Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Rian
She's still here, Beast notes. You finally fucked and you didn't lose control. I didn't kill anyone. It's amazing.
Noemi's sitting at the kitchen table, staring off into space, her expression faraway. Her continued presence, her not running away screaming, gives me this tight feeling in my chest that I want more of, not less.
I check my phone, making sure that everything is set for the release of the photos. Ransom ran them through every scrubbing software known to man to be sure that they can’t be traced back to my girl.
"Ransom's about to release the photos," I tell her.
She merely purses her lips and tilts her head.
I glance at the photos. There are only two.
How she had the presence of mind to document the whole thing while hiding behind a bookshelf with a man holding a gun ten feet away, I'll never know.
It's probably the only thing that kept her from being as dead as her uncle.
There's one of Marcus Caruso's body on the floor. Another of Andreas Vitelli's face in profile, gun still in hand, smoke visible. Clean timestamps, every frame usable. I've known professionals who couldn't have managed that.
I look up. She's watching me, waiting.
"You're something else. You know that?"
She shrugs. That's how she takes a compliment. "The second my uncle sold the building to a mafia family, I think I knew that something terrible was going to happen. It was only a matter of time."
"Thank you for these." I tap the phone. "I think they're about to be our saving grace."
"Good." Noemi leans her chin on her hand. "My uncle's death will mean something, then."
I forward everything to Ransom. His reply comes back in under a minute.
Fuck. These are better than I thought. Give me twenty.
"What's Ransom going to do with the photos?" Noemi asks.
My mouth kicks up at the corners. "Distribute them."
"I hope he makes Andreas suffer." She looks down, her jaw clenching.
"He will." I thread my fingers through hers, squeezing. It still feels odd to touch her so freely, to accept her touch. I already know intellectually that she won't hurt me.
It's instinct that makes me flinch when she squeezes back. "Fuck. Sorry."
Noemi grips my hand, not letting me pull back, and gives me a half-smile. "I don't expect you to relearn a lifetime of conditioning overnight. We've been together for less than a month and had sex a handful of times. My pussy isn't magic."
Her using the word pussy puts a smile on my face. "Yeah, okay. I just want to be perfect for you."
She reaches out very slowly, making intense eye contact, and cups my jaw. "You really do, don't you?"
"More than anything." Our connection sizzles, alive and electric. I used to think being with a girl would mean fucking her all the time.
But this, holding hands, her cupping my face? It's better.
More.
* * *
Ransom doesn't sit on a weapon once he has it. He sends the photos to every outlet in the city, every council member's office, every precinct commander including the three on the King payroll. Some sorry sons of bitches are about to have a genuinely terrible morning.
Everyone in the media gets the same package at the same time, so nobody can quietly make it disappear before the others see it. The Vitellis lose their political cover in about fifteen minutes flat. By the time the first alert goes live two hours later, their allies are already running.
I pull up social media. Post after post, councilmember after councilmember, each statement more outraged than the last. Condemnation, distancing, vows to never deal with Andreas Vitelli again.
I grin at my phone. "Fucking hell. They move quickly."
Noemi reads over my shoulder for a minute. Then she says, "They're all going to pretend they never knew him."
"That's the point."
"It's almost worse than what Andreas did." She picks up her coffee. "At least he knew what he was. These people were pretending that being next to a monster was fine as long as nobody looked."
"Speaking of." I set the phone down. There's no soft way in, so I don't bother looking for one. "Your aunt tied herself to the Vitellis. The job, the protection. All of it. That money's about to disappear."
Her face crumples. "Oh. That's probably bad news for Aunt Kathleen."
"No job, no payout, no protection." I hesitate. "If I didn't think you'd object, I'd take her out myself for her role in your kidnapping."
Noemi goes quiet. She turns the mug in her hands, her mouth pulling to the side. "You won't do anything to her, though. Right?"
"No. I told you I wouldn't. She's your family." I hold her eyes. "But I'm not going to save her, either."
She nods slowly. I brace for tears, for the second round of grief she's owed, but it doesn't come. She just looks tired. "Fuck. I should want to save her. But I still feel betrayed."
"Kathleen's a traitor. She'll get what's coming to her sooner than she thinks."
"Maybe." She sets the mug down with a small, final click. "I thought I was the exception. Turns out I was just the one she hadn't turned on yet."
She says it so matter-of-factly that I look at her. Her eyes glitter with something hard and bright. I've been watching this woman for four months. I haven't seen this side of her.
There are so many facets to Noemi Caruso.
I take her hand and kiss it. "Just remember who's got the biggest monster in their corner."
She glances down. "I do."
"That's right."
My phone buzzes. It's Ransom.
Final pieces in motion. Ready in an hour?
I put the phone down. Across the table, Noemi's gone still again, both hands wrapped around the mug, her gaze out the window, headed somewhere I can't follow.
"I have to go soon," I tell her. "Work."
"Work." She doesn't look away from the glass. "The kind where you finish the Vitellis."
"The kind where you never have to think about them again."
She sets the mug down with that small final click again. “I'm coming with you."
I almost laugh, because it's absurd. And then I catch her face. Shit, she means it. "No, pretty girl. No way."
"Rian." Her expression turns cool. “You can’t just tell me no.”
"It's not a discussion. You stay here, behind every lock and every man I've got, where the worst thing that happens to you tonight is you chip a nail."
"And if it goes wrong? What, I sit in this beautiful glass box and wait to find out whether I'm alone again? No. This is my family’s mess."
Is she crazy? "The plan works because you're nowhere near it."
She lifts her chin. "I’m not asking to be where there are guns being fired. I’m saying that you should let me watch on a feed. You might need me. I know the Vitellis better than you.”
I scoff. “You’d have to be somewhere close by to do that. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“So park me in an SUV a block away from the action,” she argues. “Close enough that I could come if you need me, far enough that I won’t get dragged into anything. Call me backup.”
I drag a hand down my face. Every instinct I have is screaming to put her behind a steel door and weld it shut. But she won’t allow that.
If I know her, she’ll sneak out of here and give my guards the slip just to be close when I’m heading into the Vitelli compound. Then she’d just be loose. That’s worse.
"What if I agree to put you in a staging position?” I hate the words as I say them.
“Two blocks back. In the vehicle, with a detail. You don’t get out, follow, improvise, or get clever.
You stay where Hale can reach you in thirty seconds and I can reach you in two minutes.
And if anything I say over that radio sounds wrong, you let my men floor it. "
“Really?” She looks surprised and excited. "Okay, deal."
"Swear it." I take her face in both hands. "Swear you’ll stay in the vehicle, Noemi. Say the words. Because if you give me your word, I'll believe it. And then I have to live with bringing you."
Her eyes go soft and serious at once. "I swear. I’ll stay in the car."
"Good girl." I press my mouth to her forehead and hold it there, breathing her in, trying not to catalogue every way this is a mistake. Beast has gone quiet.
That doesn’t seem like a good sign.
She catches my wrist as I pull back. "Hey. Same as before." Her thumb finds the pulse there. "If you die, I'll reanimate your corpse just to kill you again."
"I believe you." I kiss her once, hard. "Get your shoes. You stay glued to me until I hand you off."
For her to be safe, I have to finish this. The only thing that's changed is she's coming to watch me do the one thing I'm good for. Some craven part of me is glad, because it buys me two more minutes with her in reach.
I steel myself as we head out the door.