Like I’m nothing but a Titone toy, to be snatched by other men at will.
“Helped you,” he corrects me, going back to that same stupid word again.
“And how, exactly, have youhelpedme?”
Another line of bright light moves across his features.Those golden eyes glint.There’s a controlled ferocity in them, in the endless patience they seem to exhibit.Like some cool, coiling creature in a jungle.A python deciding if I’m prey, one who’ll wait as long as it takes to swallow me.
“Whatever you may think,” he says, “and whatever my motivations, I’ve certainly handled you more gently than your bloodied pursuer so far.Who was he, by the way?”
I don’t miss the slight tension in the question.His eyes sharpen in the gloom.
I can’t tell him it was Alessandro Messina.If he knows anything about anything that goes on in New York, which he probably does, it’ll give away my identity immediately.Curse has already told me that Marco’s murder has been uncovered.No doubt news has spread that Marco’s new, young wife has disappeared.And now, here I am, a strange young woman in Toronto, pursued by both the Messina line and the Titones.Who the hell else could I be?
“Who do you think I am?”I ask by way of reply.He did say he had a suspicion about my identity.Might as well confirm what he knows now.
I can feel his gaze on me in the dark.
“I think,” he says, a smoothly quiet rumble, “that you are very far from home.”
The car stops.
“Speaking of which,” he adds, “we have now reached mine.”
He keeps his voice just as low and smooth as before when he speaks next, but I don’t miss the steel in the command, the unforgiving metal of it.“Get out of the car.”
The driver, Luca, exits and then stations himself right outside my car door, as if expecting me to run.A moment later, Severu joins him.Standing side by side, with darkness largely obscuring their faces, they could be twins.They’re the same height, have the same athletic build, and hold themselves the same way.Severu looks like he could be in his early forties, Luca his early twenties.Maybe they are father and son.
A huge stone house looms behind them, its roof dusted with the falling snow.
I move to get out of the car, then stop.
“You said that, even if you don’t care about what I want, you’re still helping me.”My breath mists before me, my words a fogged spell in the air.For the first time, now that my mad sprint through Toronto’s downtown is done, and adrenaline has given way to a throbbing exhaustion, I notice how cold it is without my jacket.Goosebumps rise, and I shake.I force my next words out through chattering teeth.“Are you going to help get me back to my fiancé?Or not?”
“First, we must establish whether your fiancé is even still alive,” Severu says.Flat, calm.Business-like.I want to vomit.“I can’t imagine that he’s let you go willingly, allowing another man with a gun to hunt you in the streets, if he’s the picture of good health.”
The picture of good health.
Another picture enters my mind.Curse slumped over the table, tattooed fingers outstretched.Black ink, black hair, black clothing.Pale skin.Golden light.Spilled water.
He was still breathing when I left him.I cling to that fact even as my heart clenches like a fist.
“And if he’s not?”I force myself to ask.I need to know what he’ll do if Curse isn’t alive to look for me.If he finds out who I am for certain…
Will he try to keep me for himself?Or barter me away to New York?
“Then Elio and I will determine next steps,” he says.Maybe he senses some confusion in me, or relief.Because he gives a soft chuckle.“What?Did you think I would hold you here as my prisoner?That tends to be more of a Titone technique.”
“I wasn’t Curse’s prisoner.”
I say it quickly.Automatically.
Even while the steel of his handcuffs clinks in my head.
“I wasn’t talking about you,” Severu says.“I was talking about Deirdre Titone, née O’Malley.”
Deirdre.I remember the name Curse called her – Elio’s wife.I don’t know anything else about their story or how they met and married.What does he mean by calling her a prisoner of the Titones?Is she safe?
Will I be safe, getting in contact with Elio?Will I become the prisoner of the elder Titone brother, instead of the wife of the younger?
