EleniI shuffle through the hangers in the walk-in closet attached to the bedroom in the city apartment Dante showed me just before everything went wrong a few weeks ago. Classes start tomorrow. Tomorrow! And I haven’t even thought about what I’m going to wear yet. Most of my things from the house have been shipped here, but as I flick through them, all I can think about is how much longer they’re going to fit me for. Leather pants? Silk camisoles? I couldn’t have picked clothes with less stretch if I wanted to.Someone leans on their horn outside, and I’ve lived here way too long to jump, but the city noises are still abrupt after so long away from them. The cell the Russians kept me in was almost completely silent, and there are no neighbors by the safehouse. I missed the noise. I think.My mind drifts to the house on Staten Island, apparently empty right now. It wasn’t silent there by any means, just quieter. Quiet enough that I should’ve been able to hear the sirens headed for bur
Dante“No,” Wing says. “We’re not getting involved.”I scowl at the four other half-lit men in the back of the mahjong house in Chinatown. “What, does he have you all by the balls?”“No,” another triad leader, Chan, replies. “We talked before you arrived. He speaks our consensus. It’s too dangerous.”I turn to Tony, expecting him to be just as shocked as I am. The fucking triads, backing down? Tony looks back at me evenly. Fuck, he’s right. I need to keep goddamn cool.“What changed?” I ask.Wing sighs. “The feds leave a wide trail.”I grimace. “Don’t tell me this is about the deaths in Brighton.”“What else?” Chan slams his hand on the table. “Feds raid the Russians, get you your girl back, and who feels the pain? Russians. You know who will hurt if we help you?”“The triads.” Wing’s voice holds an air of finality.I shake my head. “They’re eating into your territory, aren’t they?”“Territory can be recovered.” Chan folds his arms. “Lives, not so much.”I stand. “Call me if you ever
Eleni“How did you get the gradient?” Kaley leans over and points at the background of the webpage on my laptop. “I feel like CSS is organizing against me. I can’t get it to work.”I glance at the front of the classroom, where Professor Villanueva taps away at her own computer. She said we weren’t supposed to help each other with this assignment. It’s a test of our initial capabilities. But then I look back at Kaley, who clasps her hands under her chin and flutters her eyelashes. God, she can’t be twenty yet, can she? After my semesters at night school, I was able to start Tandon a little ahead of the usual freshmen, but Kaley seems so young.Something in my stomach twinges. I swallow, praying it’s not midafternoon sickness. Thankfully, the rush of saliva that always precedes my attacks doesn’t appear. This twinge is more like what I imagine the baby kicking will feel like. When it can do that. Almost like the not-quite-baby inside me is telling me I should help out another at least r
EleniI fidget with the waistband of the leggings Dante packed in the bag for me to change into before entering the prison and wish they hadn’t taken my ring. Apparently, the whole “no metal allowed” thing isn’t really negotiable. A burly woman stands on the opposite side of the table from me, one hand on her thick baton and the other on a walkie-talkie. I clear my throat.“Vanessa?”She quirks an eyebrow at me.“Hank sent me.” I feel ridiculous. All these code words…it’s like I’m in a kid’s movie, not a women’s prison upstate.Still, that makes Vanessa hit something on her walkie that dims the constant static pouring from it a second before the door buzzes loudly. I look up.Escorted by two more guards, chained wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle, Camila stumbles in through the heavy door. She’s barely recognizable. Her long, beautiful hair shines with grease in its loose bun at the back of her neck. The orange jumpsuit does the opposite of her endless whites and pastels, turning her a
DanteI lean against the wall of the elevator chugging up the building to where Eleni waits and look at myself in the shiny black reflection. My suit nearly disappears, but my face sticks out like a sore thumb. If elevator reflections can be believed, I look pale and tired. In its defense, I feel pale and tired. It’s Friday, and I’ve barely seen El all week except to pack her off to the women’s prison to talk to a psychopath who kidnapped her. Even worse, I’ve spent almost the whole week at Piacere.Just thinking about my once-beautiful club hurts. My shoes and the bottoms of my pants are gray from tramping through ash, trying to find anything in the wreckage worth salvaging. Somebody located the door to the basement, which is mostly untouched, on Wednesday, so we’ve been in and out of there constantly. I’ve got a metric fuck-ton of booze and nowhere to sell it. The stage, the lights, the bars, all gone in one blaze. Two people fucking died. Going out to Piacere every day is a nightma
EleniDante stares down at me, his black eyes burning. A laugh bubbles in my chest. Camila is dead. She can never touch either of us or the baby again.“Did I ask you to kill her?” he says quietly.If I didn’t know him well enough to recognize the lilt of play in his voice even when he’s pretending to be exactly the mafia boss I met so long ago, I’d be frightened. Instead, I smile.“Did you ask me to go to the bathroom this morning?”He grabs my chin hard. “It seems I’ve been a bit lax in your training, pet. You’re acting out.”“I’m protecting this family.” I run my tongue over the tip of his thumb. “When you couldn’t.”He knows I don’t believe that, but I watch doubt flicker in his eyes for a second. His grip loosens.“Green?” I whisper.“Are you just trying to rile me up?” he replies.I nod. “I love you.”“I love you too.” He kisses the top of my head. “Green.”His hold on me tightens again as he snaps back into his persona. “I am more than happy to remind you what happens when you
Eleni“Thank you,” Mikey, one of Dante’s older capos, says in his gravelly voice. “I know Dante’s been pulling things together for a couple weeks now, but it didn’t feel right starting things up again without toasting the kid.”I swallow against a lump in my throat and glance at one of the pictures of Seb hung in the room. “I know what you mean. And thank you for your help out here.”He raises a glass. “Hey, I’ll take the credit, but most of it belongs to my Adrianna.”His wife, a slightly tidier version of the mafia wives I’ve grown used to in Staten Island, smiles. “Don’t let Mikey trick you. He strong-armed the owner into letting us have the place on such short notice.”I raise an eyebrow. The quiet event space over the bridge in Partridge is perfect, close enough to the city to get back if something happens but far enough that we all agreed the Russians wouldn’t try to crash. That said, I’m not sure I want someone strong-armed into it.“Adri!” He laughs. “I promised to coach softb
EleniAfter the funeral, Dante is quiet in the car. The windshield wipers fill the silence between us as we sit in traffic, headed back into the city.“Do you want to see Piacere?” he asks suddenly.I pluck at the hem of my dress. My stomach is still empty, grumbling in a way I know means I’m losing the next thing I put into it too, and I’m exhausted. But the club I spent so much time in this summer, the place Dante and I really met, is gone, and I haven’t really internalized that yet. Today seems like a day of saying goodbye to things. The secret growing inside me. What Seb and I could have been to each other, if only we had the time. I may as well look at the remains of the life I thought I was going to have when I entered Piacere that first night.“Yeah.”He twists the wheel, and we pull out of the traffic headed into Manhattan for the slightly lighter traffic aimed at our island. The long silence of the drive is almost meditative. Snippets of the last few months slide through my m
ChloeThe first few days after I learned that Mateo was no longer on this planet were a bit chaotic. Tony and his men had so much to do: cleaning up the mess, assigning the new positions each one of them would take when it came to protecting our family and the house, determining who would go back to dealing with the Saints’ businesses, and so on. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve managed to create a routine for myself and Ellie. It took me a while to process that I wouldn’t have to continue hiding or running away anymore, but eventually things just became… easier. It’s funny how easily and quickly humans get used to things. In the first few days, I was still scared to leave the house by myself, even with a couple of guards accompanying me, or Rocco taking me from place to place inside a bulletproof car. I would always watch over my shoulder, expecting someone to jump out of a bush or something and kidnap me–or worse–kill me.But Tony assured me he wouldn’t get rid of the security s
ChloeOur warm kiss turns into something more passionate as our hands begin to roam each other’s bodies. There are so many emotions bottled up inside us that it is hard to express them with words. Tony’s hands explore my body while he devours my mouth in a heated kiss, suffocating my moans. My head is still spinning from his confession that he loves me, and I can barely focus on what he’s doing. My distraction seems to catch his attention because he pulls away from me, his eyes studying my face carefully. “Is everything okay? We don’t need to do this if you don’t want to. I–”My lips are on his before he even finishes his sentence. Like hell I’d let him stop right now. I urge myself to be present, storing his confession for later, when I have time to dwell on it over and over without being interrupted. I wish I could’ve recorded it so I could listen to it whenever I need reassurance about how he feels about me.But this is Tony. I know he will shower me with affection and love whenev
ChloeAfter I welcome Tony home, I make sure to wake Ellie up so she can have dinner with us. She needs to eat something since she has been sleeping the whole afternoon, and she also needs to wake up now so she can get some sleep later. I’m not looking forward to staying up all night because she slept too much during the day.The three of us have dinner together as a family for the first time, and it just feels… right. Like how it’s always supposed to have been. Neither one of us brings up the elephant in the room. I’m sure we’ll have time to talk about it, but right now, I just want to enjoy this moment while I can. Watching Tony feed our daughter, playing with her, and getting her to laugh is just so adorable that my heart can barely take it.It’s a dream coming true right in front of my eyes.“Come on, baby. Let’s show Mommy how you’re a good girl who eats all her dinner,” he muses, making airplane sounds as he flies the spoon toward her gaping mouth.Ellie chuckles and opens wide
ChloeReuniting with Ellie and my mom felt overwhelming, although bittersweet. Even though I was beyond relieved and grateful to hold my daughter in my arms once more, my heart was shrinking by the minute, not knowing what Tony was up to.The Irish King’s bar I was brought to is surprisingly comfortable and welcoming. I was even more surprised when I found Cal playing with Ellie. The way she laughed at his exaggerated movements and jokes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this enchanted with another man before.After I settled down from the flight and kissed and hugged my family, Cal asked one of his employees from the bar to bring me something to eat. Mom and Ellie already had dinner since they arrived here earlier, and when the waitress returns with a tray filled with burgers, fries, and a chocolate milkshake, I almost let out a moan of pleasure.Only now have I realized how starving I am. I can’t even remember the last time I ate. So much has happened in the past twenty-four hours t
TonyMy vision turns red, and I clench my phone in my hand so hard that I hear it crack. “Send it to me. I’ll be on my way,” I inform him.Armando clears his throat, and I know he’s about to contradict me. “Shouldn’t we have a plan first, Boss? We have no idea what he’s been up to,” he wisely reminds me. I’m glad I have someone to make me see clearly now because all I can think of is putting a bullet hole through Mateo’s forehead and making sure he doesn’t take another breath in this world. “What do we know?” I ask, already starting the car.“They are in an abandoned warehouse outside the city. It’s not our territory, but that shouldn’t be a problem. No one really rules that part of town,” he explains firmly and professionally. “I have all men on hold, waiting for instructions on how we can best approach without being noticed.”“Do you think the cartel is waiting for us?” I have no fucking clue what Mateo was thinking when he invaded the safehouse to go after Chloe like that. It wa
TonyI warned Chloe not to even try and convince me of doing anything else other than going after Mateo and his men. I’d been doing my best to act cautiously, to consider every single possible outcome from this war, but after he ambushed Chloe at the safehouse, making her fight for her life, it left me blind with rage.My guilt didn’t help, either.I was so relieved when I found her on that dark street, wearing nothing but a robe covered in blood, that I could have cried when I held her in my arms. She felt so small, so vulnerable within my embrace that the monster dormant inside me snapped to life, and I simply couldn’t put this aside any longer. Even if I die, even if I don’t get to see her one last time, I will make sure to take Mateo down with me, so he never has the chance to lay a hand on my wife again. Or my daughter, for that matter.“Do I really have to go with Cal?” Chloe’s sweet voice asks from the bed, making me take my eyes off the phone and look at her. I promised her
Chloe“Listen,” Tony continues, still focused on the road. The police sirens get more and more distant as we drive away from the city, but I still don’t ask him where he is taking me. “I know you don’t want to think about it now, but I need to know what happened,” he requests in a gentle voice. I hear a hint of pain in it as well, but mostly, I can hear the guilt behind his words.I want to tell him none of this is his fault, but we’ll have time for that later. Right now, we just need to make sure no one else gets hurt, or worse, killed.I inhale sharply, steadying myself enough to share the recent events with him. I am strong, and I can do this, I tell myself. I’ve always told Tony I could handle it all, and even though I was scared as hell back there, I still managed to save myself.I can do this.“After you left, I spent a few more minutes in the office before I headed up to take a shower. I don’t think I was in there too long, but as soon as I stepped out, I heard the alarm go off
ChloeI should be dead.I was certain I’d be killed the moment I saw Mateo by the front door.I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look as mad as he looked a couple of minutes ago.Somehow, by the grace of God perhaps, when I saw him approaching me with that gun pointed at my face, I managed to take it from his hand after sparring with him and shot him in the shoulder. I think.I didn’t stay there to confirm. I didn’t wait to see if he was injured or not. I simply ran out of the house, not daring to look back, not even once. It’s been a few minutes, and I’m still blindly running through the neighborhood, trying to think of what to do or where to go. There’s no one on the street that I can ask for help, and even if there were, I’d be so afraid that Mateo would kill them for helping me that I don’t think I would ask for help anyway.It’s cold outside, and I’m still only wearing my shower robe, and even though I don’t dare to look back, too afraid of what I’ll see, I know I’m being follow
TonyComing here was a fucking mistake.Seeing Chloe did everything to me that I was trying to avoid. It just left me even more confused than before. We haven’t spent more than an hour together, and I still managed to screw it up.Being with her felt natural as if this was the only place I could be. Whenever I’m with her, holding her in my arms and feeling her close to me, everything just seems to go away. Every concern, every fear, every bad thought I ever had… I finally feel at peace.That’s the sort of effect she has on me. But I was not expecting her confession. Hearing her say she loves me and not being able to say it back shattered my heart in ways I can't explain. The look on her face will haunt me forever. It seems to have become a pattern lately. I can't seem to be able to stop hurting and disappointing her. I know what she expects from me, but unfortunately, I can't give it to her.It's clear to me that I have fallen for her, harder than I could ever have expected. It's a f