The words make me weak with relief. I press my forehead to his shoulder.
“Thank God,” I say. “I was so worried. They had people watching her; they said if I didn’t come quietly, they’d hurt her.”
“I want to hear everything, Bibi,” he says, “but we don’t have the time right now. We have to move. Are you fit to walk?”
I nod. “They didn’t hurt me.” I think of my bruised ribs. Now wouldn’t be the best time to mention them, I’m thinking.
“Good,” he says, pressing his lips to my forehead. He steps back, and his eyes land on the carafe still in his hand. “You thought to brain me with a carafe?” he asks, amused.
I shrug. “Someone, at least.”
I feel the rumble of laughter in his chest. “You’re trouble.” He sets it down, then grows serious and shoots me an intense look. “Follow me, don’t stray, and stay quiet.”
I nod.
He cracks the door and listens. Silence greets us except for some voices from a floor below floating up to us. No footsteps close.
“Now,” he mouths.
Giovanni slips a gun out from under his jacket and leads with it.
My breath hitches. I know who he is, but knowing and seeing are two different things. I have a feeling I’m about to learn a lot more about him.
We slip into the corridor. His hand closes around mine, and he puts my knuckles to the back of his belt in a silent order. We move along the wall where the sconces leave slivers of shadow between their pools of light. The runner softens our steps. I make myself roll my feet the way I’ve seen him do it.
We don’t walk toward the main landing, the foyer bright as day. The direction of the men’s voices, even their laughter, feels wrong in this house.
Instead, we walk to the back of the hall, into the dark.
Gio doesn’t so much as hesitate. He pivots us down the narrower service stairs tucked behind a door the color of the wall.
We take the steps sideways, fast and careful. Halfway down, voices lift from the second-floor hall to our left: “…sweep the north side again… check the windows…”
Gio stops on a dime, his hand flattening against my waist to still me. We wait while the voices fade, then drop the last six steps and slip through another door into a short passage that smells like polish and old stone.
A kitchen flashes by at the end of the hall. A man in shirtsleeves turns with a tray. Gio reverses us in one smooth pull, presses me into a narrow recess, and brings his palm lightly over my mouth. I feel his heart under my cheek, strong and steady, and try to match my breathing to it.
The man crosses the mouth of the passage without looking in. The tray clinks, the sound chasing him around the corner. We go again.
We hit the back corridor. Here, the lights are fewer; the carpet gives way to stone. Gio pauses at a closed door. A murmured conversation threads through: “—east hedge—two men—rotate—” He shakes his head once and moves us past to a door farther down.
Gio’s hand closes on the knob that will lead us outside. Then he freezes. I don’t hear anything at first, then a faint scrape, the kind a boot makes when it checks its footing.
The door swings in an inch from the other side.
Gio moves before the hinge can whisper. He meets the man in the gap, drives him backward into the dark with one forearm across the throat and the other hand clamping his mouth. The pistol in the guard’s grip never clears his hip—Gio wrenches the wrist, strips the gun, shoves it to his own waistband in the same breath.
The man thrashes once, twice. Gio shifts, knee pinning a thigh, shoulder grinding the breath out of him. No sound but a muffledchoke and the dull thud of impact. It lasts seconds. Then the weight under Gio slackens.
He eases the body down, checks for anything else on him, comes up with a spare magazine, and slides it into his pocket. His chest barely moves. Not a drop of sweat on him.
I stare at the man’s slack face, the way his arm lies wrong. My mouth is dry. I don’t know if he’s breathing. I don’t think he is.
I don’t think he ever will again.
Gio looks at me. The focus in his eyes is hard and absolute. For me. This is a man who would do anything for her. It should scare me.
It doesn’t.
