Chapter Twenty-Two
Elsa
I’m halfway through my front door when my brain finally registers how good it feels to be done for the day.
Done with work. Done with the gym.
Done with the polite nods to neighbors I don’t know well enough to speak to on the elevator ride down from the building’s gym. Done with the day’s last obligation.
My hair is twisted up in a messy knot, held by a cheap elastic I found at the bottom of my bag, and I’m still in my gym clothes— black leggings, a damp sports bra under an oversized tank that clings in places and makes me grimace.
My skin is flushed. I can feel the sheen of sweat at my hairline.
All I want is a shower hot enough to erase my thoughts and dinner that requires zero effort.
I slip my shoes off at the entry, already picturing steam and silence.
My comm buzzes.
The sound yanks me out of the fantasy like a hook.
I blink at the wall panel for a second before I tap it. “Yes?”
A man’s voice comes through, professional and brisk. “Ms. Nilsson? This is Graham, down in the lobby.”
My stomach tightens automatically. “Yes.”
“You have a guest,” he says. A beat. “An Antonio Conti.”
For a second, my mind goes completely blank. Like someone cut the power.
Antonio.
Here.
At my building.
My pulse spikes so hard it makes my vision sharpen. Heat flashes up my neck. I stand in the middle of my entryway like I’ve forgotten how doors work.
“Ms. Nilsson?” Graham prompts, still polite, still waiting.
My mouth opens. No sound comes out on the first try.
“Yes. Um, let him up,” I hear myself say, and it comes out too fast, too breathless, as if I didn’t consciously decide to let him up, as much as my body did.
“Yes, ma’am,” Graham replies, and the line clicks off.
The silence that follows is louder than the comm ever was.
I stare at the wall for one more second, as if the panel is going to tell me I hallucinated it.
Then reality rushes in.
I look down at myself.
Antonio is here, on his way up.
I’m in my gym clothes. My damp gym clothes. I probably smell like disinfectant wipes and sweat. My face is bare. My hair is a disaster.
Gross.
I lift my head and look at my apartment, and the second wave hits.
The dishes from this morning are still in the sink—mugs, a plate, a fork I didn’t bother to rinse.
The blanket on the couch is tangled from last night.
There’s a cup on the coffee table. A couple of things on the floor that I kicked out of my way instead of picking up—my gym towel, a pair of socks, a scarf I meant to put away.
It looks… messy.
“Shit,” I whisper.
I move.
Fast.
I grab the cup off the coffee table first and rush it into the kitchen. The sink makes me wince—too visible, too honest—so I start shoving dishes into the dishwasher without thinking, loading them wrong, not caring. Plate. Mug. Fork. Another mug. I rinse nothing. I just need them out of sight.
I snag the blanket from the couch and shake it out once, hard, then fold it in a rough rectangle and toss it neatly over the arm like I meant it to be there.
I scoop the socks and towel off the floor and run to my room to shove them in the hamper without ceremony.
The air feels stale suddenly, and I crack a window open. Cool air rushes in and raises goosebumps on my arms.
Candles.
I don’t know why that’s my next thought, but it is.
I grab the lighter from the kitchen drawer and light the two candles on the shelf in the living area, then one on the kitchen island.
I wipe the counter with a paper towel, shove the stray mail into a drawer, straighten the pillows on the couch with a sharp, angry motion.
My heart is hammering.
My hands are moving faster than my brain.
I don’t have time.
I don’t have time to shower.
I don’t have time to change.
I don’t have time to become the version of myself that’s composed and untouchable and safe.
The knock comes too soon, a solid rap at the door that makes my stomach drop.
I freeze.
Then, at the last second, I reach up, hook a finger under the elastic in my hair, and pull it free. My hair tumbles down around my shoulders in a rush. I shake it out once, quick and messy, like that’s going to make me look less like I just ran on a treadmill.
I step toward the door and pause with my fingers on the door handle, forcing myself to take in one slow breath.
In through my nose. Out through my mouth.
My pulse is still sprinting, but I refuse to open the door looking like I’m panicking. I refuse to give him that.
I turn the handle and pull it open.
Antonio is standing in the hallway, and my heart backs up into my lungs.
He’s in a dark coat that fits him so well, I think it was literally made for him. His hair is neat. His jaw is clean-shaven. His eyes lift to mine and lock on, and something in my chest tightens hard enough to hurt.
For a second, my brain offers me useless flashes—his mouth on mine, his hands on my body, the heat of him against me—and I hate myself for it.
I force my face into something neutral.
“Antonio,” I say, like it’s a greeting and not a complication.
“Elsa,” he answers. His voice is low, serious. Not charming. Not teasing.
I blink once, slowly, because I’m not sure what version of him I’m looking at.
“What are you doing here?” I ask, and the words come out flatter than I intend. Not welcoming. Not hostile. A line drawn in sand.
“I need to talk to you,” he says.
Of course he does.
I step back, because I already told the lobby to let him up, and I’m not going to stand in the doorway and be rude.
“Okay,” I say, and my voice is tight. “Come in.”
He steps past me, and my apartment suddenly feels too small for him. Too intimate. Too full of my life. I close the door behind him, and the click is loud.
I lead him toward the living area, my stocking feet silent on the floor, my gym clothes suddenly feeling like a mistake I can’t fix. I’m painfully aware of the candles, the cracked window, the faint scent of citrus cleaner I used in a panic.
He takes everything in with one sweep of his eyes and doesn’t comment. Thank God.
I stop near the couch and turn to him, folding my arms over my chest because I don’t know what else to do with my hands.
“Can I get you anything?” I ask, the question automatic.
His gaze flicks to my face, then away, like he’s trying not to look too long. “No.”
Silence stretches between us.
My mind is a mile a minute—why is he here, why now, what does he want, is this about the deal, is this about me—until I can’t stand it anymore.
I move first, because if I don’t, I’m going to start pacing like a lunatic. I sit on the couch, not sinking into it, just perching on the edge as if I might bolt.
I look up at him.
“Antonio,” I say, and I hear the edge in it, the strain I can’t quite hide. “What are you doing here?”
Antonio doesn’t waste time.
“Have you met with the Bellandis again?”
I frown, the question so far from anything I expected that it doesn’t register.
“What?” I ask because my brain is still catching up. Still trying to figure out why that name is in his mouth at all. “The Bellandis—" I tighten my grip on my own knee. “That’s not an answer. How do you even know about that?”
Antonio exhales and sits down beside me, close enough that the cushion dips, close enough that the familiar scent of him hits me all at once—clean cologne, heat, the ghost of a memory I don’t want.
For one humiliating second, my body wants to lean in.
Then I see his face.
He’s not here to flirt. He’s not here to charm. He’s looking at me like this matters more than anything we’ve said to each other since that meeting.
“We’ve been keeping track of the competition,” he says.
“You’ve been keeping track of the competition? In the acquisition?” My mouth tightens. “That’s classified information.”
He gives a small, humorless huff. “We have our ways.”
“Antonio,” I say, voice sharpening, “I can’t discuss another company with you. I can’t discuss— any of it. And if that’s the reason you came all the way here—”
I push forward, starting to stand.
He reaches out and catches my arm, and guides me back down like he’s afraid I’ll bolt if he lets me get upright.
“That’s not why I came,” he says.
I yank my arm back, but I don’t move away.
“Then why?” I demand.
His gaze holds mine, completely serious. So unlike the Antonio I met at the gala.
“Because the reason we’ve been keeping an eye on Bellandi,” he says, carefully, “is that they’re not just some company trying to acquire Northstar. They’re a syndicate.”
He goes silent after that, as if that’s supposed to mean something to me.
I blink. “So what. We deal with a lot of syndicates.”
“Not this kind of syndicate you don’t,” he insists, and there’s an edge to it now. Like he’s trying to convey something to me that I’m just not getting.
My stomach twists. “Antonio, what are you talking about? You came all the way here to tell me this?”
“Yes,” he says. “It’s important.”
Something about the way he says it makes my skin go cold.
“You don’t mean a corporate syndicate, do you?” I ask quietly. “You mean… a criminal syndicate.”
“Yes,” he says, and he doesn’t blink.
The air in my apartment feels suddenly too thin.
“Like the mafia?” I ask, incredulous, because surely I misheard him. Surely he’s being dramatic. Surely this is another tactic.
He nods once. “Yes.”
My mouth opens. Closes. Opens again.
“What are you talking about?” I say, and my voice is higher than I want it to be. “How do you know that? Why would a criminal syndicate out of Chicago want Northstar?”
Antonio doesn’t even flinch at the questions. He looks like he’s been waiting for them.
“The same reason any other company would want it,” he says. “Easy expansion into new territory.”
My mind flashes back, unwillingly, to Chicago.
Emilio Bellandi’s smile—too sharp, too sure. A shark’s smile dressed up in a suit. The way he talked about “alignment” and “resources” and “scaling” as if it was just growth and not unadulterated appetite.
The doubts I expressed to my own colleagues after meeting him, without fully understanding them.
It’s not about hospitality management. It’s about access.
I stand up so fast, I get a head rush. I start pacing before I even know where I’m going—two steps to the window, back toward the kitchen, then back again while my brain screams.
Access. Client lists. Discreet control of who gets in and who stays out.
It had sounded like corporate ambition at the time, like strategy. Like strategy. I clocked it at the time without realizing what I was seeing.
Bellandi doesn’t want to expand its business. Bellandi wants to expand its criminal empire into the Northeast.
Using Northstar to do it.
My stomach rolls hard, but I force myself to keep breathing.
Antonio stays on the couch, watching me intently as I come to terms with what he said.
But how does Antonio and his family’s business play into it all? How do they even know all this?
Finally, I stop and turn to look at him. He’s right here, isn’t he?
“How do you know all this?”