Chapter 45
GIANNI
The gun is in my hand, and Lance Dawson is on the floor.
I could kill him right now. It’d be so simple—one pull of the trigger and the problem would be immediately solved. Just like that.
Lance stares up at me with blood on his face, his mouth, his hands. His eyes are wet and wide and full of something I’ve never seen on him before.
Fear.
And not the narcissistic sort of fear, that arrogant flash when he worries his carefully constructed facade is in jeopardy. No. This is real fear, animal fear, the kind of horror that appears on a man’s face when he realizes his end might very well happen within the next few seconds.
Good. I want him to feel it. I want him to understand what Violet felt in a kitchen in Chicago, on a bathroom floor, in every room she ever shared with him. I want him to live inside that fear the way she lived inside it for three years.
But more than that, I want him dead.
"Mr. Russo." Harwell's voice, his tone steady and professional. "Put the weapon down."
“M… Gianni,” Lance stammers out, scooting back just a bit. “Please. Don’t do this. I’m begging you. I’m… I’m a father.”
It takes all the restraint I have not to laugh right in his panicked face. A father. In name only. The man was seconds away from stealing Patrick’s mother and his sibling away forever, and now he wants to play this card.
Patrick would be better off never knowing Lance existed.
Then I hear Violet's voice, behind me. Quiet. Not afraid—not of me, not anymore. Just certain.
"Gianni. Don't."
Just two words. I take a slow breath, burning into my mind’s eye the sight of Lance on the floor in front of me.
Two words.
The thing that makes me lower the gun isn’t Harwell or the agents or anything like that.
It’s her and the fact that she’s standing behind me, bloody and bruised, asking me not to become like him.
I'm not Lance. That's what I told her in a hospital room. I’m not the man who gives himself over to rage and violence.
Maybe I once was. But for her, I have to be someone different.
Starting now.
I set the gun on the floor. Then I step back.
Harwell moves in, two agents behind him. They rush at Lance, efficient and practiced. Through the blur of movement I spot a knee on Lance’s back, hands behind his head, then the cuffs clicking shut.
Lance is face-down through it all, his face smashed against the dirty floor, taking in ragged, panicked breaths. When the cuffs click shut, he makes a strange sound, a moan of anguish that makes it clear he’s realizing in this instant just how fucked he is.
I allow myself the satisfaction of enjoying it.
Agent Harwell steps in front of Lance, looming over him. “Lance Dawson, you’re under arrest for conspiracy, kidnapping, assault…”
He keeps going, listing the seemingly unending charges. But I don’t care for the details. He’s down and in custody and my mind is now on her.
I turn around. Violet is standing by the overturned chair, her wrists raw and bleeding, her cheek swollen where he hit her, her shirt torn at the collar. She's shaking—not trembling, shaking.
I cross the room. She doesn’t move and I don’t say a word.
I pull a folding knife from my pocket—the one I've carried since I was nineteen, the one my father gave me, the one I've used for things I'll never tell her about—and I cut the remaining zip tie from her right wrist. The plastic falls to the floor.
She looks down at her freed hands like she's not sure they belong to her.
She throws both arms around my neck and buries her face in my chest, pressing her body against me with all the force she’s capable of.
She sobs gently, letting out the fear she’s been carrying.
But the sobs are mixed with relief. I hold her, wrapping my arms around her waist, my right hand cradling the back of her head with my face in her hair.
“It’s over,” I speak softly into her ear. “It’s all over.”
My words elicit another hard sob. and I hold her through it.
I don't know how long. Long enough for the agents to haul Lance to his feet and walk him out the door.
Long enough for Harwell to speak into his radio and receive confirmation that Marino is being picked up in Red Hook.
Long enough for the cabin to empty of everyone except us.
She pulls back. Looks up at me. Her green eyes are red-rimmed and swollen and fiercer than I've ever seen them.
"I hit him," she says. "In the throat."
Pride blooms in me, and I allow myself a small smirk. "I could tell. I saw the mark."
"He was going to—"
"I know."
"I got the zip ties off myself. Well, almost.”
"I know."
Something moves across her face. Not a smile—but something lighter, something indicating she’s feeling relief for the first time since she was kidnapped.
"You came," she says.
"I will always come."
She presses her forehead against my chest. I hold her there.
Outside, the federal vehicles idle in the gravel, their lights painting the trees in alternating blue and red.
Through the broken doorway, I can see Lance being loaded into the back of a black SUV.
Harwell is standing beside it, phone pressed to his ear, his expression grim and focused.
He catches my eye through the doorway and walks over. "Mr. Russo." He stops at the threshold, as if the cabin is a space he needs permission to re-enter. "A word."
Violet's arms tighten around me. I press my lips to the top of her head, then gently disengage. She lets go. Sits in the chair by the fireplace—not the chair she was tied to, a different one—and wraps her arms around herself.
I step outside.
"The case against you is dead," Harwell says.
Directly. No preamble. "The warrant was obtained through fraudulent evidence provided by a compromised agent in conspiracy with a criminal organization.
Every piece of evidence collected under that warrant is inadmissible.
The RICO investigation is formally closed as of—" he checks his watch "—now. "
"And Dawson?"
"Federal charges. Conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, abuse of authority, evidence tampering.
He's done." Harwell pauses. "We're also moving on Marino tonight.
The evidence Ms. Franks provided, combined with Randolph's statement, gives us enough for arrests across three states.
It's going to be a long night for a lot of people. "
"And Theresa?"
"Accessory to kidnapping. Conspiracy. She'll be processed by morning."
I nod, and the information settles.
"Mr. Russo," Harwell says. He hesitates—the first time I've seen hesitation from him. "What you did tonight—bringing us here, cooperating, sharing the intelligence—that took a certain kind of courage. I want you to know it's noted."
"I didn't do it for your notes, Agent Harwell."
"I know." He extends his hand.
I take it. The handshake is brief, firm, and means nothing more than two men acknowledging that the world is more complicated than the institutions they operate within.
“But make no mistake,” he says, letting go of my hand. “We’ll be keeping our eyes on you.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything less.”
He walks back to his vehicles. I walk back inside.
Violet is where I left her. Arms around herself. Eyes on the floor. I crouch in front of her and take her hands. The wrists are raw, crusted with dried blood. I lift each one to my mouth and press my lips against the damaged skin.
"Let's go home," I say.
Spackman drives. Kylie is in the front seat, her head tipped back against the headrest with exhausted stillness.
Violet is beside me in the back seat. Her head is against my shoulder and her hand in mine. Her breathing is slow and even—not asleep, but somewhere close. Somewhere between consciousness and the kind of rest that comes after the worst is over and your body finally believes it.
My hand rests on her stomach. She put it there, lifted my hand from the seat and placed it flat against the place where our child is growing, and left it there without a word.
The city soon appears through the windshield—lights first, then shapes, then the familiar geometry of a skyline that’s been part of my kingdom for twenty years. It looks different tonight… less important, perhaps.
It’s just buildings, nothing more. And I’d trade them all for the woman resting against my shoulder.
I almost did trade it. Bringing the FBI to that cabin was the closest I've ever come to dismantling everything I've built with my own hands. They could’ve whipped up some bullshit charges, taken the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.
But I made my decision and I'd do it again without hesitating.
The loft is quiet when we arrive. Nina is asleep in her room. Patrick's door is cracked open, the nightlight glowing, and I stand in the doorway for a moment and watch him sleep—curled on his side, Dragon tucked under one arm, his red curls wild against the pillow.
Violet appears beside me. Leans into me. We watch him together.
There are things that I need to say to her, words that have been building.
But not tonight. Tonight, she's safe. Patrick is safe. The baby is safe. And the man who tried to take them from me is in the back of a federal vehicle, heading toward a cell he'll occupy for a very long time.
Tonight, that's enough.
But I still need to say the rest.