Chapter 17
SEVENTEEN
ANTHONY
The days that follow are unlike anything I’ve know in five years.
They are quiet, by the standards of our lives. No meetings, no calls that can't wait, no decisions that require my blood or money. Just the villa, the ocean, and Isabella. Just how I want it to always be.
We find our way back to each other each day. On the first day, we’re careful, testing the ground, ensuring what we both suspect is true and real, not a figment of our imagination. Then, with increasing confidence, we slip back into our old, comfortable habits, and it’s like old times.
She steals my coffee in the morning. I forgot that about her. She wraps both hands around the cup and takes it without asking, and when I reach for it, she gives me a look so imperious and unbothered I have to turn away to hide the fact that it makes me want to smile.
It makes me want to wrench her onto my lap and make her behave.
We swim in the evenings when the heat softens.
I make sure we stick to the shallows after the scare she put us both through the other day.
One that isn’t to be repeated. I can’t help but watch her float and enjoy the ocean.
She catches me, and I look away. She doesn't ask me why I can’t stop watching her.
I think we’re both learning the new rules of whatever this thing between us is. We haven’t named it.
But it feels real and heavy, just as it once was.
It feels real and right.
The nights are not quiet. They are five years of distance compressed into hours, both of us reaching for the other with a desperation that is only partly physical.
There is grief in it too. I feel it in the way she holds on, in the way she sometimes goes very still beneath my hands as though she’s remembering something once lost. I hold her just as hard and hope that when we return to New York, we don’t end.
I can’t lose her again.
I won’t.
On the third morning, I find her on the beach, sitting at the water's edge with her feet in the foam, looking out at the horizon.
I sit beside her without speaking, and she leans her head against my shoulder.
We stay like that for a long time. The sun comes up.
The water turns from black to blue. Neither of us feels the need to fill the quiet with words. Just being together is enough.
Then my phone buzzes in the sand beside me, and I see Lucien's name on the screen.
I sit up. Isabella stiffens, looking at my cell and seeing my cousin's name. I answer. "How are you?" I ask.
"Not good. It's confirmed." Lucien's voice is flat and precise in the way it gets when the news is bad, and he’s already processed it. "Richard Keller doesn't exist. The name, the banking background, the apartment, all constructed. We've had two days on this, and it's watertight."
I’m already on my feet. Isabella looks up at me with a question in her eyes. "Who is he?” I ask.
"Rodin Dragunovik."
The name lands in the warm morning air like something toxic. I turn away from Isabella instinctively. A half second of old habit before I stop myself. She needs to hear this. "You're certain."
"Photographs match. We had them verified independently. He's been running the Keller identity for several months. Moved into her building, Anthony. That's how he met her. It wasn't by chance."
"And now he’s her boyfriend.”
"Yes," Lucien says.
My stomach churns at the thought of anyone touching her who isn’t me. I’d kill the bastard just for that, if nothing else. I press two fingers to the bridge of my nose, feeling pain radiating into my forehead. "Do we know where he’s operating out of? Where is he dealing with his business?"
"Upper West Side. We have the address. But —"
"Is he still in New York?"
"As of thirty-six hours ago, yes. He hasn't moved. Which concerns me more than if he'd run."
"He's waiting for something." I think about the emails. That’s he’s living in her building. The careful, persistent questions about where Isabella was. He hadn't been asking as a concerned boyfriend. He was trying to find her. "Have we heard back about the meeting? Are they ready to sit down?"
"That's the other thing." A pause. "They came back this morning. They want to meet. They named a location and a time, and Anthony—they named her too. They want Isabella at the table."
I say nothing for a moment. The ocean breaks and pulls back and breaks again.
Fuck!
"That’s not fucking happening.” I feel the world spin around me. Isabella frowns and stands, dusting sand off her pants. “I'll call you in the morning, your time," I say, and end the call.
Isabella wraps her arms around her torso, the way she holds herself when she’s frightened and won’t say so. Her eyes search mine, as if she already knows what I’m about to disclose isn’t going to be good news. When is it ever with a Moretti or Romero?
"Tell me," she says. Her voice is steady.
I sit back down in the sand and wait for her to join me. When she does, I take her hand and try to find the words to explain what I know will hurt her all over again. “Your boyfriend, Richard Keller, isn’t who he says he is.”
She tilts her head, puzzled. “What do you mean? Why are you looking into Richard? I thought the call would be about Rodin Dragunovik?”
“Bells, Richard Keller is Rodin Dragunovik. He’s been playing you.”
“What?” Her voice heightens with shock. I watch her face as she processes the news.
The truth moving through her in waves, her jaw tightening, lips thinning, her eyes growing large.
She doesn’t speak while I tell her everything Lucien has shared.
She listens the way she leads, completely, giving nothing away until she’s heard everything there is to hear.
“I don’t believe it. He doesn’t even sound Russian,” she says, clasping her stomach as if it’s upset her.
"He can’t be Rodin. No.” She shakes her head in denial.
“I would have known. He was in my life for two months," she says.
"He was in my apartment. He met my family.
" She stops. Something moves across her face that she pulls back before I can read it. "He was in my life."
"I know."
"And the meeting." Her eyes come back to mine. "They want me there, don’t they? That’s what you said no to."
"Yes." The quiet days are over, and New York pulls us back like it always does. “But I’m not letting them have you. They can’t be trusted, and I fear what could happen to you if you attend. I won’t risk your life.”
“You might not, but I will.”
She looks at me, and I see the determination in her green eyes.
“I have to attend. This won't be over if I don’t, and I can’t live in hiding forever.
They want a meeting, and now they want me in attendance.
While we may have hoped to have this settled without us there, that’s not going to happen, so now we have to play our part. ”
I stare at her, marvel at her strength. She’s still the same Isabella Romero I fell in love with.
“I won’t lose you again. We’ll figure out another way.”
“This is no other way, Anthony. You know that as well as I do. If the meeting is in public, there's a chance we’ll leave alive. I have to do this, it’s the only way I’ll be free.”
Free of what? I reach for her when she starts back to the house. “Hang on,” I say. “What do you mean by free? You’re free now. We don’t have to do what the Russians say. They don’t own us or control our lives.”
She looks out over the ocean as if she’s contemplating how to word her reply.
“I’m back running the Romeros, but only until I find someone in the family to take control.
I never thought Alex could be entrusted with anything, not after how he handled Dallen last year.
I had no part in what Elio did to her, and I’m so sorry for that.
But I don’t want to live in New York anymore.
I want to walk away from the Romeros and never come back.
I have enough money to live comfortably, and I want out.
But now with the Russians breathing down our necks and Alex working for them, I don’t know what other option I have. I have to finish what I started.”
“You’re leaving New York? For good?” It was my turn to feel the earth shift under me. “My life is in New York. What does that mean for us?” I hate the part of me that feels that growing panic rising up within me. But I’ve just got her back. I can’t fathom losing her now.
“I don’t know,” she states with a small shrug. “But I’m the one who shot Igor, and I have to attempt to make it right with the Dragunoviks. They’re into deals and money. Maybe I can pay them off and make them forget what I did. He did draw his weapon first. I merely fired before he did.”
I can’t help but be proud of how quick she was. Quicker than all of them, him included. “No.” I shake my head. “I won’t send you into the wolves' den.”
“Anthony, I’ve been sleeping with him. I’m already in the den.”
Her words catch me off guard, and I freeze. “Don’t remind me,” I say.
“We have to return.” She’s already turned and heading back to the house. “Our holiday is over. Reality calls, and it’s time to pay the piper.”
“I’d much rather just shoot him.” I follow her.
She throws me a smile over her shoulder, and I know I’ll do whatever she says. “Not if I do first.”
God, I love her still.