Chapter 23
VIOLET
We’ve been living in Gianni’s apartment for three weeks, and I’m still getting lost walking around the place. How does one man live here?
The apartment is practically the size of a small house, and every time I think I've mapped the layout, I discover another room. There’s a study I hadn't noticed behind a sliding panel. Multiple bedrooms, each with their own ensuite bathroom. There’s a home gym that’s nice enough he could charge for memberships and drive Equinox out of business.
The loft takes up the entire top floor of the building. I’d been here before, but only briefly. Living in this place is a hell of a lot different than spending the night.
It's beautiful, but it's also the loneliest space I've ever walked through.
Everything is immaculate, curated, and nothing has been touched.
There are no scuff marks on the hardwood, no ring stains on the coffee table.
No evidence that a human being actually lives here rather than just passes through on his way to somewhere more important.
Until now.
Now, this place is lived-in in the way only a child could make it.
Patrick's fruit snacks are on the kitchen counter, Dragon perched on the marble island, standing guard.
A crayon drawing is taped to the refrigerator, and a pair of tiny red sneakers sit by the front door that Gianni nearly tripped over last night.
I’d expected him to be mad, but he wasn’t. He merely picked them up, the little shoes looking somehow even smaller in his massive hands, and carefully moved them to the side.
Patrick's room is down the hall from the master bedroom. It's enormous—our entire apartment in Sunnyside could fit in this room alone. It has high ceilings and a window that looks out over the Hudson.
The bed is new. Gianni had it delivered the second day—a proper toddler bed with guardrails and a firm mattress and sheets with little blue stars on them.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I’d said.
“The boy needed a bed.”
And that was the end of the discussion. I didn't argue further. I’m starting to realize, gestures like this, gestures that are about making the people close to him safe, are how he shows he cares.
This morning, Patrick is sitting on the kitchen floor feeding Dragon some imaginary cereal from an empty bowl after having his own breakfast.
“Mama, can we get some different cereal?”
“What, you didn’t like Mr. Gianni’s ultra-protein flax seed granola?”
“It tasted weird.”
I allow myself a small laugh. “I’ll talk to him tonight.”
Grocery shopping is out of the question, of course. All such business has to be routed through Gianni, who arranges whatever we need to be delivered by a small team of armed guards.
The buzzer sounds as I’m washing out Patrick’s cereal bowl. I check the intercom camera. I see a pretty woman in her mid-twenties with a cheerful face and a tote bag covered in dinosaur patches. The camera is insane quality, too—I can practically see the pores on her faces.
This is Nina—the nanny Gianni hired two weeks ago. She came with references, a background check so thorough it probably included her kindergarten report cards, and Spackman's personal seal of approval.
A call comes from the lobby right after, confirming I’m indeed expecting her.
When I hang up, I’m filled with the same strange blend of safety and suffocation I’ve felt since moving into this place.
I’m in what’s essentially a luxury prison.
But it’s a secure luxury prison, one Lance can’t break into.
Another chime sounds a moment later, letting me know the elevator is almost to our floor. The doors open directly into the penthouse, and Nina steps out.
"Morning!” I say, trying my best not to show how goddamn nervous I feel about Patrick leaving without me.
"Morning, Violet." She crouches in the doorway. "Hey, Patrick! Ready for the park?"
Patrick looks up from Dragon's breakfast. "Is Marco coming?"
"He sure is. Miss Rudi's meeting us at the big playground with Marco."
Patrick's face lights up with the pure, uncomplicated joy of a four-year-old who doesn't know his life is currently in the process of changing forever.
My chest aches at the thought of it all. I know what he’s going through. He doesn’t. He doesn’t know that his own father is stalking the city looking for us, God only knows with what sorts of plans in mind.
"Can Dragon come?" Patrick asks.
"You’re crazy if you think we’re going anywhere without Dragon.”
I kneel beside him, straightening his jacket and taking in the sight of his sweet, perfect face like it might be the last time I see it.
"Be good for Nina, okay?” I say, tucking a stray red curl behind his ear. “And listen to Miss Rudi."
"I know, Mama." He sighs—he’s heard this all before. "Don't talk to strangers. Stay where Nina can see me. Hold hands when we cross the street."
"That's my boy."
He kisses my cheek, grabs Dragon, and takes Nina's hand. I watch them walk to the elevator, Nina waving over her shoulder as the doors close.
Then I turn my attention to the lobby camera.
After a few moments, the penthouse elevator doors open, Patrick and Nina stepping out.
The moment they do, a pair of suited men flank them—Gianni’s guards.
The men are professional enough to look like they're just heading the same direction, casual enough that Patrick doesn't notice.
But I do. These two guards will escort Nina and Patrick to Central Park, where they’ll meet up with the two guards already there tasked with making sure things are safe before their arrival. My boy will be playing with Marco and Nina and Rudi surrounded by a small squad of Camorra heavy hitters.
God, what is this?
Nina and Patrick and the guards step out of the lobby toward a black SUV awaiting them. They climb in and are gone.
The loft is quiet. It’s a strange sort of quiet, one I haven’t gotten used to—a specific, expansive silence of a space designed for one person now holding the ghost noise of a four-year-old's morning routine—cereal spilled on the counter, a cartoon still murmuring on the TV I forgot to turn off, the fading echo of sneakers on hardwood.
I turn off the TV, wipe the counter, and when everything’s back to its normal, pre-kid sterile state, I let myself breathe.
"He's getting comfortable."
Gianni's voice comes from the hallway. He's leaning against the bedroom door frame in slacks and an unbuttoned shirt, coffee in hand, watching me with an expression I've learned to read over the past three weeks that’s control on the surface, tinged with just a bit of warmth. A warmth I only see when he’s with Patrick or me, and I’m not quite sure how to feel about that.
"He likes Nina," I say. "And he's obsessed with the shower jets. He calls them the water cannons."
"Sounds like he knows luxury when he sees it,” Gianni says with a small smirk. Then he turns his attention to the spray bottle in my hand. “You don’t have to clean. You know the maids come three times a week.”
“I’m barely used to this apartment,” I say. “And it’s going to take me a hell of a lot longer than that to get used to maid service. Besides, cleaning’s what I do when I need to occupy myself.”
“You could always write—your room has a workstation.”
“I noticed. Thanks, by the way.”
He’s right. I should do something with myself other than nervously pace and clean a place that’s already spotless. But the move has given me the biggest case of writer’s block I’ve ever experienced.
"Patrick asked me last night if we live here now." I lean against the island. "I didn't know what to say."
Gianni crosses to the kitchen and sets his coffee down. He stands on the other side of the island, close enough to touch but not reaching. He gives me space without giving me distance. It's a distinction I'm still learning to trust.
“I’m not a father,” he says. “How you’d say what you need to a child is a skill I don’t have. But you can let him know he’s safe and has whatever he needs here.”
It’s no small thing. Knowing my son is safe from his father is peace of mind I haven’t had in a long, long time.
"The grand jury convenes in a week," he says.
The shift from domestic to operational is seamless, and always a little impressive.
In an instant, he shifts from the man who moved a pair of tiny sneakers with care to a man who's fighting a war on three fronts.
I've watched him do this every morning since I moved in. He’ll have his coffee, then a quiet moment with me to check in.
Then the mask goes back on. But it’s not the cold mask he wore when he sent me back to my desk the day Lance showed up. It’s calmer, more functional, the mask a man needs to wear when people are looking to him to make sure everything is running as expected, that all is under control.
Control. That’s what it’s all about with Gianni. But it’s a different kind of control than the vicious kind I’m used to.
"Where do things stand?" I ask.
"Our attorneys have filed four motions to delay.
Two were granted, two were denied. We bought a couple extra days, but the hearing is still happening.
Spackman is building the counter-narrative—Marino's financials are dirty, and he’s highly motivated to bring us down by whatever means necessary.
If we can demonstrate that the evidence the prosecution is relying on originated from Marino's operation, the whole case weakens. That’s just too much reasonable doubt. "
"And Lance?"
His jaw tightens at the name. It’s a small, involuntary contraction that tells me Gianni has a visceral, personal reaction to the man who hurt me.
"Dawson is aggressive," he says. "He's subpoenaed records and he's pushing the U.S. Attorney for an accelerated timeline. My lawyers are blocking, but he's creative. And he's not playing by the rules."
"He never did."
"I know." He rounds the island and stops in front of me. His hand comes up to my face—thumb tracing my cheekbone, fingers curling into my hair. "We're going to handle this. The grand jury, Marino, Dawson. All of it."
"You keep saying that."
"Because nothing has changed. It’s still true.”
I should respond with something sharp and witty, a comment that keeps up the armor I’ve been wearing since I first arrived in this city.
But his thumb is tracing my jaw now, and his other hand has found my waist, and he's looking at me with those dark, patient, devastating eyes, and I'm so tired of being afraid.
"We have an hour before we need to leave," I say.
"We do."
"That's not a lot of time."
"It's enough."
He kisses me in the slow, delicious way that makes me melt every time.
His hand tightens in my hair, his body pressing me back against the marble island.
I grip the front of his open shirt and pull him closer, and for a few minutes, the grand jury and the FBI and the man who found me across state lines all dissolve into the taste of coffee on his tongue and the warmth of his hands sliding beneath my shirt.
His hardness presses against me through his slacks, the feeling now familiar, comforting even. I reach down and take hold of him, stroking his cock through the fabric. He growls, kissing me harder, letting me know wordlessly how good it feels.
We don't make it to the bedroom. The couch is closer, and the hour is short.
He sits on the couch, sliding down his pants and boxer-briefs, his cock jumping out. I lean forward, kissing it, tasting him, listening to him purr. When I can’t wait any more, I strip off my own pants, then my panties, and crawl on top of him, sinking onto every inch of his glorious cock.
He fills me, stretches me, squeezes my ass as I ride him hard on his espresso leather couch with the morning light falling across our skin, forgetting briefly the world outside these windows is coming for us.
He kisses my breasts and my nipples, and I ride him until the orgasm breaks through me. Gianni joins me, and I grind down hard against the warmth shooting up into me, wringing every last drop out of him.
When we’re done, laying on the couch side by side, catching our breath, he presses his lips to my shoulder.
"We need to go."
"I know."
"Are you ready?"
I look up at the ceiling. The exposed steel beams, the concrete, the absurd height of this space that still doesn't feel like mine but is starting to feel like something I could survive inside.
"No," I say. "But I'm going anyway."
He almost smiles. Almost.
We get dressed and leave together. And for one more day, we pretend the walls of this beautiful, lonely penthouse are thick enough to keep the rest of it out.