Father Benedict gives a faint cry as Marco yanks him forward; he looks about as pale as Fuscone right now, and when Luca turns to look at him, he visibly quails.
“Is that so?” Luca says softly. “Well, Father. Just what are we to do with you?”
“I won’t tell,” the priest splutters. “I won’t say anything!”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.” With Frank now on the floor and Aidan ministering to him, Luca comes back over to me and puts a blood-stained arm around my waist. But I’m grateful for the support, because my adrenaline is fading away, leaving me shaky and weak. “No. There are only two options for you, Father. I think I’ll leave it up to my husband to decide.” He pulls me into his arms and kisses my forehead, my nose, my lips; my eyes close and I press my face into his neck, breathing him in.
For a moment, I thought I’d never see him again. For a moment, I was ready to die, and not in my old crazy way where I sought out Death as a dare. No. Now I’m just tired of watching people leave this world.
“What’s it to be, baby bird?” Luca murmurs in my ear. “A killing or a kidnapping?”
“No more,” I say to him. “Please.”
He understands exactly what I mean.
“Alright, Father. Today’s your lucky day. If it were up to me, I’d gift you a very slow and painful death. But my husband’s capacity for mercy far exceeds my own. You’ll live.”
“Oh, thank God, thank God,” the priest cries, sinking to his knees.
“You should give your thanks to Finch,” Luca corrects him coldly. “Although I doubt he wants them.”
“No,” I say, pulling Luca even closer. “All I want is to go the fuckhome.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Luca
“We have to leave first thing,” I say to Finch. He’s sitting in bed staring at me, and has said almost nothing since I got him home. I’m starting to worry that he’s going into a PTSD shutdown, but then he shrugs at me.
“I don’t care where we go.”
I’m pulling off my clothes feeling as tired as I ever have. One glance at my hands tells me I need to scrub them again before I come to bed; Frank’s blood is still black under my fingernails.
I killed a Family Boss with no warning and no blessing from the Commission—not that they ever would have given it—and in front of a corrupt priest who won’t hesitate to spill to the authorities when questioned.
Once he’s given his liberty, of course. For now, he’s in Marco’s care. Finch and Marco both tried to convince me to let the other churchman go. Aidan the Seminarian was obviously grateful to me. I guess being on the wrong end of a gun changed his perspective a little. But I know how soon gratitude for having your life saved can turn sour.
Still, I was grateful in turn that he shielded Finch. So we all compromised, and Aidan agreed to go on a brief vacation with Father Benedict, under the watchful eye of Marco Rossetti. Angelo and Hudson missed all the action around the back of the church, but at least they were around to help clean up.
“That brother of yours is going to get himself killed one day,” Marco said to me before he drove off with the holy hostages.
He’s not wrong.
Frank is in surgery right now, and Hudson went with him to the hospital. Meanwhile, Finch and I need to quietly get out of New York before the Fuscones and Clemenzas realize what’s happened and, more importantly, who’s to blame.
Killing Fuscone has wiped out any chance at all I’ve had of regaining the Commission’s favor. But worse, it will only give our enemies extra incentive to see us dead.
Correction: humiliated, tortured, andthendead.
“Wherever you wanna go,” Finch says, his voice far away. “Mexico. Colombia. Uruguay? Wherever.”
“The further away from the cartels, the better. Who knows what partnerships the Commission has down south. No, I was thinking Canada. Somewhere regional, not a city.”
“Why can’t we fly down to the islands and spend some time with Cee?” he asks wistfully.
“Because that just makes us a more attractive target if anyone finds out where we are. I won’t put Celia and the baby in danger. I’ve asked more than I should ever have asked of Frank, and he almost got himself killed tonight. Now it’s my turn to make surehe’ssafe. Besides, I don’t want to be too far away from home. I want to make sure I can be where I’m needed,whenI’m needed.”
“Ineed you,” he says, so plaintively that it just breaks my damn heart, and I climb onto the bed and hug him tight.
