Chapter 5
“I could have.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He took time before answering.
He approached the table, stopped opposite me, and placed his fingers against the wood as though asking permission from the object itself.
“Because I did not want to forget that you were braver than every man I have ever paid to be brave for me.”
The sentence caught me unprepared.
I stood and looked at him.
He was not wearing the Don’s expression.
His jacket was unbuttoned, the watch concealed, and the tie removed sometime during the journey.
His shirt was wrinkled across the chest where I had rested against him inside the secure house.
“Sit,” he said.
Then, more quietly, “Please.”
The word disarmed me more than he understood.
I sat.
He took the chair opposite, the same chair he occupied on Tuesday.
He rested his forearms on the table and watched me for so long that the silence began to hurt.
“The 1st kiss was a lie,” he said.
“It was a trick.”
“It was courage disguised as performance.”
“It succeeded because you understood within 2 seconds.”
“I understood because I had already been watching you.”
The statement reached through me.
I attempted to keep my expression neutral.
I failed.
“I will not pretend with you anymore,” he continued. “I will not offer a simple life or swear that my world is safe. I possess no safe world to give you, and you are too intelligent to believe me if I claimed otherwise.”
His voice remained low.
“I brought you here because this is where I saw you for the 1st time and because I needed to say the following in the place where everything began incorrectly.”
He extended 1 hand across the table with the palm open.
There was no ring, visible watch, or display of power.
Only the narrow scar crossing the side of his thumb.
“If you want to leave, I will not stop you. I’ll arrange a vehicle now with a driver of your choosing, and you never need to see me again.”
He held my eyes.
“Your father’s debts are settled. Helena’s protection remains. There are no conditions. You owe me nothing. You never did.”
I looked at his hand.
It was large, with long fingers and calluses in the places belonging to someone who had learned to fire a weapon before learning to write properly.
It had killed men.
It had wiped blood from my face on a staircase while rain struck the roof.
I looked toward the entrance.
The door was only several steps away.
I knew the position of the handle, the route to the subway, the way back to Queens, and the path into the life I possessed before Tuesday rearranged everything.
Then I looked at him.
I saw the man beneath the Don.
Tired, scarred, and dangerous.
Present.
He sat opposite in a chair that did not suit his clothing, his palm open as though asking permission to exist within my sight.
I did not trust my voice.
I raised my hand and placed it over his.
There was no ceremony.
It felt like signing something for which no paper existed.
His fingers closed around mine with a care bordering on reverence.
“Are you certain?”
“Ask me again tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Because tomorrow I will still be certain, and you need to become accustomed to hearing it.”
A low sound escaped him.
It was almost laughter.
The 6th crack appeared near his mouth.
I had counted them for too long.
I stood without releasing him.
He stood with me.
I moved around the table and stopped 1 hand’s width from his chest.
No shooter forced me closer.
There was no tray, apron, or audience.
Only us and the smell of fresh varnish.
I placed my hand against the back of his neck.
His short hair moved beneath my palm.
He lowered his face slowly and waited.
The waiting undid me.
I kissed him.
It was slow and chosen, the opposite of the 1st kiss.
There was no broken glass or invented name.
I tasted the coffee he had consumed hours earlier.
His breath caught when he understood it was real.
His hand came to my waist with the care of someone touching expensive glass.
When I moved back enough to see him, his expression had changed.
He no longer appeared to be holding anything away.
“Let’s go home,” he said.
The word home remained between us, entirely new.
We exited through the Victoria’s rear entrance.
The men inside the following car said nothing when Dante opened the door for me.
Renzo looked at him through the mirror and blinked once.
Dante answered with a small movement of his chin.
I understood that it was the nearest thing to a blessing his family would offer.
The penthouse elevator seemed to rise more slowly.
Dante did not kiss me.
He stood beside me with our fingers interlaced.
It was the most intimate experience of my life.
The doors opened.
The living room lights were low in the way he left them when expecting to return late.
We crossed toward the bedroom corridor.
I stopped beside the door and leaned against the wall.
Dante stood before me without touching.
“Final opportunity,” he said.
The corner of his mouth trembled.
“I will stop anything.”
“Stop requesting permission.”
I pulled his collar toward me.
The kiss was slower and more complete.
1 hand moved to the back of my neck.
The other followed the curve of my waist.
The embrace lasted too long for the door behind me to remain closed.
He opened it without releasing me.
We entered together.
The door closed gradually without a latch, urgency, or sound.
Hallway light disappeared through the narrowing space.
The remainder of the night belonged only to us.
I woke first.
Late-autumn light entered through the curtains.
The place beside me was empty but still warm.
Dante’s shirt lay across the reading chair with the carelessness of clothing removed by a man who had stopped rehearsing his gestures around me.
I sat slowly.
The bedroom carried a new scent made from both of us.
I put on his shirt because it was the nearest item and because a foolish part of me wanted to walk through the penthouse with his scent against my skin.
I entered the kitchen barefoot.
Coffee waited on the counter.
It was bitter, without milk or sugar, and strong enough to bite the tongue.
Dante had known how I drank it since the 2nd morning I spent in the penthouse.
He had preserved the information like an important number.
I lifted the cup and looked through the glass toward the balcony.
Dante stood outside barefoot, wearing dark pajama trousers without a shirt.
He spoke quietly in Italian through his telephone.
The words were short and deep.
I did not understand them, but I knew the tone.
It belonged to a man who controlled the day so several other people could sleep through the night.
The scars across his back were uncovered.
I smiled and drank.
At that exact moment, a thought moved through me like a quick shadow.
How had Dante known which table to use at the Victoria?
Why had he chosen the table beside the window on the same night my schedule changed unexpectedly?
I held the cup in both hands.
The porcelain cooled gradually.
I stared toward its rim as though the answer might have been painted there.
Stella had called Aldo at the last minute.
The window table had been reserved 3 weeks earlier.
Dante had watched me before requesting the menu with the calm of a man who might already have known me.
I drank again.
The coffee was perfect.
Perfection was precisely what Queens had taught me not to trust.
I pushed the thought aside, but not completely.
I told myself it was the suspicion of someone who had become happy too early.
The shadow remained inside my chest, approximately the size of a folder placed on a mahogany desk.
I knew I would have to examine it eventually.
The balcony door opened.
Dante entered and noticed his shirt on my body.
The expression crossing his face came close to becoming a real smile.
“Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
He crossed the kitchen, removed the cup carefully from my hands, and placed it on the counter.
Then he pressed his forehead against mine.
There were no weapons, escape routes, or lies inside the moment.
Only his breathing near my mouth and the scent of coffee between us.
“Ask me again,” I whispered.
He understood immediately.
“Are you certain?”
“I am.”
May you like
Nothing else needed to be said that morning.
Disclaimer: This story is fictional and created for entertainment purposes only. Any names, characters, places, or events are fictitious or used fictitiously. No real person or organization is intended to be portrayed.
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