Kiss Me in the Rain
Evelyn
“Get up,” Vincent snapped.
“Where are we going?” I asked, my stomach dropping.
“Somewhere where your body won’t immediately be found.” He had a dangerous gleam in his eyes.
The river, in other words.
“You lied,” I blurted out, desperately trying to buy myself a few extra minutes. If I could just keep him talking, Dante might figure out where I was. “This isn’t about the money.”
His jaw tightened. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“It’s about Valentina, isn’t it?”
His gaze darkened, but not before I saw the flash of bitterness.
“You were in love with her, weren’t you? But she didn’t love you back and you couldn’t stand that. You never forgave her.”
“Shut up,” he rasped, his hand tightening around the gun.
Oh God. Was this it? Was I going to die before Dante could get to me? Tied to a metal chair in a freezing warehouse. And all because a crime family had used my gallery for their own evil purposes.
Chloe had tried to warn me. She’d said he was dangerous, and boy had she been right. But I don’t think even she knew how dangerous.
My heart broke thinking about him. About how we’d left things.
I knew this was all his fault, but the thought of never seeing him again was unbearable.
I loved the man who brought me coffee in the morning without asking how I took it because he already knew.
The man who touched me with such tenderness despite the violence he was capable of.
The man who’d looked at me like I was something he wanted to devour.
I even loved the darkness in him. The possessiveness. The rage. The lonely, broken parts he hid behind expensive suits and cold silences. The man who listened to dark country in the early hours of the morning because he was haunted by demons. They were my demons too.
A sob escaped me even though I tried hard to hide it. Of course I’d known, deep down, it could never work between us, but the romantic in me had hoped we could rise above all that and find our own kind of happily ever after.
I sniffed. Obviously I was delusional.
Get involved with dangerous men and this is what happened. You ended up in a filthy warehouse with a gun to your head.
Vincent’s finger began compressing the trigger.
I sucked in a breath, bracing myself for the coup de grace.
“I’m sorry, Evelyn,” he said, gesturing with the gun for me to get to my feet. “But this is how it has to be.”
Slowly, I stood up. My knees felt stiff and immobile, or maybe that was the fear, but either way, I struggled to stand upright.
“Come on,” he huffed, gripping me by the arm and hauling me toward the door.
My wrists were bruised and grazed from the ties, but I hardly felt it. My eyes were on the barrel of the gun in his other hand, knowing that in any moment the bullet inside would be blowing my brains out.
I choked back a whimper. Out of all the ways to die, I never in a million years thought it would be like this.
He led me outside, where the wind was even colder and the rain was coming down hard. It seemed fitting for what was about to happen.
Up ahead, the slick black water glistened uninvitingly. It looked cold, and I didn’t relish the thought of falling into it. Not that I’d feel it, I reasoned grimly.
“Stand there,” Vincent ordered, pushing me toward the edge of the dock.
A strange calm settled over me, almost like I was having an out-of-body experience. Then, somewhere in the back of my head, I heard Dante’s voice.
Turn. Plant. Strike.
I drew in a breath as what he’d taught me came rushing back. I had a split second to decide whether I was going to act. Seconds before he pulled that trigger and my head exploded all over the side of the dock.
What the hell. I had nothing to lose. I was going to die anyway.
Bracing myself for stability, I spun around and slammed my elbow into his shoulder.
The gun went off but the shot went wide.
He cursed as the weapon went flying. I’d landed a solid jab, but not enough to cripple him.
I knew I should have aimed for the temple, but Vincent was too tall and from where I was standing, I wouldn’t have been able to reach.
Instead, I turned and kneed him as hard as I could in the balls.
He dropped like the sack of shit he was.
Somewhere behind us, I heard the screeching of tires. I turned to run, but Vincent, now sitting on the ground, had picked up the gun and was lifting it with his injured arm.
“You fucking bitch,” he snarled.
So much for the genteel Vincent Calabria, I thought, freezing.
He got slowly to his feet. “Goodbye, Evelyn.”
I let out a sob when, out of nowhere, a dark figure exploded from the darkness and the rain and hit Vincent like a missile.
One second he was standing in front of me with the gun raised, and the next, Dante slammed into him hard enough to send both men crashing across the wet concrete of the dock.
The gun discharged with an explosive crack.
I screamed but, once again, the bullet disappeared into the mist, missing Dante by inches.
He didn’t seem to notice, too busy beating the hell out of my kidnapper. Punch after punch drove into Vincent’s face with horrifying brutality. His silver eyes were black with rage, while blood sprayed across Vincent’s white shirt, Dante’s hands, and the ground around them.
“I told you I’d find you, you fucking creep. This is what you get for touching her.”
Vincent barely managed to shield himself as Dante grabbed him by the throat and smashed his head against the floor hard enough to break bone.
“Dante!” I screamed, shocked at the uncontrolled rage. I’d never seen him lose it like this before. I’d known what he was capable of, but I’d never seen it with my own eyes.
I made to go to him, but found a strong pair of arms around me, holding me back.
“Don’t, Evelyn,” said a voice I recognized.
I blinked and looked into a face I knew well.
“Mikhail?” I was so confused. “What are you doing here?”
His hold was gentle, but firm. “Helping. You need to let him do this.”
“But he’ll kill him.”
“No he won’t. Not yet, anyway.”
I gulped as Mikhail passed me to one of his men and walked over to where Dante was still hitting Vincent.
“Marcelli.” Mikhail’s voice cut through the rain and the wind and the choking sounds coming from Vincent on the ground. “We need him alive.”
Dante lifted his hand for a final punch but then stopped and glanced at Mikhail. Vincent moaned, semiconscious. I didn’t think he could take much more.
With a growl, Dante uncurled his fist and shoved back off Vincent’s chest, breathing hard. He nodded at Mikhail as if to say, “your turn.”
Mikhail crouched, gripped Vincent’s jaw, and turned his ruined face up to the light. “I want names. Every cartel member in New York—or you die.” His threatening tone was so unfamiliar to me, that I simply stared, stunned at the change in him.
It seemed we all had hidden sides to us that we didn’t show the world.
Vincent wheezed but gave a faint nod. “My phone,” he rasped. “They’re all in my phone.”
Mikhail reached into his pocket and pulled out the device. He held it up to Vincent’s battered face and, remarkably, it unlocked. After scrolling wordlessly for a long beat, he nodded and passed the phone to his colleague.
“We have what we need.”
Mikhail straightened up. “We’ll take care of this.”
Dante nodded, then turned to me.
And that should have been the end of it.
I felt a surge of relief that it was over. That our side was done and we could go home.
Dante strode toward me, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Vincent move. Broken, one eye swollen shut, running on nothing but spite, he reached for the gun lying forgotten on the wet concrete. He swung it up, but not at Dante.
At me.
I didn’t even have time to scream.
The shot was deafening, and it came from Dante. Vincent’s head snapped back. Then a second shot, right after. It hit him in the center of his chest and Vincent folded sideways onto the concrete.
The gun slipped from his fingers into a puddle that was turning slowly red. He didn’t move again.
For a moment nobody moved. The only sound was the rain hissing down on us.
Mikhail looked at the body, then at Dante, and gave a slow nod. The closest thing to respect a Bratva consigliere would ever offer a Marcelli.
“Better get out of here,” Mikhail said, glancing at me. “Before New York’s finest arrive.”
I exhaled, waiting for the scream still frozen in my throat to emerge. I’d just watched Dante take a life. It was awful. Horrific. I should be shocked.
Yet the scream died in my throat.
Vincent had put a gun to my head. He’d watched his men shoot Kyle. He’d have dropped me into the black water of the East River without losing a minute’s sleep.
The old Evelyn, the gallery owner who paid her taxes and recycled and believed in the police, would have wanted a trial. Courts. Justice.
But I wasn’t her anymore. Dante had made sure of that. And the new Evelyn, though shaken, stood firm, knowing the man she loved had literally killed for her.
I didn’t feel like a victim.
I felt like a queen.
In two long strides Dante was at my side, pulling me into his arms. I didn’t care that he smelled of sweat and violence and was covered in Vincent’s blood.
He was mine.
“You saved my life,” I whispered. “He was going to shoot me.”
“Fuck him,” Dante growled, burying his face in my hair. “I thought I was going to lose you.”
His hands trembled as he snapped the plastic restraints binding my wrists with brute force. “Let me look at you. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, as he cupped my face in his hands. “Honestly, he didn’t hurt me. You got there… in time.”
“I’d burn the whole city down before I let anything happen to you.”
My heart swelled.
“I shouldn’t have said those things. I was trying to protect you. I thought if I put some distance—”
“I know,” I whispered. “That’s why I put your watch back on. I know you were doing it for me.”
His eyes gleamed silver as he stared at me. “I love you, Ophelia. Tomorrow, I’m putting the biggest ring in Manhattan on your finger, so every bastard in this city knows you’re mine.”
I let out a sob, just as sirens ricocheted across the water. The adrenalin must be messing with his brain.
“Do you really mean that?”
“Baby, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
He kissed me then. It wasn’t gentle. His hand slid into my wet hair, holding me in place as his mouth crashed against mine with all the fear he’d been carrying since I’d been taken.
It wasn’t a question or a celebration. It was a claim.
A desperate, furious reassurance that I was alive, that I was standing in his arms, that no one had managed to take me from him.
When he finally pulled back, his eyes were filled with a look I recognized.
“I love you too,” I whispered, as the sirens grew much louder.
He pressed his lips against mine one more time, then, eyes sparkling, said, “Hold that thought. We’ve got to go.”
Mikhail’s men had already loaded Vincent’s body into the back of a van. Mikhail himself was nowhere to be seen.
Dante took my hand, lacing his fingers tightly through mine, and together we ran for the SUV. We pulled away, disappearing around the corner just as the docks were lit up by NYPD squad cars.