swift. It cut me off at the knees. If I’d been standing, I would have crumpled.
It was one thing to use my charity. I mean, it was screwed up. But that was one thing. It was a complete other matter to charm me, to go to parties with me, to put his hands on me, to fuck me.
My heart ached.
My stomach churned.
But I couldn’t process my personal feelings right then. Not with a guy chasing us. And definitely not with Venezio watching me so closely.
I’d be damned if he saw how deep his betrayal cut.
“How was the other director involved?”
“He was paid to look the other way.”
“He took money from the mob.”
“He did.”
“What did he do with it?”
“Funded his life, I imagine.”
I didn’t want to believe that. I wanted to be able to keep the man on a pedestal. The thing was, when I’d inherited the charity, I knew how little had been done for the actual children. Sure, some presents were given out. But not nearly enough for a man who used the charity as his “full-time job.”
I think I’d made a lot of excuses since taking over because it was hard. It was so much harder than I’d anticipated. But I had a job outside of this. I figured it was so difficult for me because I was new and because it wasn’t my sole focus.
“When you showed up,” I said, glancing up at him.
“I was trying to feel out if you’d be open to a bribe too.”
“And you decided I wasn’t.”
“No. You’re in this for the kids.”
“So you took the job to work behind my back.”
“Yes.”
“And you befriended me because… why? So I didn’t look twice at you? Didn’t suspect you?”
“That wasn’t supposed to be part of it, no.”
I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want to think there was a personal aspect to this, that genuine feelings had grown for him.
What better way to get me to not look into anything suspicious if he was charming me, if he was sleeping with me?
Bile slid up my throat.
“Steph, look—” Venezio started, his head tipped to the side. But just then, there was a loud yell from out on the street, followed by more cries of outrage.
I shot to my feet.
Venezio lifted his gun.
“Stay here,” he demanded, turning and making his way toward the mouth of the alley.
Honestly, I didn’t give it any thought.
I just turned to look out the other end of the alley.
Then I ran.