16. Gio
Gio
"The New York families want a signed document, Giovanni," Capo Moretti says at our next meeting, leaning back in his leather chair, the heavy mahogany table in the private Mayfair office separating us. "The merger is a massive risk. We aren't sending our soldiers to Palermo on a promise."
"The document will be signed when we return to Boston," I say, my voice flat, my hands resting flat on the table. My shoulder muscles are tight, my fingers itching to grab my coat. I’ve been in this room for three hours. It’s three hours too long.
"You have my word. And you have Salvatore’s backing. That is enough for today."
Moretti shifts, his gold rings glinting under the dim chandelier. "We heard rumors about a shootout in Boston, Gio. Matteo is getting desperate. If the little Rossi princess takes a bullet before the papers are inked, the deal is dead."
"No one is touching her," I say, standing up. I slide my chair back, the wooden legs scraping against the antique rug with a sharp, final screech. "The perimeter is secure. Keep your men ready for the transit lines."
"I hope you're right," Moretti mutters, standing to shake my hand. "For all our sakes."
I offer a short, stiff nod, turn on my heel, and stride out of the office.
The cold London rain is still misting when I hit the sidewalk. I pull my black wool coat tight around my throat, my jaw clenching as I flag down my driver. My body is humming with a restless, aggressive energy that has nothing to do with Capo Moretti or the syndicate merger.
I need to see her.
The memory of her mouth on mine from two nights ago is a constant, throbbing heat in my chest, a physical distraction that makes my skin feel too tight.
I want to touch her. I want to feel her soft, warm body pinned beneath mine until she forgets the quiet life she built in Maine.
I know I am going overboard. I know I shouldn't let an asset dominate my mind like this, but the possessive beast in my head has broken its chain.
I pull out my secure phone and speed-dial Marco.
"Boss," Marco answers, his voice accompanied by the distant sound of wind and traffic. "The meeting went well?"
"Where is she?" I demand, my voice low and gravelly. "Is she still in the suite?"
"No," Marco says, a slight, nervous chuckle on the line. "The lady got bored. Dante and I are crowding her perimeter at Green Park. She bought some tea, and then she wanted to see the grass."
"I am on my way," I say, my throat going dry. "Do not let her out of your sight, Marco. Not for a single second."
"We're three feet away, Gio. Relax," he says. "We'll see you in five."
I hang up, leaning my head against the leather headrest of the sedan as we navigate the heavy London traffic.
Green Park.It is too open. Too many blind spots.
The hyper-vigilant side of my brain is screaming at me for letting her walk out of that reinforced hotel room, but the thought of seeing her—of seeing that bright, stubborn face in the middle of this gray city—makes my heart hit my ribs.
Ten minutes later, the sedan pulls up near the edge of the park.
The grass is wet, a brilliant, deep green under the heavy, low clouds. The fog is thin here, clinging to the trunks of the massive oak trees. I step out of the car, my eyes automatically scanning the pathways, the benches, the tourists walking with their umbrellas.
I spot her.
She is standing near a row of hedges, her bright yellow raincoat a brilliant contrast to the gray and green of the park.
She has a small shopping bag looped over her arm, her dark hair pulled back in that loose, messy braid.
She is laughing, her head tilting back as she points at a squirrel sitting on a wooden bench.
Marco is standing to her right, his leather jacket open, a wide grin on his face, while Dante stands five feet behind her, his hand tucked into his coat, his eyes scanning the tree line.
She looks so clean. So innocent.
My chest goes completely tight, a sudden, heavy ache settling behind my ribs.
I am going to ruin her, I am dragging her into a war she doesn't understand.
But as I watch the soft line of her throat, the way her shoulders shake when she laughs, I know I will never let her go.
I would rather burn both houses to the ground than let her walk away from me.
I take a step onto the wet grass.
"Lina," I call out.
The sound of my voice cuts through the quiet air of the park.
Lina freezes. She turns her head, her wide, expressive eyes searching the pathway until they lock onto mine. The transformation on her face is instantaneous. Her eyes widen, a brilliant, breathtaking smile breaking across her lips that makes my pulse spike.
"Gio!" she calls out.
She doesn't walk. She starts to run toward me, her canvas sneakers splashing in the wet grass, her yellow raincoat flying behind her like a sail.
The sight of her racing toward me makes the world slow down. The fog, the cars, the concrete—they all fade into the background. There is only her. The soft, beautiful girl who runs a bookshop, running to me as if I am the only safe thing in her world.
Then she suddenly falters.
Her boots slip on the wet grass, her smile instantly dropping as her face goes completely white. She stops ten feet from me, her eyes darting past my shoulder, her mouth opening in a silent, horrified gasp.
"Gio! Behind you!" she screams, her voice a high, terrified shriek that shatters the park’s silence.
My spatial awareness snaps into a hard, lethal focus in a fraction of a millisecond.
I don't look back immediately. I count three shadows emerging from the tree line behind me, the metallic, quiet slide of three semi-automatic bolts chambering rounds.
"Lina! Stay where you are!" I bellow, my voice a roaring, desperate command. "Drop! Drop down!"
She either doesn't listen or she doesn’t hear me.
Instead of dropping, she lunges forward, her feet scrambling as she continues to race straight toward me, her arms outstretched as if her small, fragile body could somehow shield me from the steel.
No. No, no, no.
A cold, primal terror lurches at my throat, a suffocating panic that nearly paralyzes my muscles. If a single bullet touches her…
"Lina, drop!" I scream again, my legs exploding into a sprint toward her.
The first gunshot cracks through the park, a deafening, metallic bang that echoes off the brick buildings of Piccadilly.
I reach her just as a second shot fires.
I lung forward, my arms wrapping completely around her waist mid-air, my momentum spinning us both around so my broad, heavy back is facing the tree line.
We hit the wet, muddy grass hard, the impact knocking the breath out of my lungs, but I don't release my grip.
I roll, pulling her body completely beneath mine, pinning her to the ground and covering her head with my hands.
"Gio!" she gasps, her fingers clawing at the fabric of my coat, her face buried in my chest. "Gio, they have guns!"
"Stay down!" I growl, my voice a rough, mechanical rasp. "Keep your head down, Lina!"
Another volley of gunfire erupts behind us, the rapid bang-bang-bang of semi-automatic pistols chewing through the wet turf. Soil and grass explode around my shoulders, raining down on my back.
"Dante! Marco! North quadrant!" I roar, my hand scrambling into my coat to pull my SIG Sauer from my holster.
"I have the left!" Dante shouts from the shadows of the pathway.
A sharp, un-silenced report cracks from Dante's direction, followed by a wet, heavy grunt and the sound of a body hitting the gravel.
"Marco, cover the flank!" I order, raising my weapon as I peer over the top of Lina's head.
"I'm on it, boss!" Marco calls back. I hear the rapid fire of his Beretta, three quick rounds that make one of the shooters behind the oak tree duck back into the cover of the bark.
I align my sights on the second shooter, a tall man in a dark coat who is advancing on our position, his gun leveled at us. My finger squeezes the trigger.
Bang.
The round hits him directly in the throat. He stumbles, his hand flying to his neck as a thick, dark crimson fountain sprays across the green grass. He drops to his knees, his gun slipping from his fingers before he collapses face-first into the mud.
Suddenly, a sharp, white-hot needle of pain tears through my left shoulder.
I grunt, my jaw clenching so hard my back teeth grind, my arm flinching but my grip on my SIG staying solid.
"Gio! You're bleeding!" Lina screams, her hands clutching the wet fabric of my sleeve where the dark red is already blooming.
"I am fine," I hiss, ignoring the burning heat in my joint. It’s just a graze. I can still shoot.
"You're not fine! You got shot!"
"Lina! Not now!" I command, my eyes tracking the third shooter who is trying to scramble back toward a waiting gray sedan near the curb.
A second bullet hits me. This one is lower, tearing through the flesh of my ribs on the right side.
The impact is a heavy, solid blow that knocks the breath out of me, a hot, liquid warmth instantly flooding my shirt.
My body wobbles, my weight shifting, but I force my muscles to lock, refusing to collapse onto her. I will not let her take my weight.
I raise my gun, follow the third shooter's movement through my sights, and pull the trigger twice.
Bang. Bang.
The first round hits his shoulder, spinning him around. The second hits his chest, his body flinging backward against the side of the gray sedan, leaving a long, dark smear of blood on the metal before he slides into a limp pile on the pavement.
"Is that all of them?" Marco shouts, his boots splashing in the mud as he sprints toward the car, his gun still raised.
"Dante, check the perimeter!" I roar, my chest heaving, every breath bringing a sharp, burning agony to my ribs. "Check the street! Now!"
"Clear!" Dante calls back a second later, his voice flat and calm. "The sedan was their only transport. The driver is dead."
I slowly lower my gun, my arm shaking from the blood loss and the adrenaline. I look down at Lina.
She is still pinned beneath me, her hands clutched tightly in the wool of my coat, her face pale and smudged with mud.
Her wide, dark eyes are locked onto my face, staring at the sweat on my forehead, the blood dripping from my sleeve onto her yellow raincoat.
She is shaking, but she isn't crying. Her natural stubbornness is still burning in her eyes, a fierce, protective defiance that matches my own.
"You stupid, stubborn girl," I whisper, my voice rough. "Why didn't you drop?"
"I was trying to get to you," she says, her voice trembling but steady. She reaches up, her fingers warm and wet with my blood as she touches my cheek. "You were going to get shot."
"I did get shot," I say, a dry, bloody twitch of amusement touching my lips.
"Because you were covering me," she says softly, her eyes holding mine with a fierce, terrifying intensity that makes my heart stop. "You saved my life. Again."
"It is my job, piccola," I murmur, my head starting to feel light as the blood pools on the grass beneath us.
"No," she says, her fingers curling into my hair, pulling my face down until her lips are brushing mine. "It's not your job. And you know it."
She kisses me.
It is a short, desperate kiss that tastes of rain, copper, and the cold, terrifying reality of our world. It is a claim, a final, unyielding choice that shatters the last of the boundaries between us.
And as my head begins to spin, the sound of distant sirens beginning to wail through the London fog, a dark, heavy terror settles into my chest.
She cares for me. And that is the most dangerous thing of all.