14. Kylie #2
Giovanni didn’t move. His whole body was still rigid, still coiled for violence, and I realized with a start that he’d put himself between me and the car. Physically positioned his body as a shield, smooth and automatic, before his men had even gotten there.
Giovanni crouched to the man’s level. Whatever he said was too quiet for me to hear, but the scout went the color of wet ash, and when Giovanni stepped back he scrambled into the sedan like the devil had spotted him a head start. The car peeled away.
“He’ll tell whoever sent him that the don is in Savannah,” Giovanni said, watching the taillights go. “Good. Let them chew on that.”
Giovanni’s men faded back to their positions, wherever those positions were, and I was left standing on my porch with my son in my arms and my heart pounding from an adrenaline rush I hadn’t asked for.
“You have security watching my house,” I said.
“Since yesterday.” He turned to face me. The ice was melting from his expression, replaced by the shape of concern. “Did you think I’d leave you unprotected?”
“You said you’d follow my rules.”
“You hadn’t made rules about security yet.” A pause. Almost sheepish. “I was hoping you wouldn’t notice until you’d agreed to them.”
I should have been angry. Should have felt manipulated, trapped, the same way I’d felt for three years in a marriage where Giovanni made decisions without consulting me.
But the photographer had been pointing a camera at my house. At the house where my son slept.
And in our world, Giovanni’s world, the world I’d tried to escape, a photograph was just the beginning.
“A scout,” I said. “That’s what your man said.”
“Someone’s already talking.” Giovanni’s voice was flat. Resigned. “About Nico. About you being here. Word travels fast in the families, Kylie. A don’s heir is-”
“I know what a don’s heir is.” I cut him off. My voice had more blade in it than I’d planned. “I grew up in this world too, Giovanni. I know exactly what my son becomes the moment people know he exists.”
A target. A pressure point. A piece on the board that everyone would want to control, capture, or eliminate.
I’d run a thousand miles to escape this. I’d built a new life, a new identity, a new everything, and it hadn’t mattered. Because my son carried his father’s blood, and in their world, blood was the only thing that counted.
“I want the security,” I said.
Giovanni went still. “What?”
“You heard me.” I held Nico tighter against my chest. He was fussing now, picking up on my tension, making the small unhappy sounds that meant he wanted to be fed or changed or just held differently.
“My son is a target because of your name. So your name is going to stand in front of him. I want the detail, the protocols, all of it.”
I watched Giovanni process this. Watched the surprise, then the careful neutrality, then the beginnings of hope.
“For Nico,” I added, before he could misinterpret. “Not for me.”
“Understood.” He pulled out his phone. Started typing. “I’ll have everything in place within the hour. Full team, rotating shifts, vehicle sweeps, the works. You won’t see them unless you need to.”
He was being so goddamn reasonable about all of this. So accommodating, so careful to follow my lead, so completely unlike the man who had spent three years making unilateral decisions about my life.
I hated how much I appreciated it.
I hated how much it made me want to trust him again.
“We’re done for today,” I said. “I need to feed Nico. And I need - I need to think. About all of this.”
Giovanni nodded. Put his phone away. “I’ll go. But Kylie-”
He paused on the steps of my porch. Turned back to look at me with those impossible blue eyes.
“Thank you. For giving me a chance.”
I didn’t respond. Just went inside and closed the door.
***
The moving truck arrived at sunset.
I was in the kitchen, washing bottles at the sink, when I heard it, the heavy rumble of a large vehicle, the hydraulic whine of a loading ramp being deployed. I dried my hands and walked to the window.
Across the square from the theater, there was a building. Small, two stories, had been vacant since I’d arrived. I’d noticed it in passing, thought about what could be done with the space, filed it away as a problem for someone else to solve.
The moving truck was parked in front of it.
And Giovanni was standing on the sidewalk, directing movers carrying furniture.
I was out the door before I could think about it.
“What are you doing?”
He turned. Had the grace to look slightly guilty.
“Moving in.”
“You-” I stopped. Took a breath. “You bought the building?”
“The building across from the theater, yes.” He shrugged. Like it was nothing. Like purchasing real estate in a city he’d visited exactly once was just something people did. “I told you I wasn’t going back to New York.”
“You said you’d follow my rules. You said you wouldn’t loom over my life.”
“I’m not looming.” He gestured at the building behind him. “I’m living. There’s a difference.”
“Giovanni.”
“It’s a very short building.” He almost smiled. Almost. “Two stories. Barely qualifies as looming.”
I stared at him. At the moving truck, at the furniture being carried inside, at the life he was clearly planning to build here, across from my theater, within sight of my cottage, close enough to insert himself into my daily existence whether I wanted him there or not.
“You’re impossible,” I said.
“I know.” He met my eyes. Serious now. No more almost-smiles. “But I meant what I said, Kylie. I’m not giving up. I’m going to prove that I’ve changed, that I can be trusted, that I’m not the man you left. And I can’t do that from New York.”
“So you’re just going to - what? Live across the square and wait?”
“Yes.”
The simplicity of it knocked the breath out of me.
He was serious. He was actually serious. He’d sold his life in New York, moved to a city where he knew no one, and set up camp across from my theater with nothing but a plan to prove himself and an apparently unlimited amount of patience.
This wasn’t the man I’d married.
This was someone else entirely.
“I need to go,” I said. My voice wobbled. Uncertain. “Nico needs - I need to-”
“Go.” Giovanni nodded, understanding and patient. “I’ll be here.”
I walked back to my cottage.
Didn’t look back.
But I could feel him watching me the whole way.