“Do you see anyone?”

Gio wraps his fist around the handle of his suitcase, squeezing tight. There wasn’t a soul in the hallways of the hotel while we crept out at two in the morning. The service stairwell was the best option, Gio decided, even with our arms full of bags. At the entrance to the underground parking we both hold our breath, listening for the telltale footsteps of someone who might have been watching.

I wait, then wait again, letting the sound of my own heartbeat settle and fade.

“No.”

“Let’s go.”

My heart picks up again on the fast walk to Gio’s car.

“Slow down,” he says. “Slow down. Relax.”

It’s a hard fucking sell, relaxing, now that we’re out in the open. I feel exposed, without the protection of a wedding vow, and as safe as it seemed in the room, the underground parking feels like a trap. Gio unlocks the car when we’re two steps away and I wrench open the back door, tossing the bags in. He doesn’t bother opening the trunk for his suitcase. He shoves it in next to my bags and climbs in the driver’s seat, hitting the locks on the door and craning his neck around to look.

“Still nobody,” I confirm, and he backs out of the spot. “Oh, yeah.”

I twist my body backward, reaching into one of the plastic bags from the department store, and pull out my brand-new phone. Gio darts his eyes across to my seat and steers us toward the exit. “What’s that?”

“New phone.” I hold the button on the side and power it up. I hadn’t exactly intended to tell Gio that I bought myself an iPhone and a phone plan with his money, but hey, he kidnapped me. It starts up with a flicker of the screen and turns on. The guy in the department store was more than happy to set me up with a new account.

Gio laughs. “Did you leave them anything?”

“Of course,” I scoff. “It’s a department store.”

“Did you leave me anything?”

“Of course,” I scoff, then press my face into a semblance of seriousness. “I mean, your card wasn’t declined, or anything.”

“My god, woman. You’re going to take me for all I’m work.”

“Yes.” I tap through the initial menu on the iPhone and start setting up my usual preferences. “But only because you took me.”

It draws another laugh out of Gio and we pull up to the automated payment booth. He selects the I forgot my ticket option and checks the rearview mirror.

“Shit,” he whispers, face going pale. “Don’t turn around. Don’t make yourself visible.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “What is it?”

“Somebody’s back by the entrance. I can see their head moving over the cars.” He stabs his credit card into the machine. It clicks and whirrs, taking approximately one thousand years to process the payment, to spit out the receipt. “They’re moving way too slow to be—fuck.”

I can’t resist. I’m like Lot’s wife, only I don’t turn to stone when I whip my head around to see the man in a dark jacket, his head covered with a dark cap even though it’s May, stalking up the incline of the ramp floor toward the car. He digs in his pocket and my gut sinks like a rock. “He’s getting proof. He’s getting proof, Gio. Go. Go.”

“I can’t,” he says through gritted teeth. “I can’t—”

The engine revs and I know Gio’s about to take a risk—he’s about to drive right through the gate. Shit. Shit. Is it only a length of PVC, like the ones on campus? Or is there more to it?

I’m winding up, my fingers tapping uselessly at the center console, when it opens.

Gio guns it, out onto the empty street.

I keep looking back as he accelerates toward the freeway entrance. Behind us, the man runs out of the parking ramp, his phone glinting in the lamp of a streetlight. The last I see of him is a fist, shoved angrily down through the air.

I don’t think he got what he came for.

Gio knows where he’s going.

He goes through the toll stops almost without looking, pulling out exact change and tossing it in the automatic collection booths while he checks out the rearview mirror.

The sky is an inky black, and neither of us reaches for the radio volume button. It plays soft and low.

We’re half an hour outside the city when he takes my hand.

“See anything?”

It brings a flush to my cheeks, this checking in, this asking my opinion, as if we’re equals here. We’re not equals, and I know that. Gio is a Moretto. I’m alive because of his grace—because of our friendship—but he knows more than I do about staying alive. It sends a shiver down my spine to think about the things his father must have told him about taking life, but I keep my eyes on the road.

As if he can hear the worries spinning up inside my brain, he continues on before I answer. “I don’t see anything. But who knows. Maybe you’ve got better night vision.”

I laugh. “I don’t have any night vision. I was actually—” It seems so commonplace, so unbelievably normal, to talk about this with him, that it makes me giggle in spite of everything. “I was thinking about going for a pair of glasses, once the semester was over.”

“Oh, shit,” Gio says. “You can’t see?”

“I can see.” I have no idea why I’ve gone the defensive route. “It’s only at night that my eyes start to give me trouble. A little blurring at the edges.”

“That’s what it felt like to see you in that bedroom,” he says softly. “A little blurring at the edges.”

I squeeze his hand.

We’re an hour outside the city, maybe more, when Gio pulls off the freeway and into another world.

Empty fields, a valley falling beneath us, the road black and quiet. “What is this place?” It’s so different from the suburbs, so vast, but it can’t be more than ten minutes before Gio slows down, looking carefully at all the pull-offs. He chooses one, and we turn onto a narrow paved road that’s more of a driveway. A really long driveway. “Gio?”

“You’re going to ruin the surprise,” he says, faux testily, and I laugh. We’re under a bower of trees, approaching somewhere in the inky night.

Then I see the lights.

There are two, on opposite sides of a wide doorway, a staircase underneath, all of it leading to the circle drive Gio pulls up onto as if he owns the place. “We’re here.”

“Obviously. But where’s here?”

“You’ll see.”

We step out of the car, Gio coming around to offer his arm to me, and I stare up at the house. It’s big and old, but even in the dark—even with only the two lights burning by the door—I can see that it’s been well-maintained. It’s a house like I’ve never seen in the suburbs, and connected to it, on the other side, is a church.

A church?

Gio doesn’t hesitate. He goes straight up to the door, even though it’s the dead of night, and lifts a big brass knocker. Thud, thud, thud.

As if it’s the middle of the day and not the cool, damp middle of the night, the door swings open right away. At the same time that the light spills out onto the wide staircase my brain fits all the buildings into place. A monastery? Gio brought me to a monastery?

I blink into the light and the man standing there—well, he’s clearly a monk. He’s wearing a tunic, and he could be standing here in the 1590s as easily as he’s standing in front of us right now. And despite the late hour, his face, hardly lined, though he’s got salt-and-pepper hair around his temples, splits into an indulgent smile. “Gio,” he says. “What a lovely surprise.”