Daniella played rummy at the kitchen table with Killian, her right hand zip-tied to the chair. The whisky bottle was empty. Killian had a scratch that ran his cheek and disappeared into his beard. His hands showed the marks of her nails as well. She wasn’t talking to him.

In her left hand was a run of clubs she would meld off and, if she did, this might be the first game she was going to win since the sun came up an hour ago. Killian was good at cards. The deck they played was the one he used when he served and the edges of the cards were worn and feathered. He told her he and Rocco had played endlessly, like that would cheer her up, talking about her man, but it just made her madder.

There was a rumble in the alley behind the house and now she didn’t care about her hand. She lay her cards down and she chewed the inside of her lip. Her legs began to bounce to relieve the tension she felt swelling in her. The sound of the aluminum door of the garage being scissored open made its way to them and Killian lay his cards down too, pulled up his sleeve and checked the time on his black G-shock. A car door slammed and the muscle car sound was swallowed as it pulled into the garage. She cleared her throat and Killian tried not to smile and she wanted to fight with him again. Boot steps mounted the back step and a towering grey shape filled the gauzy curtain that covered the window set in the back door. It opened and he was there.

A tidal wave of red rage collapsed on her. Fury and relief and love twisted like threads wound in a cord and she didn’t know which one meant more to her now. The cord pulled taut. Anger. She rose sharply, her brow dropped so low it narrowed her eyes to slits. Rocco stood warily behind Killian who still sat in his chair with his fingers woven together in front of him, a dumb smirk tugging at his dumb beard. Then she stormed him. Crossed the room with her bare feet pounding stomps in the linoleum. The legs of the chair she was tied to squeaked and scraped as it was dragged behind her. She reached for his face, tried to shred him with her nails, her face twisted in a harrowed scowl.

“Baby, baby,” Rocco soothed, pulling his face from her claw, one big hand grasping her wrist. Then she was climbing him. She straddled his hips and she scaled him, her vision blurred with tears. Her hand clawed the back of his neck. Not to hurt, but to pull her lips to his. Her thighs gripped his waist and he put his hands on her back and she cried, “I hate you...I fucking hate you, you asshole,” but she kissed him. She sucked his lips and she squeezed his bull neck with one arm wrapped tightly. She kissed his chin, his jaw, she kissed his ears. Her right hand was snapped free from the chair and she looked to the right, saw Killian had cut her tie with a switchblade. Now she put both arms around Rocco, squeezed his head to her like she would never let him go.

She rubbed her cheeks against his, dried her tears, locked her feet together, hooking one over the other behind his back and squished him even tighter.

He grunted, sighed a gravelly sounding groan, said, “Careful...my gunshot...”

“You deserve it,” she said. She kissed him again, long and passionate and so fucking loving. When she finally pulled her lips from his, she whispered in his ear, “Baby, did you kill him? Did you kill my brother?”

“No, Daniella,” he said, his hands soothing her back, going up and down, so large against her. “It would have been so easy, and God do I want to. It would be so fucking easy. But I...I heard you. I know what you want.”

“You fucking left me. You snuck out...”

“I had to. I had to do it alone. For your sake.”

She rolled her head against his, he was cold from the outside and she wanted to warm him. “What’s he like? What did he say?”

“He’s a lunatic. He’s a mad man. But I think he’s smart. We’ve got...we’ve got two days...”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve got two days to move around the city. He wants it all. Everything.”

“I’ll give it to him,” she said. “He can have it.” She lay her head against his shoulder and felt how wonderful it was to be held by him, supported by him. His hair tickled the spaces between her fingers as she stroked him over and over.

Killian rose and he went through the kitchen wordlessly.

Rocco said, “Where are you going?”

“Nowhere,” Killian said, stopping at the fridge and opening it. He came out with his hands full. He said, “I’m making bacon and eggs, and we’re going to sit at this table and get a real fucking plan together.”

* * *

The Nero Mansion was in affluent Lincoln Park, not far from the lake. It was four stories, an ornate terra cotta brick box styled like the late Italian Renaissance. It had a copper roof, gone all the color of corroded green after a hundred or so years it had been around.

First time he’d stood guard outside of it—he would have been nineteen years old—he didn’t know a building could be so beautiful. Every house he’d seen before was in shambles. The Nero mansion was what you saw in the movies. Twelve thousand square feet, marble mosaic entrance, all the wood was deep cherry and shone with polish. There was even a ballroom with a raised bandstand, and one time when Papa was alive he’d had one of those pop stars sing for Daniella on her birthday. That was before Rocco’s time. If he was around he would have popped that kid for getting too close to her.

They arrived by cab and though Flavio had given them a grace Rocco kept his hand hidden on a gun the whole drive. They’d be safe at the mansion. They knew now who had been trying to kill her. They could trust the soldiers. They could trust the families. They weren’t the ones who wanted her dead. Plus, the Nero mansion would be packed with protection after what happened in the Empire Crest. And it was.

Four men in black suits and sunglasses met them at the curb. Daniella had her window down and the sight of her set them into motion. They shouted into radios and frantically waved her in. Between the street and the mansion there was a half acre expanse of grass, and a manicured hedge described the drive. The cabbie took them along it to the limestone steps that led up to the grand entrance. Poor guy seemed bewildered now. Men wandered the lawn, working in pre-determined pathways like sentries, talking into their radios and eyeballing the car.

Rocco held Daniella’s hand between them, he squeezed her lightly. “You good?” he asked her.

She laughed. “Sure. Never better.” She leaned herself to him and he kissed her forehead.

“Uh-oh,” she said whimsically and he glanced out his side of the car to see what she was looking at. The steps to the mansion rose high above them and emerging from the warm interior of the home was Daniella’s mother, Vida. Her face was frozen in a shape of shock. She’d just received the news from one of the guards that her daughter was safe and she was home. She looked like she couldn’t believe it. That look of shock, he imagined, would resume after the reunion, given the revelations of the day. The truth would be out soon about who had tried to kill Daniella. And she would have to be told who was going to resume the enterprises of her late husband. The son of a woman who had bore her husband another child.

Vida was a trim well-kept woman, shapely and lively still, but older than he’d last seen her. A pair of reading glasses were around her neck and they bounced as she trotted down the stone stairs in her clicking heels. Daniella barged out of the cab and he followed slowly after her.

Daniella and her mother met in the middle of the stairs and they embraced explosively. Vida shrieked with relief and joy and hopped in place while she held her daughter tight. Rocco took his time catching up so they could have a moment together, slackly mounting the stairs behind Daniella. He got a few frowns from onlooking soldiers, blinking in disbelief that he was alive. Then Vida caught his eye over her daughter’s shoulder, her face clung with strands of Daniella’s long hair. Vida’s expression was amplified beyond shock, almost to the elevation of horror. Her mouth trembled and her eyes were wider than he thought possible. Her arms came from around Daniella and her hands motioned to cover her mouth but they trembled uncontrollably.

“Ro-Ro-Rocc—” she managed.

Daniella turned and put her arm over her mother’s shoulders, said, “It is. It’s him. It’s Rocco. He’s the one who saved my life.”

Rocco smiled abruptly with the hidden shared knowledge that he was also technically the one assigned with ending her life too.

“You’re dead, you’re dead,” she cried, tears slipped down her cheeks but her eyes glistened with joy. She took the three steps down to him and collapsed in his arms. He held her close and comforted her.

* * *

In the grand foyer, Daniella related to her mother the events of the last few days. Told her how someone conspired to kill her, how Rocco risked life and limb to rescue her and get her to safety, hid her in the city until it was safe, how he was shot and how he’d healed. She didn’t mention Killian. She didn’t mention Flavio. She knew she would have to but she was afraid. Six months ago her mother had been happy and healthy. Papa was alive and the household was thriving. Daniella wasn’t at home anymore, she had a condo in the city but she was a frequent fixture at the mansion. Now Papa was gone, and she was an only child, so that meant her mother was alone. Alone in a house meant for a dozen. She looked so tiny and frail in it now.

“You okay, Mama?” she asked her, running her hands along the back of her mother’s untied hair. She was only fifty but the turn the last half year had taken her life had left her weaker than Daniella could ever remember.

“I just can’t believe it. The two of you. Safe.” She pushed a balled tissue to the point under her nose and stifled another sob. “Rocco. You’re alive. My Rocco. Where have you been?”

Daniella said, “He was in the army, Mama. He’s back now. He’s back to stay forever.”

“Forever,” Rocco repeated to her mother.

Four men appeared on the doorstep, dressed in staid suits and serious faces. They were escorted by two of the mansion’s soldiers, one of them keeping the men on the doorstep, the other coming to Daniella.

He leaned close and said, “Your lawyers are here.”

“Send them up to the study.”

Her mother frowned, “What do you need the lawyers for?”

She hemmed, ran her fingers across the tense point on her brow between her eyes, tried to ease some disquiet. “I’ll tell you. Tell you at dinner.”

They watched the soldiers escort the four fretful lawyers up the winding staircase. Vida watched her daughter, sensing there was more that she wasn’t divulging. She looked away, turned to Rocco, said, “Who is it? Who would want to kill my baby? Rocco, who would want my baby to be hurt?”

Daniella shook her head to Rocco.

“We’re going to take care of it,” he said, and nodded to Daniella.

Her mother gripped him, shook his arms and her eyes streamed fresh tears. “We missed you, Rocco. You’ll take care of it...whoever it is, they don’t know what they started...”

She rested a hand on her mother’s back. “No, Mama. It’s me. I’m taking care of it.”