I looked back at him and thought, with a clarity that was entirely inconvenient, that I had run from the wrong family.
I pushed that thought down and lifted my chin.
"Ms. Avola." His voice was different from Lorenzo's — quieter, more deliberate, the voice of a man who had learned that the right word carried more weight than volume. He took the seat Lorenzo had vacated without being asked. Lorenzo moved to stand with the others without being told. "I think you and I need to have a conversation."
I was dead. He might as well just put a bullet between my eyes. There was no good outcome from this. Why hadn’t I just gone to some small town in the middle of the country where the mafia wasn’t involved?
Right. There's some type of mafia everywhere, CeCe, you know that. No matter where you are, they will find you. There goes my brain, working overtime again, always stating the obvious.
Folding my hands on the table, I sat up straighter and stared back at him. “I wasn’t aware. I needed to alert anyone. That’s no longer my life, and I want this conversation to be over.” My words were forceful, and I watched amusement fill this man’s eyes as I tried to remove myself from the situation at hand.
“That was very good, but you don’t just remove yourself from the mafia. There are rules and expectations. The expectation for you was to let my family know you were in my city.” He shifted, and I held my breath, waiting for the gun.
It wouldn’t be the first gun I’d had pointed at me, but I hoped it wouldn’t happen again. “Wait, what did you say your name was?” I needed to think, stall whatever this man thought was going to happen.
“My name is Constantine Venosa.”
“Fucking Venosas,” I said without much thought. It was how my father talked about them and, in turn, how I’d come to know them.
“Well, as much as I would like to know what you mean by that, and I assure you, we’ll get to it, I have more importantmatters to discuss with you, Signora Avola. But we won’t be doing it here. Your shift is over.” He looked at me with narrowed eyes that seemed to bore through me and know exactly what I was thinking. “I will explain to Jacob that you’re leaving and pay him for the income that will be lost without an employee for the day.” Constantine stood and held out his hand for me. There was no way I'd be accepting help from him, or leaving this building.
The man who hadn’t blinked the entire time we’d been here pressed the bell on the doorway, signaling Jacob to return. The old man ran down the stairs and stopped dead in his tracks when he saw the four men still in his shop.
“I’m afraid I need to take Signora Avola with me. Here is money to get you through the next few days without her. I will be in touch with her return.” Venosa took a roll of cash out of his pocket and placed it in front of Jacob.
“What did you do, girl?” Jacob asked, staring at the money.
“I have the wrong fucking last name apparently,” I grumbled. Walking to the back, I grabbed my jacket before following the man out the door. There was no running. Both giants flanked me and, even if I wanted to escape, I would end up with a bullet in my back.
CHAPTER 4
CONSTANTINE
Ihad expected some hesitation, but she was a good princess. She knew there was no getting away, and if she tried it would only end badly for her. Although I don't make a habit of shooting innocent women.
She'd walked out of the coffee shop ahead of me without being told, shoulders straight, jacket pulled against the December cold, not looking back. That told me something. She was frightened — I could see it in the careful way she was holding herself together — but she wasn't going to let it show more than she could help. That kind of composure was either trained or earned, and given what I knew about her father, probably both.
Lorenzo held the car door and she got in without hesitating. I walked around to the other side and settled in beside her.
"Privacy." I said it quietly but my men heard it. The partition rose without a word.
For a moment neither of us spoke. She was looking straight ahead, her hands folded in her lap with the deliberate stillness of someone who had learned to occupy as little space as possible.Outside, Chicago moved past the windows in the gray December light.
"Fucking Venosas." I shifted to look at her and arched my brow.
She closed her eyes briefly. "I said that out loud in the coffee shop."
"You did."
"I'm sorry." She turned to look at me then, and I could see the calculation behind her eyes — how much to give, how much to hold back. "It's a reflex. Any time your family name came up, my grandfather and father would say it. I was nervous and not thinking. It was rude and I'm not a rude person."
She looked down at her hands and I watched her jaw tighten slightly, the expression of someone annoyed at themselves for showing something they hadn't meant to show.
"Well, I can't fault you for that," I said. "Your last name evokes a lot of anger in my family as well." I had to laugh, because there was something genuinely absurd about it when you looked at it directly — two people sitting in the back of a car, two generations removed from a feud neither of us had started, both of us carrying it like luggage we'd never been given the option to put down. "Why are you in the US?"
She crossed her arms and looked back out the window. "Where are you taking me?"
"To my home. There are things I need to discuss with you that can't be done out in the open."
