Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty Four
Vito
By the time I’m released, the day has gone flat and colorless.
Not dark yet. Not bright either. One of those late-afternoon hours where the city looks tired, all concrete and glass and dull light, and every part of me feels hollowed out from too many rooms where men in suits think I'll eventually crack if they keep me in there long enough.
Roberto drives because apparently, I am not to be trusted with a vehicle while running on no real sleep, bad coffee, and the lingering urge to put my fist through the nearest federal surface.
He doesn’t say much on the way back.
I don’t either.
There isn’t much to say that doesn’t sound like the same cycle we’ve already run ten times over. You’re lucky this didn’t go worse. I know. You are not out of this. I know. Stop acting like you can muscle your way through legal consequences. I know.
The problem is that I do know. I just don’t like it.
So the ride is mostly quiet, the sound of tires over the road and the occasional buzz of Roberto’s phone as messages keep coming in.
He checks some of them at lights, replies to none, and drives us back into the city without commentary.
I know better than to ask whether my father’s called.
Of course he has. I know better than to ask what Teresa said in that room with the Bureau, because if Roberto wants me to know, he’ll tell me, and if he doesn’t, he won’t.
Still.
The question sits under my skin the whole drive.
What the hell did she say?
Whatever it was, it worked enough to get me out for now.
Maybe we're not free and clear, but it's obvious by their reaction when they were releasing me that her second interview blew up whatever evidence they had against me completely.
My building comes into view, and I feel something in me loosen just a fraction at the sight of it. Family-owned, private enough, insulated enough.
My floor is one of the upper private ones my family carved out years ago, one I share with Giovanni and Antonio.
Separate units, same level. The kind of arrangement that makes sense security-wise, but can be annoying when you just want to get into your own apartment and not run into anyone you know.
Roberto pulls into the garage entrance and takes us down.
“I’m telling you right now,” he says as we park, finally breaking the quiet, “this is not over.”
I lean my head back against the seat for one second before opening my eyes again. “You’ve mentioned.”
“Because you keep behaving like getting released means you won.”
I turn my head to look at him. “I don’t think I won.”
“No?” He kills the engine and looks back at me with that maddeningly level expression of his. “Good. Because the Bureau still thinks something is rotten, your father is furious, and you are one stupid move away from making all of this worse.”
I let out a breath through my nose.
“Roberto.”
“No, I’m serious.” He turns more fully in the seat. “Whatever happened in that interview room with Teresa helped. A lot. But if you think that means you get to relax, or go charging off on instinct again, then you learned nothing from the last forty-eight hours.”
I don’t answer right away.
Not because I disagree.
Because I’m too damn tired to be angry at him for being right.
Finally, I say, “Got it.”
He studies my face like he’s trying to decide whether I actually do.
Then he nods once and gets out.
I follow him into the elevator lobby off the garage, and we ride up in silence. By the time the doors open onto the main lobby, I’m already half planning the first shower I’m going to take when I get upstairs.
Wash the holding room off my skin. Wash the Bureau off my skin. Maybe sleep for twelve straight hours. Maybe stare at the ceiling for twelve straight hours instead.
Then I see her.
She is standing near the seating area just beyond the concierge desk, one hand looped through the strap of her bag, the other resting lightly at her side.
Simple coat. Dark trousers. Hair down. She turns at the sound of the elevator opening, and for one strange second, the whole lobby falls out of focus around her.
I stop walking.
So does Roberto, half a step ahead of me.
And Teresa just looks at me steadily, with those eyes of hers that always seem to see too much.
The relief that hits me is so hard and immediate, it’s almost physical.
She’s here.
Not at a distance. Not in some secondhand report from Roberto or her attorney or my father’s office.
Here.
In my building, waiting for me.
Which means she came on purpose.
Which means she wanted to see me.
That realization hits me somewhere dangerously deep.
Roberto, because he is in fact the smartest man in most rooms, takes one look between us and says, “I’m going to head up to Antonio’s. Try not to create any new legal problems in the next hour.”
Teresa’s mouth curves slightly into a smile.
I don’t take my eyes off her when I say, “We'll try.”
Roberto huffs once and moves on, crossing the lobby and disappearing toward the private elevator bank.
Then it’s just us.
The lobby is not empty. Staff are around. Security. Someone from the desk pretending not to notice. But all of it feels far enough away to be irrelevant.
Teresa takes a small step forward.
I want to close the rest of the distance immediately. Put my hands on her. Check that she’s real. Pull her against me and see if whatever’s been wrong in me for the last week finally settles.
I don’t.
Because I don’t know what she wants.
Because for all I know, she came here out of obligation, or unfinished business, or some version of concern that has nothing to do with what I want it to mean.
So instead I say, “Hi.”
She lets out the tiniest breath, like maybe that’s not what she expected me to start with.
“Hi,” she says back.
There is a beat where neither of us moves.
And then I remember that I have been handcuffed, processed, held, released, driven home by my brother, and left standing in a lobby staring at the woman I haven’t seen in a week like a complete idiot.
I gesture vaguely toward the private elevators. “Do you want to come up?”
Her mouth softens. “I didn’t come here for the lobby ambiance.”
That gets a tired laugh out of me before I can stop it.
I'm relieved there’s still that between us.
I lead her toward the elevator bank, and she falls into step beside me.
Close enough that I can feel her there. Not touching. But close, which is almost worse. Better. Both.
The elevator ride up is quiet in a different way than the car with Roberto. Not loaded with legal fallout and exhaustion. Just uncertain. Full of too many things that could be said first.
When the doors open onto the private floor, she steps out and glances around automatically, taking in the wide hall, the dark runner, the low lights, the quiet.
“This whole floor?”
I nod as I unlock my door. “Family owns the building.”
“Of course.”
I glance back at her. “You sound surprised.”
“I’m not surprised,” she says dryly. “I’m just trying to recalibrate what counts as normal in your world.”
That almost makes me smile again.
I open the door and let her in first.
My apartment feels exactly as wrong as it has all week, only now that she’s in it, the wrongness shifts into something else. It feels less empty, more charged.
She steps inside and pauses, taking it in.
It’s not small. Not understated either, though I like to think it stops short of showy.
Floor-to-ceiling windows over the city, dark wood, clean lines, art that Antonio once mocked for being “too tasteful” for me to have picked out.
The place looks comfortably lived in. I hope that doesn't mean it looks worn out.
It’s not a house on a private island, that’s for sure, and that hits me with a sudden, sharp pang.
“Coffee?” I ask. “Tea? Water? Anything?"
She turns, and the corner of her mouth lifts properly this time.
“I’m good with water,” she says.
I move toward the kitchen, feeling her eyes on me. I get two glasses from the cabinet, fill them at the fridge, and turn back.
She has moved to stand by the windows, looking out at the city starting to glitter as evening settles in. Her bag is still over her shoulder. Like she's not sure she's staying.
I hold one of the glasses out. “Here.”
She turns to take it. Our fingers brush.
It’s a stupid, small thing.
A touch that shouldn't matter.
But it does.
A current runs through me, sudden and sharp, and I know she feels it too because her gaze darts up to mine for a fraction of a second before she looks away again.
Teresa turns slowly, taking in the space without commentary while I stand there like I’ve forgotten how to speak.
It’s awkward.
That’s the truth.
Not unbearable. Not bad. Just awkward.
I don’t know what she wants me to say first.
Are you okay?
Did they push too hard?
I missed you.
I love you.
That last one hits me like a live wire just for thinking it, and I go still.
Because there it is again.
The thing I realized in the week without her. The thing I could not talk myself out of, no matter how irritated or restless or pissed off I got. The thing that did not lessen with distance, only clarified.
I love her.
I am in love with Teresa Donato.
And I have absolutely no idea whether that is something she wants to hear from me right now, standing in my apartment with FBI fallout still hanging over both our heads.
So I say none of it.
I watch her instead.
She moves farther into the room, fingers brushing lightly over the back of the sofa, then the edge of the console table by the windows, not snooping exactly. Just looking. Orienting herself.
I let her.
Partly because I don’t trust my first instinct, and partly because watching her in my apartment does something to me that I do not have the energy to fight.
She belongs here too easily.
That thought is dangerous enough that I shove it aside.
Finally she turns to look at me.
There’s no point waiting for perfect words. They’re not coming.
So I start with the one thing I know is true.