He goes still under my hand. “Do you?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. “Everyone in Florence does. They staked out Luce di Bologna as theirs and ate there all the time. Sorrentino hated it but couldn’t do anything. He kept the rest of us away from their table as much as he could.”
“So you never had contact with them?” he asks.
“Of course I did. Sorrentino couldn’t be there all the time,” I say, recalling the way they would comb me with their eyes hungrily. I shivered and snuggled deeper into Gio’s side. “They would give the servers a hard time. The boys, they would torment. And the girls…” I shake my head. “They made them uncomfortable. Which is the most polite way I can put it. So when Sorrentino wasn’t there—”
“You dealt with them,” Gio finishes.
I nod.
“You’re safe now, Bibi,” he murmurs in my ear, pulling me closer. “You’ll never see the likes of them again. I swear it.”
“You can’t watch me all day every day, Gio,” I say.
“No, but I can make sure they find dealing with us… unpleasant,” he says. “Don’t you worry about that now.”
“Okay,” I say quietly. Then I notice the direction we’re heading in isn’t toward my house or his penthouse. “Where are we going?”
“We’ll stay at Luca’s tonight. It’s safest,” he says. “They’re expecting us.”
I think about the fact that I just really want a shower, a change of clothes, and a warm bed. With Gio at my side. I’m not really up for dealing with more people, but I guess I can’t exactly turn it away right now.
Not when they risked so much to rescue me.
Epilogue
Giovanni
Luca’s office holds all of us. Jackets off, smudged faces, knuckles scraped. Nico’s got a cut along his hairline; Antonio’s shirt is marked where someone grabbed him; Vito’s breathing like he ran stairs. Roberto is neat by instinct, but even he’s smudged at the cuff. Luca is the only one who looks like he hasn’t been through hell. And it’s only because Elena didn’t want him joining the raid on the warehouse.
Bianca is upstairs in the borrowed room. The shower kicked on the second we walked in. By the time we arrived, she looked dead on her feet, adrenaline burned out, and nothing left.
All I wanted was to take her in my arms, wash the night off her, and put her to bed. Next to me. But there are things to finish.
We don’t bother to sit, each leaning against something. Me, ready to finish and go.
Antonio reaches into his bag and comes up with an old gray flip phone, the kind that survives a fall.
“Want to do the honors?” He holds it out to me.
“My pleasure.”
The plastic is warm in my palm. I key in a number and press call. The line rings in my ear. Once. Twice. Three times. I hang up.
We don’t talk. We don’t have to. We wait.
Even across town, the sound reaches us. Deep first, then a hard crack that rolls under the floors and through the glass.
Luca’s eyes lift a fraction. Vito’s mouth tilts into a smirk of satisfaction. Somewhere in the house, Alessandra fusses, and Elena’s voice hushes her.
I picture the map we laid out: the load-bearing points under the east wing, the service tunnel that would carry heat and power, the shaped charges tucked behind conduit, the last gift under Adriano’s office floor set to wake on that call. Antonio prepped the timings. Nico checked the runs. I placed the last explosive myself.
If Adriano died in the blast, all the better.
If he lived, he heard us just fine. And he learned the only lesson that matters: don’t touch what’s mine.
I leave the others with their bruises and plans and take the stairs two at a time. The borrowed room is dim. Steam edges the bathroom door. I don’t bother to knock, just go in.
