The whole ride back to The Bronx was the same way. Light, conversational, missing all the anger and resentment that had been between us in the past.
It was a turning point, I could feel it.
Well, you know, if he didn’t go and do something completely dickish again.
“What?” Primo asked when I let out a strange noise.
I half-turned in my seat to face him more, holding out a hand that had his brows furrowing. “Truce?” I asked.
The ghost of a smile on his lips was unexpectedly sweet.
“No, lamb,” he said, reaching to cup my jaw. “I’d rather seal the deal this way,” he said as his lips pressed down on mine.
Then he kissed me silly the rest of the way home, leaving me aching for more.
“Just gotta get inside,” he said, reading the hunger in my eyes as he turned from me to push the door open, reaching inside to hold a hand out for me.
Which I took.
Happily.
Knowing in my soul that things had really changed for us that night.
And it was only going to get better from there.
But it was right then that the gunshots rang out.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Isabella
There was a split second of stunned inaction where Primo’s wide-eyed gaze slipped to me.
But then he was yanking me down behind the opened door as he reached for his gun, looking out, listening, trying to figure out where the bullets were coming from even as his guards came running out from behind the building that was his business and our home.
Complete and utter shock overtook my whole system, wiping my mind blank, making my heartbeat pound, making my breathing go low and erratic.
I was frozen on the spot, feeling somehow both far too in the moment but also completely outside of the whole situation.
The gunshots rang out, some of them even from Primo’s gun from his crouched position, but the sounds seemed to come from very far away, almost as if I was under water and the world was heavily distorted because of it.
That is until I felt hands grabbing me.
And my fight-or-flight instinct decided to go with fight.
So I clawed and shrieked, unable to think anything but that I needed to stay with Primo.
“Take her!” Primo yelled, making me realize the hands were friend, not foe.
“No,” I cried, reaching out toward Primo as an arm went around my waist as another car pulled up to catty-corner the one we were ducked beside.
“Get her in the fucking safe room,” he yelled at whoever had me.
“No! Primo!” I shrieked as I was pulled away.
His gaze slipped to mine for a minute, dark, intense, but more so than that, worried.
If Primo was worried, then I needed to be pee-myself scared.
“Fucking now, Vissi!” Primo growled.
And just like that, I was lifted off my feet as gunfire rang out. It wasn’t until we were at the side of the building that I realized the shots had come from Primo and his men, that they were covering for Vissi and I as he got me out of the chaos.
“Put me down!” I hissed, fighting at his hands.
“I put you down, you run back out there like an idiot. Not only will Primo skin me alive, but your fucking hellion of a sister would come to feed my flesh back to me before killing me.”
And with that, he dragged me into the building.
But not all the way up to the top floor to cower in the closet like I’d needed to do the last time we were attacked.
No.
He brought me into the meat-packing floor, and down the hall of freezers until we got to the second-to-last one.
“In,” Vissi demanded after opening the door.
Inside was a freezer, technically. A walk-in like you’d see at any restaurant. With the thick metal walls.
But it was more than that, too.
There was a chair inside, wire racks filled with water and food, and what looked suspiciously like one of those compost toilet things in the corner.
Oh, and let’s not forget the weapons.
Primo had called it a safe room.
And I guess it was.
But it was the last place I was going to feel safe.
Trapped in a small space… yet again.
“No. No, I can’t. Take me upstairs,” I said, trying to back away, only to feel my wrist snagged by Vissi.
“It’s safe,” he said. “The walls are reinforced with bullet-resistant material. It is temperature-controlled. There is food and water. And once you lock it from the inside, no one can get in. It’s the safest place in the entire borough. And there is a camera feed right here,” he said, dragging me inside to show me the screen beside the door. “Only unlock the door if you see Primo and he tells you it’s safe, okay?”
“I can’t. You can’t put me in—“ I started, yanking away, moving out of the freezer. Just as a bullet ripped through the glass of the building, lodging in the wall.