Eleni
Dante is all around me, all over me, even dangling from my neck in the form of this new tracker, and I melt into him. His breath is hot on my neck, and his fingers are hard on my nipple, under my shirt and bra.
“I’m going to stop now,” he says, “and we’re going to watch some TV. A good girl wouldn’t complain. And she certainly wouldn’t try to do anything to change my mind. Do you understand?”
I nod. I just have to prove I can resist him. He releases my breast, pulls his hand out of my shirt, and turns on the TV. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. He’s breathing heavily, and his cock already tents his pants a little. Maybe this isn’t just about me. Maybe it’s a contest of wills. And that, I can win, even if Dante’s supposed to be the one in charge.
I glance up at the motionless fan overhead. “It’s broken.”
“Really?” Dan
Dante“What do you think?” Eleni twirls, showing off the suit she picked out for the occasion.I smile from my spot on her bed. “Perfect.”And it is. I figured, since we couldn’t do anything real about Luca yet, El could be let in on a little of the planning. After the necklace, and our rendezvous on the couch, it was harder to forget how strong she was. And she threatened to start following me in the car I bought her. So I set up a face-to-face with Thano to get them officially acquainted, and Eleni went online shopping in secret, leading to the all-black suit she’s sporting now. She’s obviously teasing me, but she looks fucking incredible. The knee-length skirt fit her like a glove, and she’s swapped out the tie I would wear for some tight, black necklace that highlights the line of her throat. She’s pulled her hair up in a bun, leaving only a few curls loose to frame her face, and the heels s
EleniI blink awake to an ache in the back of my head so intense that, for a moment, I expect to see a cheap couch and smell gas like I did in the basement of Frank Lombardi’s garage. But the surface underneath me is cheap vinyl, like a couch from the fifties, and I smell…salt? I run my hand over the back of my head and find a huge bump.Wait, I run my hand over my head? I’m not restrained. For a split second, I let myself hope I missed the fight while unconscious, that I’m already in some new safe house of Dante’s. I open my eyes a crack and peek around.No such luck. Men with guns parade through the warehouse around me. I lay on exactly the sort of couch I was picturing, which happens to be blue, against one wall. Most of the men wear T-shirts from the garage and barely ever stop touching their guns. My heart pounds. Luca has me. He…what, convinced Thano to turn on Dante? The mafia politics are too hard to fo
EleniThe door slams open, and I startle out of the fetal position I’ve been curled in since Luca left. I haven’t even buttoned my blouse.Luca sighs. “Well, I was really hoping to get a look at that pussy of yours, but your tits will have to do.”I stare up at him blankly. Don’t say anything that could hurt Mama. He sneers at me, his lower lip still matted with blood. The rage I’m tamping down flares gleefully when I see that.He rolls his eyes and hauls me to my feet by one arm. Thankfully, he doesn’t grab the one attached to the hand he stepped on. Small miracles.The men whistle and leer as he leads me through the warehouse again, to a different section. I keep my gaze on the ground as much as I can. For Mama’s sake, I do not memorize these men’s faces so I could destroy them later. I know how to behave.But when Luca leads me to a clearing in the high shelves, and I see Dante, Tony, and a bruised Seb, everything else falls away. He found me, just like I knew he would. And he’s sa
DanteMy bullet pings off a metal shelf as Luca Lombardi ducks at the last moment, dragging El down with him. She yelps and tries to disentangle his fingers from her hair. My vision narrows to her, half-dressed on this filthy warehouse floor. She looks so vulnerable, nothing like the iron woman who tried to stand up to him moments ago. How dare he expose her like that, how dare he grope her with his fucking gun like a piece of meat, how dare he threaten—Tony drags me down behind a table I didn’t realize he flipped over for cover. “Head in the game, asshole.”“Fuck off.” I reload my gun. I don’t want to miss my shot on Luca because I emptied a chamber into a fucking shelf.Tony slams me against the table. “Head in the game, or I’m dragging your ass outside and chaining you to the car until it’s over.”I grit my teeth and try to swallow down enough of the white-hot anger that filled me and made me fire that first shot. I can’t save El if I’m dead. There’s no life to share with her if I
EleniThe world slows around me. Gravel crunches under my bare feet. Oh, god, how has this happened? Everything hurts as I sprint across the warehouse parking lot to where Dante fell.Gouts of crimson blood stains the rocks in front of him. My heart hammers, drowning out voices and gunfire and anything else. I drop to my knees and skid the rest of the distance, barely noticing the pain as my skin shreds. His eyelids flutter. Not dead. Yet.“Eleni.” He reaches for me with a weak smile.My heart is in my throat. I run my hands over his chest, not bothering to be careful, until I find a patch of his suit soaked through with blood. Right in the middle of his chest. Tears fill my eyes, magnifying the shine on something a bit behind him.His gun.Luca begins laughing. “Looks like we’ve got more than one night to enjoy, Ellie.”My feet move before I know what’s going on. All I know is that Luca has taken too much from me. I’m tired of hiding, of waiting, of preparing. I snatch Dante’s gun ou
EleniI stare out of the wide window in the bedroom I used to share with Mama over the Narrows. The setting sun glints off the water, and my heartbeat pounds slowly in my ears. I don’t remember coming back to Staten Island. I don’t know if someone drove me, or I drove myself, or if I walked. I changed at some point into a soft dress. Dante’s blood remains on my hands. Other than that, all I know is this view, my heartbeat in my ears, and the uncertain sense that everything has changed.Dante is in a hospital somewhere. I think. Or he’s dead in the back of an ambulance or the doctor’s car. That knowledge washes over me numbly. An hour ago—a day ago, it would have rocked me to my core. Torn me apart. There’s a real chance I’ll never look into Dante’s dark eyes and see love looking back at me again. I am alone in America. But in the wake of what he said, I can’t shake the feeling I was alone in America already.Christos is dead. That does ache. As much as I thought Luca killed him, part
DanteI open my eyes to see a popcorn ceiling overhead. Before I can finish thinking how much I fucking hate popcorn ceilings, a pain like I’ve never felt before rips through my chest. I grunt and try to twist away from it. My cheek meets a plastic couch cover, and I recoil. Where the fuck am I? Glancing around as much as I can without agitating whatever’s going on in my chest yields little. Puke-brown walls. The back of the couch I seem to be laying on, a grandmotherly floral print.Popcorn fucking ceilings. I inhale and smell…soup? Chicken soup, I think, and medicinal alcohol. None of this makes any goddamn sense, and I feel like shit. My mouth is dry like I got blackout drunk and collapsed in someone’s shithole apartment, but I haven’t done that since college. Getting that drunk is just offering my enemies an opportunity at this point. But I can’t piece enough memories together to come up with another idea.Finally, I grit my teeth against the pain and lever myself up a little.
EleniI pull into the complex of warehouses on the docks in the bright-blue sedan Dante bought me. It arrived a couple days after our run-in with Luca. At first, I was going to ignore it, like the tracking necklace I took off after that first meeting and haven’t moved from my nightstand since, but it turns out running a syndicate requires a lot of driving.Gianna turns up the radio. “Well, I think you’re crazy.”I expected her to be furious with me after I shot John. Still, I refused to let Tony give her the news, after all she’s done for me. When she hugged me and said it was a long time coming, I asked her to be my right hand. No matter what he said, Tony was still Dante’s. And I didn’t want anything of Dante’s around to make me think of him, even after I found out he was recuperating in hiding.“No one takes me seriously when I pull up in this thing,” I complain. “It’s like a neon sign, begging them to treat me like a little girl.”“It’s your favorite color!” She leans back against
ChloeThe first few days after I learned that Mateo was no longer on this planet were a bit chaotic. Tony and his men had so much to do: cleaning up the mess, assigning the new positions each one of them would take when it came to protecting our family and the house, determining who would go back to dealing with the Saints’ businesses, and so on. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve managed to create a routine for myself and Ellie. It took me a while to process that I wouldn’t have to continue hiding or running away anymore, but eventually things just became… easier. It’s funny how easily and quickly humans get used to things. In the first few days, I was still scared to leave the house by myself, even with a couple of guards accompanying me, or Rocco taking me from place to place inside a bulletproof car. I would always watch over my shoulder, expecting someone to jump out of a bush or something and kidnap me–or worse–kill me.But Tony assured me he wouldn’t get rid of the security s
ChloeOur warm kiss turns into something more passionate as our hands begin to roam each other’s bodies. There are so many emotions bottled up inside us that it is hard to express them with words. Tony’s hands explore my body while he devours my mouth in a heated kiss, suffocating my moans. My head is still spinning from his confession that he loves me, and I can barely focus on what he’s doing. My distraction seems to catch his attention because he pulls away from me, his eyes studying my face carefully. “Is everything okay? We don’t need to do this if you don’t want to. I–”My lips are on his before he even finishes his sentence. Like hell I’d let him stop right now. I urge myself to be present, storing his confession for later, when I have time to dwell on it over and over without being interrupted. I wish I could’ve recorded it so I could listen to it whenever I need reassurance about how he feels about me.But this is Tony. I know he will shower me with affection and love whenev
ChloeAfter I welcome Tony home, I make sure to wake Ellie up so she can have dinner with us. She needs to eat something since she has been sleeping the whole afternoon, and she also needs to wake up now so she can get some sleep later. I’m not looking forward to staying up all night because she slept too much during the day.The three of us have dinner together as a family for the first time, and it just feels… right. Like how it’s always supposed to have been. Neither one of us brings up the elephant in the room. I’m sure we’ll have time to talk about it, but right now, I just want to enjoy this moment while I can. Watching Tony feed our daughter, playing with her, and getting her to laugh is just so adorable that my heart can barely take it.It’s a dream coming true right in front of my eyes.“Come on, baby. Let’s show Mommy how you’re a good girl who eats all her dinner,” he muses, making airplane sounds as he flies the spoon toward her gaping mouth.Ellie chuckles and opens wide
ChloeReuniting with Ellie and my mom felt overwhelming, although bittersweet. Even though I was beyond relieved and grateful to hold my daughter in my arms once more, my heart was shrinking by the minute, not knowing what Tony was up to.The Irish King’s bar I was brought to is surprisingly comfortable and welcoming. I was even more surprised when I found Cal playing with Ellie. The way she laughed at his exaggerated movements and jokes, I don’t think I’ve ever seen her this enchanted with another man before.After I settled down from the flight and kissed and hugged my family, Cal asked one of his employees from the bar to bring me something to eat. Mom and Ellie already had dinner since they arrived here earlier, and when the waitress returns with a tray filled with burgers, fries, and a chocolate milkshake, I almost let out a moan of pleasure.Only now have I realized how starving I am. I can’t even remember the last time I ate. So much has happened in the past twenty-four hours t
TonyMy vision turns red, and I clench my phone in my hand so hard that I hear it crack. “Send it to me. I’ll be on my way,” I inform him.Armando clears his throat, and I know he’s about to contradict me. “Shouldn’t we have a plan first, Boss? We have no idea what he’s been up to,” he wisely reminds me. I’m glad I have someone to make me see clearly now because all I can think of is putting a bullet hole through Mateo’s forehead and making sure he doesn’t take another breath in this world. “What do we know?” I ask, already starting the car.“They are in an abandoned warehouse outside the city. It’s not our territory, but that shouldn’t be a problem. No one really rules that part of town,” he explains firmly and professionally. “I have all men on hold, waiting for instructions on how we can best approach without being noticed.”“Do you think the cartel is waiting for us?” I have no fucking clue what Mateo was thinking when he invaded the safehouse to go after Chloe like that. It wa
TonyI warned Chloe not to even try and convince me of doing anything else other than going after Mateo and his men. I’d been doing my best to act cautiously, to consider every single possible outcome from this war, but after he ambushed Chloe at the safehouse, making her fight for her life, it left me blind with rage.My guilt didn’t help, either.I was so relieved when I found her on that dark street, wearing nothing but a robe covered in blood, that I could have cried when I held her in my arms. She felt so small, so vulnerable within my embrace that the monster dormant inside me snapped to life, and I simply couldn’t put this aside any longer. Even if I die, even if I don’t get to see her one last time, I will make sure to take Mateo down with me, so he never has the chance to lay a hand on my wife again. Or my daughter, for that matter.“Do I really have to go with Cal?” Chloe’s sweet voice asks from the bed, making me take my eyes off the phone and look at her. I promised her
Chloe“Listen,” Tony continues, still focused on the road. The police sirens get more and more distant as we drive away from the city, but I still don’t ask him where he is taking me. “I know you don’t want to think about it now, but I need to know what happened,” he requests in a gentle voice. I hear a hint of pain in it as well, but mostly, I can hear the guilt behind his words.I want to tell him none of this is his fault, but we’ll have time for that later. Right now, we just need to make sure no one else gets hurt, or worse, killed.I inhale sharply, steadying myself enough to share the recent events with him. I am strong, and I can do this, I tell myself. I’ve always told Tony I could handle it all, and even though I was scared as hell back there, I still managed to save myself.I can do this.“After you left, I spent a few more minutes in the office before I headed up to take a shower. I don’t think I was in there too long, but as soon as I stepped out, I heard the alarm go off
ChloeI should be dead.I was certain I’d be killed the moment I saw Mateo by the front door.I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look as mad as he looked a couple of minutes ago.Somehow, by the grace of God perhaps, when I saw him approaching me with that gun pointed at my face, I managed to take it from his hand after sparring with him and shot him in the shoulder. I think.I didn’t stay there to confirm. I didn’t wait to see if he was injured or not. I simply ran out of the house, not daring to look back, not even once. It’s been a few minutes, and I’m still blindly running through the neighborhood, trying to think of what to do or where to go. There’s no one on the street that I can ask for help, and even if there were, I’d be so afraid that Mateo would kill them for helping me that I don’t think I would ask for help anyway.It’s cold outside, and I’m still only wearing my shower robe, and even though I don’t dare to look back, too afraid of what I’ll see, I know I’m being follow
TonyComing here was a fucking mistake.Seeing Chloe did everything to me that I was trying to avoid. It just left me even more confused than before. We haven’t spent more than an hour together, and I still managed to screw it up.Being with her felt natural as if this was the only place I could be. Whenever I’m with her, holding her in my arms and feeling her close to me, everything just seems to go away. Every concern, every fear, every bad thought I ever had… I finally feel at peace.That’s the sort of effect she has on me. But I was not expecting her confession. Hearing her say she loves me and not being able to say it back shattered my heart in ways I can't explain. The look on her face will haunt me forever. It seems to have become a pattern lately. I can't seem to be able to stop hurting and disappointing her. I know what she expects from me, but unfortunately, I can't give it to her.It's clear to me that I have fallen for her, harder than I could ever have expected. It's a f