Chapter 10
VIOLET
The night air is cool and refreshing against my flushed skin, the perfect counterbalance to the heat of the kiss.
I'm smiling. I can't help it. Maybe it was the old-fashioned, maybe it was the kiss. Maybe both. Probably both. I feel like I'm walking on air.
Gianni guides me down the street, away from the bar, his palm warm and steady against my lower back. I'm still floating in the residual haze of that kiss when his body stiffens.
"Get in the car," he says. His tone has changed. He's not soft anymore, not seductive. This is the other Gianni. The one from the meeting who only gives orders once.
"What?"
"Now." He picks up his pace just a bit, his hand on my back pushing me as much as guiding me. We quickly reach his black Lexus and he opens the passenger door. "Get in."
I slide in without arguing, and he's in the driver's seat before I've put my seatbelt on. Through the side mirror, I catch a glimpse of a man across the street lowering a camera.
Gianni pulls into traffic. Fast.
"Who was that?"
"No one you need to worry about."
"That's not an answer."
He checks the rearview mirror before moving carefully into another lane. His jaw is tight, his hands precise on the wheel, controlled, but I can see the tension running through his forearms and shoulders.
"There are people looking into my businesses," he says. "They keep eyes on me. Occasionally, cameras."
"The FBI?"
He doesn't answer. Which is an answer.
Behind us, headlights pull out from the curb. I glance over my shoulder and see a dark sedan two cars back matching our speed exactly.
"Gianni."
"I see them."
His hand shoots to my thigh, squeezing it gently, reassuringly.
He pulls hard onto a side street, blasting through a yellow light and making a hard cut to the left. The car moves smoothly despite how fast we're going.
I glance over my shoulder again and can't see the sedan. Gianni's not saying anything, still totally focused on driving.
My phone buzzes in my purse. I fumble for it with shaking hands, half-expecting... I don't know what I'm expecting. But it's Rudi. A photo. Patrick curled up on Rudi's couch, his red curls smashed against a throw pillow, mouth slightly open, one arm wrapped around his favorite hedgehog stuffy.
He's out cold, mija. Had a big day at the park. I can bring him home if you want, but he's perfectly fine staying the night. Got extra jammies and everything.
The relief is instant and enormous, knowing my son's safe and sleeping. He's across the hall on Rudi's couch with a stuffy, and he has no idea that his mother is currently being chased through Manhattan by a dark sedan with a man who probably runs half the organized crime in New York.
I text back: Let him sleep. Thank you, Rudi. I owe you.
You owe me nothing. I'll bring him over in the morning. Buenas noches.
I put the phone away.
It's close to an hour before we pull up outside my building in Sunnyside. Gianni's crossed the river and circled through half of Queens to get here, and the dark sedan is gone, lost somewhere in the grid behind us.
He kills the engine and we sit for a moment as he scans the street. His profile is sharp in the streetlight, his hands still resting on the wheel, and I watch the tension slowly drain from his shoulders as he determines we're in the clear.
"You're home," he says.
"I'm home."
He turns to look at me, and the air in the car shifts again from adrenaline back to something hotter and slower. His gaze moves over my face, drops to my mouth, and I feel it everywhere.
"Are you going to tell me what that was?" I ask.
"Not tonight."
"Gianni..."
"Not tonight, Violet."
I pause. It's the first time he's used my name, not Miss Wolfe. It's intense, almost as intimate as if he'd stripped himself bare in front of me.
I should get out and let him drive away, then go upstairs and lock my doors. That's what a smart woman would do, a careful woman, a woman with a past she's still running from and a son she's protecting and a life held together by nothing but anonymity and discipline.
I shouldn't want dangerous things, risky things, things that could destroy me. But I do. I want this one. And I want it so badly it hurts.
Patrick is safe at Rudi's and the apartment is empty. Gianni Russo just drove like a goddamn F1 racer through half of New York City to keep me safe, and the way he said my name is having an effect on me that I can't even begin to understand.
"Do you want to come up?"
He regards me carefully, as if he wants to make sure he heard me correctly. His expression remains placid. Sometimes I hate the way he's so goddamn hard to read.
"Yes."
He gets out and rounds the front of the car to open my door. The night air is the cool rush I need after what just happened. As if sensing how unsteady I am, he offers me his hand.
Three flights of stairs, and I don't listen at the landing the way I always do, because for once there's someone behind me I'd trust to handle whatever's on it.
Soon he's standing in my doorway, filling it, one hand resting against the frame. The hallway light catches the silver at his temples, the dark intensity in his eyes, and he's looking at me like I'm the only thing in the world that matters.
"Last chance to call this off," he says quietly.
I take his hand and pull him inside.
He steps over the threshold, and the first thing his eyes land on is the kitchen table. Three cereal boxes, still stacked. A Goldfish cracker on top.
And a stegosaurus.
He looks at it for exactly one second. Then he looks at me, and he doesn't say a word.