Rocco took her hand and he walked her down the concrete steps. His little tiger. He kissed her and he didn't care if all these hard dudes watched. He was in love and there was no one on this earth like his Daniella. She had pulled it off.

The Empire Crest Hit had been a terrible idea, his plan to meet Flavio alone...terrible. But this was the topper. Walk into certain danger armed with only a pen and papers and no plan to execute the bad actors? ...Daniella had faced her brother down, taught him a lesson and didn’t put a gun to his head to make him see her way. Well, technically Killian did, and he hoped she’d forgive him for that. He was just a safeguard and Rocco wouldn’t have easily given him the signal to kill. Mostly, because Killian didn’t need that signal. He knew all by himself.

He walked her through the throng of mafia men, she nodded to the familiar faces and he nodded as well. He recognized a lot of them. It had been four years since he stood with them and there were new faces, missing old ones. Guys had died, youngbloods came up to take their place, it was a neverending churn and their lives seemed to have little value. But they were good men, some of them. Some of them had been friends.

There was some back-patting, some winks, and Daniella stopped and had her cheeks kissed by the family heads. Tony T, Saturn Paradiso, and Papa Joe all held her and kissed her and looked in her eyes. Papa Joe said, You’re your pop’s kid, ya know? His eyes looked a little wet.

Then they were clear. Clear of the crowds and they passed the armored Caddy they arrived in. Each step a literal and symbolic distance greater from their old dangerous lives. They left the Caddy, left Mickey and Jimmy and the lawyers, left the soldiers, walked towards the city and they didn’t look back. Soon they were on the gravel drive between drifting banks of snow and ahead, over the rise of untended land, they could see the light of the Target sign and the passing traffic of people with regular lives, out to do something fun on a Saturday night. Something normal. He ached for normal.

His heart swelled with joy, swelled with love for this woman who walked next to him, her tiny hand in his. “Hey,” he said, abruptly, looked at her, “Look at me...look at my manners...”

“What?” she said, her wonderful face turned up to meet his.

He bent to look at her feet and she looked down to see what he was looking at. He was letting her walk through gravel and snow in high heels?

“Letting you walk in those shoes...”

“I love my shoes...”

“You and your fuckin’ shoes,” he murmured. In one easy flip he had her hoisted to him, cradled in his arms, and she hugged his neck.

Daniella laughed, fixed sultry eyes on him and said low, “My hero,” and she kissed his neck. He walked with her, breathing deep and feeling her warm little mouth work on his cold skin.

He carried her til the Target sign loomed large ahead of them and then they saw the taillights of a car idling at the mouth of the road where it met the busy byway. Cold exhaust plumed in soft chugs from its exhaust and they could hear its fearsome rumble from far.

“That our ride?” she whispered in his ear.

“Sure is,” he said.

He carried her to the steely Camaro and when they met it, he opened the passenger door with one hand and set her feet in the back seat.

Killian was in the driver’s seat, one hand pressing the folded passenger seat forward so she could enter. He laughed, said, “Need a lift?”

Daniella said, “You let us walk all that way?”

“Didn’t look like you were walking, love,” he said and winked as she climbed in behind him. Rocco grabbed her ass and she yelped and laughed. He climbed in next to her and held her, draped her beautiful legs over his lap and slid a hand up her skirt.

“Not yet,” she laughed and slapped at the fabric and what his hand was doing under there.

Killian eased the muscle car into traffic and headed west. He looked in the rearview and said, “What do you think happens now?”

Rocco looked to Daniella and she raised her eyebrows as she considered it. “That’s up to Flavio. The Dons will do what they said... They will let him lead for six months, then I imagine it’s like teaching a baby to swim, you let your hands off and see if they can do it on their own. Only those men would stand by and watch that baby drown.”

“Think he’ll swim?”

“I think he’ll be dead in seven months,” she said and despite all the harm her brother had intended for her a sadness pulled at her features. Rocco rubbed her knees.

“What about your mother?” he asked her.

“She’ll be fine. Pop left her all set financially. She’s going to sell that mansion and she’s going to get a condo in Italy probably. She doesn’t need all that house. She doesn’t need the snow either,” she said and looked out the window at the cold starry night. “But Flavio won’t make a move on her. She’s too protected and he knows the retribution. My question is, what are we doing?” she turned to him and smiled.

He kissed her on her lips. This was their first day together in their new lives and he wanted to touch her and feel her and kiss and more... Her hands went under his jacket and her nails scratched at his muscle. The car slowed then rocked as they pulled up an embankment. He kissed her one more time, then got himself together.

“What’s this?” she said and she looked out to see where they were. They were in the outskirts of the city at the edges of the suburbs. They’d pulled into a busy McDonald's and Killian had eased the Camaro to a swath of empty parking spots near the sidewalk.

“This is where we part ways,” Killian said.

“Part ways?”

Killian was working through a duffel bag sitting in the passenger seat and he came back with a bundle of small things wrapped tightly with elastic bands. He turned and passed them between the seats.

“These are your passports, credit cards, licenses, ID... All arranged through our friends,” he said, then leveled his eyes to Rocco’s. “You have new identities, new credit histories, good ones by the by, you have travel documents...everything you need.”

Rocco took the bundle and Daniella said, “Travel documents? ...Greece?”

“Something like that,” he said.

“I knew it,” she said.

Killian said, “No, not Greece. Sorry to say, Flavio has men at the airport. Anticipating you leaving. Sent before the meeting. Maybe they know the new arrangements, maybe they don’t...Maybe you’re in danger...maybe you’re not...I don’t trust him...”

Rocco said, “I wouldn’t either.”

Daniella shook her head and said, “My own brother...”

“That’s it,” Killian said brightly now, changing the subject and thumping Rocco’s knee with a fist. “I’ve packed for you, everything you both need is in the trunk. Oh, Daniella, I packed that sweatshirt I bought you, looks like you forgot it at the Sunnyside house.”

“Thanks,” she said and laughed, rolled her eyes. “You missed your calling...”

“Travel agent?”

“No, personal shopper.”

“I could do both, I suppose,” he said, shrugging like he was considering it seriously.

Then he was out, yanking his seat forward and holding a hand to help her. She took it and he pulled her right into his arms and he gave her a tight hug. He said in her ear, “Take care of him for me, promise me?”

“I promise,” she said back, and she squeezed him just as tight.

“What will you do now?” she asked him.

He threw a thumb over his shoulder to the McDonald's and said, “Get something to eat. I’m fucking starving.”

Rocco came around the car from the other side to join them as Daniella was laughing. He hugged his old friend, the guy who’d saved his life, patched his bullet holes in Afghanistan and Iraq and a few other countries. He’d suffered as well, and Rocco had been there for him, but Killian was as tough as they came and he wouldn’t ever let you see him affected. When they drew back they both made fists and punched them together.

Daniella said, “Seriously, what will you do now?”

Killian said, “That’s not the story. You’re the story. What will you do now?”

“I think I know,” she said and she beamed.

“You dirty bird,” he said and winked at her and she shook her hair and sighed. Killian extended a hand to him and held out the keys to the Camaro. Rocco took them and they all nodded to each other. Killian said, “I’ll come visit. You’ll see me again,” then he put his hands in the pockets of his jacket and he crossed the parking lot in his cowboy boots and headed to the restaurant. They watched him go, then he slipped an arm around Daniella’s waist and kissed her again.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“It’s a surprise,” he said.

They got in the car and he started it up, revved the motor. Daniella huddled in the seat next to him and slid the old knob for the heater, cranked it all the way to the red and turned up the fan. “Wherever it is,” she laughed, “it better be fucking warm.”

He eased the car through the parking lot and Daniella waved to Killian standing at the back of the line in the yellowy light of the restaurant and they nosed the car out into cold blue traffic.

He said, “Wherever we go, we’ll make it warm.”