Chapter 30
VIOLET
"You're quiet.”
"I'm processing."
"Processing what?"
I pause, shifting from one foot to the other, letting the din of the city wash over me. "Everything."
The night air is cool against my flushed skin. Gianni slipped us out through the side doors of the Pierre. Exits like that are his preference because he always wants to avoid the main doors where one might run the risk of stepping out into a throng of photographers or valets or worse.
Our evening’s bodyguard is ahead of us, making his way toward the Lexus parked halfway down the block on East Sixty-First.
“We could’ve just waited for him to pull the car around,” I say.
“You looked like you needed some fresh air.”
He’s not wrong. He always has a sense for these things.
Gianni's hand is on my lower back. As crazy as I feel right now, his touch is steadying me in a way I need. I close my eyes for a moment and focus on the warmth of his hand, the same hand that's been anchoring me all evening, guiding me through a world I don't belong in.
"What you said in there," I start. "About building your life with me.”
"I told you I meant it."
"That's what I'm processing."
He looks at me, and it somehow calms me and scares me at the same time. It’s a look of pure intensity and focus. He has this uncanny ability to shut out everything but what has his attention, to make you feel like you’re the only thing in his world.
The streetlight catches the silver at his temples and the sharp line of his jaw. For a moment, I’m caught under the spell of his beauty, the pure force of him.
His expression softens, just a bit. "You don't have to say it back," he says. "You don't have to say anything. I just needed her to know. I needed everyone to know."
"Know what exactly?"
"That you're untouchable."
The word holds in my mind. It’s not possessive, but protective. There’s a distinction, though I’m still learning exactly where that line is with Gianni.
Whatever it is, I like it.
I'm about to respond when Gianni's body changes. It happens in less than a second—a shift in his posture, a tightening across his shoulders, his hand moving from my back to my wrist. He stops walking and turns his head toward the alley on our right.
"Get behind me," he says.
"What—"
They come out of the alley like shadows pulling loose from the wall. Three men, maybe four. It happens too fast to count. Dark clothes, ski masks, gloves. One of them is holding something—a pipe, a bat, I can't tell in the blur of movement and adrenaline.
The bodyguard reacts first. He's faster than a man his size should be, but the nearest attacker reaches us before he can close the distance.
Gianni moves.
I've never seen him fight. I've seen his authority, his stillness, the way he controls rooms with his presence and his voice. But this is something else entirely. This is the thing that lives underneath the suits and the cufflinks and his professional poise.
He catches the first man's arm mid-swing, twists, drives his elbow into the man's jaw with a sound that makes my teeth ache. The man drops. Gianni is already turning, already moving, his body operating on a frequency faster and more brutal than anything I've witnessed.
The second attacker comes at him from the left. Gianni ducks, lands a punch to the man's ribs that folds him in half, then grabs him by the collar and throws him into the third.
But the fourth one isn't going for Gianni.
He's coming at me.
I see him too late—a shape in my peripheral vision, moving fast, arm raised. I try to turn, try to move, but the velvet dress is too long and my heels are too high and my body is too slow.
Something connects with my shoulder. Hard. A burst of white-hot pain radiates down my arm and across my chest. I stumble backward, my ankle twisting, the sidewalk tilting.
I hear Gianni's voice calling my name and then the sound of impact, bone on bone, the fourth man hitting the ground.
I'm already falling.
The pavement is cold against my back, and the sky above is dark and starless, washed out by the city lights. My shoulder is screaming in pain. My head jerks back and hits the ground in a way that makes me feel like I went from sober to drunk in an instant.
The last thing I see before the darkness takes me is Gianni’s face above mine. His hands are on my cheeks, his voice saying my name over and over.
The terror in his eyes is raw and unmasked.
He's scared.
Gianni Russo is scared.
That's my last thought before everything goes black.