Chapter Twenty-Three
Stephanie
My feet screamed with each step we took, weaving up and down streets, all the while the guy seemed to be gaining on us.
I wasn’t sure Venezio had gotten as good a view of the guy as I had. But his eyes had been manic, bulging, and desperate.
And desperate men were really dangerous.
My mind flashed back to that alley, to the sound of footsteps.
I had no choice but to disobey Venezio’s direct order, turn, and run.
I wouldn’t claim to know anything about fleeing for my life, but I’d suffered through plenty of action movies with that same ex who loved mobster stuff.
So I remembered how during a chase with an armed person at your heels, weaving back and forth seemed to be the preferred method of avoiding a bullet.
It seemed kind of silly to me, but as I weaved just in time for a bullet to lodge in the wall beside where I’d been, I started to see the logic of it.
From there, I honestly just moved on pure instinct. The second I spotted that building under construction, I figured it might give me a weapon or a place to hide.
Locking myself in the cinderblock room felt like my only option as my legs grew wobbly and my feet slowed me down, allowing him to gain on me.
I’d used every bit of strength I had to move a pallet full of… something in front of the door, then cowered in a back corner, praying the cinderblock could stop a bullet.
I wasn’t sure if I was hoping for Venezio to find me or that he was getting to safety himself.
But I did know that when I heard his voice, it immediately chased away the flow of tears as I desperately tried to move the barricade and get to him.
In between those bullets, the man had been ranting and raving. About his cousin. About vengeance. About what he was going to do to me while he made Venezio watch.
Those were the rantings of a desperate man.
But the one chasing us, he was even more unhinged.
Instead of saving his breath like we were desperately trying to do, he was talking to himself, shouting at us.
I hoped he would run out of steam.
Because I was starting to.
Especially as the damn sky opened up once again, pelting us with freezing rain, making the ground slippery. I was struggling enough to keep going. Sliding feet only made the pain intensify.
I turned my head away from Venezio, making it look like I was scanning for some way out of this situation. In reality, I was trying to keep him from seeing the pitiful tears that slid down my cheeks again.
The streets had been pretty empty before, but now that the weather had taken a turn for the worse, things were downright desolate.
It added to the sensation of hopelessness.
It made the city fold in around me, made my lungs seem to do the same.
“There,” Venezio, suddenly short of breath too, said, waving toward the Manhattan Bridge. “Go. Run.”
“What? No. I can’t—“
“I’m ending this. Go. When you get across, I need you to find my boss.” He rattled off an address as we got closer and closer to the bridge. “Go!”
With that, he ran past the bridge, heading for the bank beside it.
On a cry, I did what I was told, rushing toward the bridge, figuring that if I was quick enough, I might be able to get him help.
This, of course, coming from someone who had no damn idea how long it might take to run over the Manhattan Bridge. Or how hazardous it felt with the ground growing more slippery by the moment.
I’d just barely gotten on it, though, before I stopped and turned.
I couldn’t leave him.
Not with that psychopath.
He would never leave me.
I knew that down to my bones.
On a whimper, I made my way back off the footpath.
I wasn’t even really aware of stooping to grab an empty bottle of booze lying on the ground. I was just aware of its reassuring weight as I moved through the fence and made my way past the rocky embankment before the sand of the shore.
It was then that I heard sounds.
Grunting, cursing, the sound of fists hitting skin and bone.
My heart lodged itself up in my throat as I moved toward the bodies rolling around in the sand near the edge of the shoreline.
I was having a hard time making out who was who as their bodies rolled, sprang apart, then came back together, arms and legs flying, kicking, kneeing.
I saw someone throw their body and then scramble out toward the side, reaching for one of the big rocks that had fallen off the wall.
And it was then that I knew it was Venezio on the ground.
I didn’t think.
I charged forward.
I hauled off.
Then I swung the bottle into the man’s head. I watched in horror as he wobbled before falling face-first into the sand.
“Venezio?” I yelped, rushing toward him.
“I’m okay, babe,” he said, even as I noticed fresh blood on his face. “Appreciate the save. But for the record,” he said, glancing down at his hand, where I found the knife the guy had been chasing us with.
“Is he…”
“Dead? No. But we gotta move.”
“You’re not going…” I waved toward the man.
“Kill him in front of you? Not unless I gotta. Besides, this place is monitored by the cops,” he said, jerking his head toward where, I imagined, a camera must have been mounted.
“They won’t do shit about a street fight.
But they’re gonna investigate a murder. So we gotta let him wake up.
We got several minutes of a head start. Let’s make good use of it. ”
With that, he took my hand.
And for what I prayed was the last time, we took off at a run.
This time, though, with Venezio there to steady me, I didn’t slip as much. And the cold sleet soaking through my slippers did me a favor in numbing my painful feet, allowing me to keep going, keep pushing.
The bridge was abandoned.
And with the sleet steadily freezing on the fencing, it would have made for a gorgeous picture.
If we weren’t, you know, running for our lives.
The subway chugged past, vibrating the ground beneath our feet. The temperature seemed to be dropping by the minute, hardening the wetness of my shirt collar, turning it into a blade against my neck.
Moving closer and closer, the lights of Manhattan loomed ahead. And, with them, I hoped, was the help Venezio seemed sure we could find there.
We slowed our pace as we neared the edge of the bridge near Canal Street.
“Where?” I asked, gasping for breath.
Venezio scanned the streets.
“I’m going to turn away. You hail a cab. Slide in and I’ll follow.”
I remembered the cabbie in Brooklyn who’d taken one look at Venezio and pulled off, not wanting any trouble.
He looked worse now. Blood—both his and the other guy’s—stained his shirt. His knuckles were busted open. And bruises were steadily forming on his handsome face.
I nodded, then moved toward the edge of the sidewalk.
I was sure I wasn’t looking my best either. But women were inherently less of a threat.
I wasn’t surprised when a cab came sloshing over to the sidewalk almost as soon as I put my arm in the air.
As soon as we were in the warmth, I felt like the tightness in my chest intensified.
I shot Venezio a scrunched-brow look when he fed the driver an address different from the one he’d given me when we’d parted at the bridge.
He gave me a little shake of his head, cutting off any follow-up questions I might have had.
I glanced through the plastic partition, watching the shiny screen of the meter as it ticked the time away.
Five minutes.
Ten.
Twelve.
Venezio passed cash toward the driver, then slid out onto the sidewalk outside of—what? Was it a doctor’s office?
“Are you hurt?” I asked, whipping back to face him, my hands trying to lift his shirt to get a better look.
His hands grabbed mine to still them.
“Any other time, I’d be happy as fuck to have you undress me, babe. But your hands are icicles. We just need to get inside here.”
With that, we walked up the couple of steps, and Venezio paused at yet another fingerprint scanner. This time, he had to pause to wipe blood off his finger before it would register his print.
With one quick glance behind him to scan the streets, he shuffled us inside, closed, and locked the door.
It was a doctor’s office.
There was a reception desk and a waiting area. Though unlike any doctor’s office I’d been to, this one had fancy chairs and a whole kitchenette available to the waiting room.
Venezio rushed behind the desk, picked up a landline phone, and hit the first button on the speed dial.
Outside, the weather had quieted down the city.
And with nothing inside the building to make a peep, I could make out both sides of the conversation.
“Who’s hurt and how bad?” a voice answered.
“It’s Venezio.”
“Venezio?” the man barked, sounding suddenly very interested. “Everyone’s been trying—”
“Long story. But I’m at your office. Can you spread the word?”
“On it. You okay?”
Venezio exhaled hard.
“Yeah.”
With that, he hung up before reaching for me and pulling me tight against his chest.
His lips pressed to my forehead.
I wanted more than almost anything else to get off my feet now that they were thawing out. But I got the feeling from Venezio’s tight hold on me that this might be the last time we would have a chance to be close like this for a while.
So I ignored the pain and leaned into him, my arms going just as tightly around him.
It felt like he’d just reached for me when there was a beep as the door unlocked.
We broke apart in unison just a second before a man came striding in.
He was a tall and fit man with silver-streaked hair and keen eyes. His gaze slid to Venezio first, taking in the blood, the cuts, the bruises.
Reaching out, he flicked on the light, then cranked up the thermostat.
“Salvatore,” Venezio said, nodding.
Salvatore.
Salvatore “the Surgeon” Costa.
This was the makeshift doctor that he’d mentioned.
Something like awe flooded my system as I watched him notice me. When his gaze tracked down my body, it felt clinical, not intimate.
A muscle ticked in his jaw.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he said with a sigh.
“What—” Venezio started. But it seemed to click then. His gaze shot to my feet, making my own follow.