Dante had taught me how to love myself again.
He’d taught me how to let someone in again.
How could I possibly give that up?
“Beau!” I screamed as I started to run from the room down the hall back up to my bedroom. I took the stairs two at a time. “Beau, I have to go!”
When I careened to a stop in my bedroom door, Beau was already beside my bed, calmly folding clothes into an open Louis Vuitton suitcase.
“I know,” he said, smiling sadly at me. “Of course, you do.”
I stood there and beamed at him like a lunatic until his smile cracked and spread wide too. And then we were laughing, laughing so hard our bellies ached. I ran to his side and threw my arms around him.
“I love you,” I said. “I’m sorry I don’t say it much.”
“Doesn’t mean I don’t know it,” he responded, hugging me tight. “Now, hurry up. You don’t want to miss his flight.”
“It’s Newark,” I said, panicking, throwing the rest of what Beau had on the bed into the case and zipping it up. “I can buy new clothes there. We have to go now.”
DANTE
“Ready, Boss?” Chen asked me from the front seat as we waited on the tarmac at Newark Airport for the plane to get clearance for a runway.
“Si, Chen, grazie,” I told him. “Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
He laughed. “As if I don’t get enough shit Stateside about being a non-Italian Made Man. I’ll save us both the hassle and hold down the fort here. God knows Marco and Jacopo can’t do shit by themselves.”
I chuckled, but it echoed vacantly in my chest.
“Right, well, in bocca al lupo, fratello,” I told him, leaning forward with my good arm to clap him on the shoulder. “I will see you soon.”
“Right, Boss,” he agreed, then hesitated. “I’m sorry, you know. She was something else.”
I nodded curtly, not ready to examine the wound to my chest. Not the insignificant bullet hole I’d have Frankie stitch up on the plane, but the gaping hole in my rib cage where Elena Lombardi ripped out my heart to keep it for her own.
I didn’t mind. I wanted her to have it.
But the pain was fucking excruciating.
I stepped from the car and made my way to the jet that would take Frankie and me back to the place that had started it all. It was an escape from jail, but it felt horribly like replacing one prison for another.
New York was a tepid fish pond compared to the shark-infested waters of Italia.
“Blood’s not your color,” Frankie told me as he met me at the base of the stairs with a few bags.
The rest of our shit was already on the plane. Bambi had packed it and had Bruno drive it over while we were en route from Brooklyn.
“If you’re going to crack bad jokes the entire flight, please, just shoot me in the head now and put me out of my misery,” I said dryly as we ascended.
“If you’re going to be grumpy the whole trip because you didn’t have the balls to make Elena come with us––”
“Stai zitto,” I snapped at him to shut up.
“Too soon?” he asked with faux innocence.
I was about to growl at him when a screech of car tires exploded in the silent night. Immediately, Frankie and I both pulled our guns.
A moment later, Chen rounded the plane again.
“What the hell is…?” I trailed off as he pulled to a stop at the base of the stairs and a familiar redhead appeared out the back door.
I blinked, wondering if the bullets had given me a concussion somehow.
“I see her too,” Frankie whispered.
“Dante,” Elena called as Chen and Beau both emerged from the vehicle and went to the trunk. “I’m coming with you.”
My chest was so tight I couldn’t fucking breathe.
“I didn’t ask you,” I told her.
Because this wasn’t a joke.
We weren’t going on vacation to Bora fucking Bora.
We were going on the run.
As in I was jumping bail and facing serious prison time for skipping the country, and I’d have to be careful about every single move I made from here on in.
“I don’t care,” she yelled back. “I’m coming.”
I stared down at her, thinking that even with wet hair and no makeup, Elena Lombardi took exquisite to a new level. Cazzato, but I wanted her. I needed her. The idea of leaving her behind tore me up from the inside out.
But I couldn’t be that selfish.
How could I take her from every single thing she had ever known and throw her straight into the deep end of my criminal life?
She turned on her heel to collect her bag from Chen, giving him a kiss on the cheek, before she wrapped Beau in a big, long hug.
She was saying her goodbyes.