Chapter Eighteen
Venezio
I knew the shot wasn’t fatal.
If it were any other situation, I would have run over to him and put another bullet right between his eyes to make sure he was dead. And with the location in the park we were in, no one would see, no one would know; I’d get away with it, no problem.
But this wasn’t just about me.
I’d sent Stephanie away when she was drenched to the bone, pale, frozen.
I didn’t know everything there was to know about hypothermia, but I was pretty sure she was in it.
I had to get to her as quickly as possible, get her warmed up.
For a moment, when I saw her on her knees in the snow, I thought I was too late, that she’d fallen, that she was about to face-plant into the snow, unconscious, possibly in cardiac arrest.
My own damn heart stuttered at the very idea.
But as I ran forward, she didn’t fall. She was just frozen, confused, too cold to think straight.
Her bleeding hands were the least of my worries as I forced her to run with me out of the park and duck into the cab.
I needed to get her out of her wet clothes, to get her under dry blankets, maybe skin-to-skin with me.
But I also needed to get her safe.
If my memory served me, I had roughly an hour and a half to two hours to get her warmed up before mild hypothermia became moderate. And if that happened, she would have to get to a hospital if she was going to survive.
The safe house was thirty minutes away. Twenty-five if the driver was aggressive enough.
I passed him another hundred, telling him there’d be another for him if he got us to the location as quickly as possible.
He pressed down on the gas, wove in and out of traffic, and blew through yellow lights.
All the while, I chafed Steph’s arms and legs, held her body close, kept asking her questions to keep her awake.
She grumbled and whined and even cursed at me at times, but I didn’t care how miserable she was so long as she was awake.
Just when I didn’t think I could wait another second, the taxi whipped into a parking spot out front of the building.
“Thanks, man,” I said, passing him the money, then gathering Stephanie in my arms and sliding out of the cab.
The safe house was located in one of the rougher neighborhoods in Brooklyn, in a nondescript walk-up above a bodega.
None of us had keys.
But much like Ant’s construction company, we all had a fingerprint on file for easy access if we were in a dangerous situation. And of course, we would be if we ended up in a safe house.
I jiggled Steph’s body as I pushed the door open, finding the apartment had the scent of a long-held breath—dust, old fabric, and something damp beneath it, like time itself had been shut in for far too long.
I kicked the door closed behind me and reached toward the thermostat, turning the ancient thing all the way up before walking through the empty space, the old wooden floors groaning under my step, until I was in the bedroom.
The bed was stripped, the surface covered in a dozen old dryer sheets.
I swept as many as I could to the side, setting her on the edge, then stripping her out of my jacket and her gown.
Her slippers went next.
Then her bra and panties.
She was still shivering, but looking at me—conscious, but a bit confused.
I moved away, pulling the airtight bags out of the closet, ripping them open, and tossing the fresh-smelling blankets on the bed.
I lowered her back onto them before stripping down to my boxers and climbing on with her, pulling her body close to mine, then wrapping the blankets around us.
Her body was cool against me, and as the heat grew in the cocoon I created, it felt like a thousand knives stabbing at my cold skin.
It was no wonder Steph wriggled and grumbled in my hold. The sensation must have been amplified a thousand times for her.
“You’re gonna be alright,” I assured her, running my hands up and down her back, glad to find her skin didn’t feel downright frigid anymore.
Warming up was good.
And slowly but surely, the shivering eased, then stopped.
Her heart no longer pounded against her ribcage but went slow and steady, almost in time with mine.
The fucking room was intolerably hot as the heat cranked relentlessly.
Sweat pricked my forehead, my head, my back.
But I refused to move away, wanting to trap as much heat as possible now that she was showing signs of improvement.
Stephanie shifted, grumbling, her fingers moving.
Yeah.
I didn’t forget about her hands.
But I had to focus on priorities. Aside from worrying about when her last tetanus booster was, since no ground in the city was exactly clean, I knew her hands could wait. Her core body temperature could not.
“Still with me?” I asked.
Her head nodded.
“Are you feeling warmer?”
“A little.”
A little?
I felt like I was being roasted over a fucking spit.
But it wasn’t me that mattered.
And she was no longer slurring her words. That was another step forward.
“Talk to me. What are you feeling?”
“Pins and needles.”
“Where?”
“Everywhere.”
“That’s gonna pass. Just focus on me instead. What else?”
“Tired.”
“You can’t sleep. Not yet.”
A little whimper escaped her at that.
“Soon. Just not yet. Gotta make sure you’re warmed up to the bone.”
She sighed but nuzzled closer.
“My head hurts.”
“You’re probably dehydrated from all the running. As soon as it’s safe, I’ll go find something to drink.” Tea, maybe. Or, better yet, broth.
I hadn’t ever needed to stay in a Costa safe house before.
But from what I could tell, it seemed like this one had been thoughtfully prepared.
From the dryer sheets on the mattress to keep it fresh to the blankets in airtight bags to keep any bugs or smells out, someone had put thought into this.
I was sure there were some nonperishables in the cabinets or freezer.
Soup had to be one of them. I didn’t know how hypothermia affected the gut, so I didn’t know if food was a good idea.
But the salt in the broth had to be smart.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“Sore. Everywhere.”
That might have been partially from the shivering, which was basically a full-body workout. Or, you know, it could be from running for her life through half of fucking Manhattan.
“Once I’m sure you’re good, I can get you something for that.”
“And my feet,” she said with a little whine.
“Wish I could say I can help your feet, but think staying off of them might be the only thing that helps. I can fix your hands once you’re warm enough, though.”
Steph pulled back slightly, pulling her arms up between us and staring at her palms.
“It’s alright,” I said when a strange whimper escaped her.
“My hands touched the ground,” she said, her face twisted in horror.
“Yeah. But not the sidewalk, at least,” I reasoned.
“Not much better.”
“We were pretty deep in there. Lower-traffic area. On an unrelated note, when’s the last time you had a tetanus shot?”
A snorting laugh escaped her at that.
“Maybe three years ago.”
“You’re set then. Look up at me,” I demanded, watching as her head lifted. Her lips no longer looked blue. There was a bloom of pink across her cheeks. “Looking better.”
She wet her dry lips, and it took every goddamn drop of self-control I possessed to keep my cock from going hard.
“You came for me,” she said, watching me with something deep in her eyes.
“Of course I did.”
“After I ran away from you.”
“Don’t matter. I was already in your apartment when you called.”
“Why? To keep me from going to the police?”
“No. To keep you safe.”
“You knew he would come for me.”
“To get to me, yeah.”
“Why does he want to get to you?”
Shit.
This was a murky area.
Even mafia wives didn’t know the exact details of what went down. It protected them. But, yeah, it also protected their men. So I damn sure couldn’t tell Steph, who I wasn’t even dating.
That said, after what she’d been through, I felt like I owed her something.
“I had a run-in with him and his buddy a while back. Took back what they took from me. He’s clearly got some feelings about it.”
“Enough to kill you? And me?”
“Seems like it.”
“Did you kill him? I heard a scream.”
“Wish I did,” I said. “But no. Hurt him. But that won’t keep him down forever.”
“Have you killed people?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I had to.”
“Had to,” she repeated.
“If it’s gotta be someone, it ain’t gonna be me.”
She watched me for a long moment before giving me a small nod, as if she understood, like she knew that if she was pushed into a corner, she would fight her way out with fists and nails and teeth.
Everyone would.
It was survival instinct.
“Do you think he’s going to come back for us?”
“Maybe.” He absolutely was going to. I just didn’t want to freak her out.
“Where are we?”
“Safe house.”
“It smells funny.”
“Yeah. Seems like it’s been closed up for a while. But it’s got everything we need. Here, roll onto your back for me,” I said, loosening up the blanket so she could move.
“Why?”
“Wanna make sure the rest of you is pink,” I said.
There was a dubious lift to her brows.
“It’s not like that,” I assured her as I pressed her shoulder back, then finally moved out from under the blankets.
The room was scorching, but it still felt like a cool wash of air after the trapped heat between our bodies under the blankets.
Where she’d been deathly pale when I’d stripped her, the color had fully returned to every inch of her, even in the center, which I knew was important.
Steph watched me the whole time as I reached out, pressing my hand to her feet, her chest, and stomach, making sure she was warm to the touch.
It was clinical.
But Steph’s chest started rising and falling more quickly.
“Can I ask you something?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“Was it fake?”
“Was what fake?”
“This,” she said, flicking her hand between the two of us. “What has happened between us,” she added. “Was it all part of it?”
I exhaled hard, my knees hitting the edge of the bed, my chin tucked, and my gaze on hers.