Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
DARIO
It’s nearly midnight when I hear the pounding on my door. The kind that says something has gone catastrophically wrong.
I’m up and moving before I fully process it. Gun in hand. Checking the security monitor.
Enzo.
I unlock. Pull the door open.
He’s wrecked. That’s the only word for it. Eyes red. Face blotchy. Holding a Tupperware container like it’s the only thing keeping him upright. And he’s shaking.
I’ve known Enzo for twelve years. Seen him take beatings, break bones, walk away from situations that would destroy most men. I’ve never seen him shake.
“She’s fucking gone.” The words come out strangled.
I pull him inside. Close the door. Lock it. “What happened?”
“I went to her place tonight. Like I said I would. I had…” He holds up a bag I didn’t notice. “Wings. From that place two towns over. I was bringing her dinner and she’s just.”
His voice cracks completely.
“The apartment’s empty. Cleared out. Professional job. Everything gone except.” He sets the Tupperware on my counter. Opens it with shaking hands.
Cookies. Peanut butter chocolate chip. And a note.
I pick it up. Read her handwriting. The writing I know from the notes she left me, the ones I kept like evidence of something that mattered.
I didn’t choose to leave. You were real. We were real. I’m sorry. - S
“She made these for me.” Enzo’s voice is hollow. “Left them for me. And I was just… I was going to bring her wings and tell her.” He stops. Presses his palms against my counter. Breathing hard.
“Tell her what?”
“That I love her.” He’s crying now. Full breakdown. Enzo, who I’ve seen face down armed men without flinching. “I would have told her this morning. Before I left. I thought we had time and now she’s just gone and I don’t know where and…”
He looks up at me. Eyes devastated.
“I’ve been lying to Sal for weeks. Telling him I’m following leads. He’s getting impatient. Yesterday he asked for an update. Wanted a timeline.” His hands are fists now. White-knuckled. “If I don’t give him something soon, he’s going to send someone else. And you know who he’ll send.”
“Rocco,” I supply.
The name hangs between us. Rocco doesn’t ask questions. Doesn’t gather information. Doesn’t give second chances. He finds problems and eliminates them. Brutally.
“And now I don’t know where she is.” Enzo’s voice breaks again. “I can’t protect her. Can’t warn her. Can’t do anything and if Rocco finds her before I do…”
“He won’t.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t.”
“I said he won’t.” I keep my voice steady. One of us needs to be steady. “Because I’m going to Sal. Tonight.”
Enzo stares at me. “Dario.”
“You’ve been protecting her. I’ve been sitting here waiting. Doing nothing.” I look at the cookies. At the note meant for him. At evidence of what she built with Enzo while I kept my door unlocked and hoped she’d come back. “That ends now.”
“What are you going to tell him?”
“The truth. Mostly.” I’m already thinking through the angles. How to spin this so Sal backs off permanently. “She’s mine. That’s why she was in town. Not gathering evidence. Not working with feds. Visiting me.”
“You’re vouching for her.”
“I’m ending this.” I grab my jacket. Keys. “You stay here. Eat something. Sleep if you can.”
“I can’t just…”
“Yes you can.” I stop at the door. Look back at him. “You’ve been carrying this alone for weeks. Let me handle Sal.”
His jaw works. Fighting the instinct to argue. To take action. To do something.
“She loved you,” I say quietly. “The cookies. The note. That was real, Enzo. Whatever else happens, that was real.”
He nods.
I leave him standing in my kitchen with the cookies she made with hands I’ve held, for a man who held her differently.
Sal’s at the restaurant.
Of course he is. Sal practically lives here. Running the family business over espresso and paperwork, old school methods that somehow still work.
He looks up when I slide into the seat across from him. “Dario.” He sets down his pen. “This is late even for you.”
“We need to talk about the witness.”
His expression sharpens. “Enzo find her?”
“He doesn’t need to. I know where she is. I’ve always known.”
Sal leans back. Studies me with the particular attention he gives problems that need solving. “You’ve known this whole time.”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t mention it.”
“No.” I keep my voice level. This is a negotiation. High stakes. “Because she’s not a problem. She’s mine.”
“Yours.”
“We’re together. That’s why she’s been in town. Not gathering evidence. Not working with feds. Visiting me.”
Sal stares at me like I’ve announced I’m joining the priesthood. “You’re fucking the woman who testified against you.”
“I’m seeing her. There’s a difference.” I don’t look away. “She did what she had to do. Saw something and told the truth. I don’t punish people for being honest.”
“Jesus Christ, Dario.” He rubs his face. “Do you have any idea how this looks?”
“I don’t care how it looks. I care that she’s safe.” I lean forward slightly. “Which means the family leaves her alone. No more looking. No more orders. She’s off-limits.”
“You’re vouching for her.”
“Yes.”
“With your reputation. Your position in this family.”
“Yes.”
The calculation is visible. Sal weighing costs and benefits, loyalty and risk, the value of pushing against me versus letting this go. “If this blows back on us.”
“It won’t.”
“If she’s playing you.”
“She’s not.”
“You seem certain about a woman who put you in a courtroom.”
“I am certain.” I hold his gaze. “She’s not a threat. She’s mine. And the family protects what’s ours.”
We stare at each other. Two men who’ve known each other long enough to know when the other’s bluffing.
I’m not bluffing. I’m lying, there’s a difference, but I’m not bluffing.
Finally, Sal picks up his pen. “Fine.” Dismissal. “But Dario. If I find out she’s not what you say, if she’s feeding information to anyone, if this comes back to bite us, I’m not asking permission. Understood?”
“Understood.”
I leave before he can ask questions I don’t want to answer.
Enzo’s still in my kitchen when I get back.
He’s eaten nothing. The wings sit unopened. The cookies untouched.
He’s just sitting there. Staring at the note.
“It’s done,” I say. “Sal’s backing off.”
He looks up. Eyes hollow. “She’s still gone.”
“I know.”
“I don’t even know where. What city. What name.” His voice cracks. “She could be anywhere.”
I pour two drinks. Set one in front of him. Take the other. “Her Marshal relocated her. Professional job. New identity. New city.” I take a sip. Let it burn. “She’s safe. That’s what matters.”
“Is it?” Enzo finally picks up his glass. “She’s safe but she’s alone. Starting over. Again. With no one who knows who she really is.”
I think about the unlocked door. The schedule I gave her. Tuesday and Thursday. Wednesday for when she wanted to see me. Wednesdays that never happened because she had someone better.
“She’s not alone,” I say quietly. “She has us. Even if she doesn’t know it yet.”
“How?” He looks at me. “How does she have us when we don’t even know where she is?”
“We’ll find her.”
“How?”
“I don’t know yet.” I set down my glass. “But we will. There’s a trail. We just have to find it.”
It’s a promise I don’t know how to keep. But I make it anyway. Because the alternative, accepting that she’s gone, that the only proof she existed is cookies and a note, is unbearable.
“You slept with her,” I say.
Enzo nods. Doesn’t look at me. “Last night. She asked me to stay and I…”
“Was it good?”
He blinks. “What?”
“Was it good. For her. Did you take care of her.”
“I tried.” His voice is rough. “I don’t know how to be gentle but I tried.”
“Then that’s what matters.” I refill both our glasses. “She chose you. Trusted you. That’s not nothing.”
“She chose you too. The house. The tiramisu. The…”
“I gave her a schedule,” I interrupt. “You gave her every day. There’s a difference.”
We sit with that. Two men who love the same woman. Neither of us able to reach her.
“We’ll find her,” Enzo says.
“We’ll find her,” I agree.
He finally picks up a cookie. Takes a bite. His eyes close.
“She made these for me,” he whispers. “Knowing she was leaving. Knowing I’d come back and she’d be gone. And she still made them.”
“She wanted you to know it mattered. What you had.”
“It did matter. It does.” He sets the cookie down. “I love her, Dario. I’m in love with her. And she’s just gone.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He looks at me. “Love her?”
I think about her sitting in my kitchen. Wearing my shirt. Looking at me like I could be soft. The way she made me amaretti and left notes and took pieces of me with her when she disappeared.
“Yes,” I say quietly. “I think I do.”
We finish the bottle. Don’t talk about logistics or plans or how we’re actually going to find one woman in a country of three hundred million people.
Just sit there, drinking expensive whiskey and mourning a woman who baked cookies and saw us as more than what we are.
Eventually Enzo leaves. Takes the cookies with him. The note. The last pieces of her he has.
I close the door behind him. Lock it. And stand there, hand on the deadbolt, listening to the silence of my empty house.
Somewhere out there, Stevie Reeves is becoming someone new.
Again.
I hope she knows we’re coming. I hope she waits. I hope wherever she is, there’s a door.
And I hope it’s unlocked.