Dawn was beginning to break over the city as I finally reached the hotel—I had no idea how long I’d been walking for, but it felt like forever. My muscles were stiff, and I scolded myself internally for being such an old man. I used to be able to walk back from a bar all the way at the other side of town and back to my apartment if the fancy took me, and now I was struggling to get a few blocks to the woman who needed me? Get in together, man.

 

I wasn’t sure what I had intended to do when I got to the hotel—I peered up at the windows, scanning them, hoping I might be able to spot Maria and figure out where she was staying, but nothing. She’d given a fake name—but what name? Fuck me, I wasn’t good at this. I shouldn’t have had all that scotch earlier. It had rendered my faculties a little less sharp than they had been at the start of the night.

 

I saw a shop open just down the street, and, before I knew it, I was leaving with cigarettes and a small neon green lighter. I tried to ignore the scolding voice in my head as I lit up, inhaling the smoke deep into my lungs with a sense of relief—I would throw away the pack as soon as I’d had one, but for now, this was what I needed. This was the only thing in the world I needed—aside from Maria, of course.

 

I leaned up against the wall next to the door of the hotel, and stared out over the street ahead of me. I wasn’t sure whether the few stragglers I saw were returning late or starting early—I felt sorry for them either way. I prayed that I wouldn’t bump into any Stiches returning from that party. If they figured out why I had left—fuck, that she’d been there in the first place—it would be a motherfucker to convince them not to throw me out on the street. I had brought Maria D’Orazio right to their door, and I doubted they were going to welcome her with open arms.

 

Maybe I could…maybe I could get in contact with one of them? Even anonymously might work. And give them the Lucca D’Orazio hit. That way, I would have no blood on my hands, but he would still be out of the way, and we could still be together. Would it work?

 

I put myself in their shoes, getting the promise of a hit from an anonymous source. Not only would I not be able to offer them even half the amount they would want for a hit like that—we’re talking well into the millions for a guy as big as Lucca D’Orazio—but they would laugh me out of the house before I even got to a price. I mean, come on—there was no way that I was going to get around this. Either I did it myself, or it didn’t happen at all. Not that I was considering it. Because I’d have to be a crazy person to even have that thought in my brain and expect to survive it.

 

I smoked my cigarette down till it burned my fingers, and then dropped it onto the street below me. It landed with a sizzle in a puddle, going out in a little puff of smoke. I watched it for a moment, and then took a deep breath—okay, I had no more excuses. I had to see her.

 

I turned to the door of the hotel, and was just reaching up to place my hand on the glass when I spotted someone. I retreated back to my wall, leaning up against it, taking a moment to try and place whoever this was. I kept my head down as I lit up another cigarette, hoping I looked nondescript enough to pass for hotel staff.

 

The man was around my height, maybe a little taller—he was dressed in a smart suit and had a haircut that looked as though it cost half my monthly paycheck. Even still, none of that could cover up the fact that he was an ugly motherfucker—a bulbous nose and wide-set eyes made him look like some kind of squint-faced shark; his lips were thin and tight, and he paused outside the hotel and peered up at it just as I had done a few minutes earlier. What was he looking for? And, more importantly, why?

 

I squinted at him for another few seconds, and then he glanced over in my direction—I lowered my gaze to the ground at once, praying that he hadn’t recognized me. He started to make his way over to me, his footsteps splashing in the shallow puddles on the sidewalk until he was in front of me.

 

“Hey.”

 

I lifted my gaze and looked at him; he looked ever worse close up. It wasn’t so much the arrangement of his features that was the problem; there was just something about him that made me deeply uncomfortable, as though he might be about to strike at any second. It was unnerving.

 

“Hey,” I returned his greeting carefully. “What’s up?”

 

“Can I borrow your lighter?” He gestured to my hand as he pulled out a packet of cigarettes. “I lost mine.”

 

“Uh, sure.” I handed it over quickly, and he took it and shielded his cigarette from the damp around us to light it. After a few clicks, the flame burst up and lit up his face. And that’s when I recognized him.

 

Alfonso Condotierri.

 

A prickle of fear ran over my scalp as I realized who I was dealing with. I knew where I recognized him from; he’d come into the Stiches once or twice, demanding this or that hit. I had never dealt with him directly myself, but I’d heard stories about him. About what he asked for. We didn’t know exactly what he did for a living, but it had to be something in the same ballpark as Lucca if the two of them were as close as they were. He handed the lighter back, shaking out the flame as he did so, and smiled at me tightly.

 

“Thanks,” he muttered, before making his way back in front of the hotel doors. He peered in as he finished his smoke, then tossed it away and let it burn out on the sidewalk below. Then, he placed his hands on the door, and pushed his way inside.

 

Shit.

 

Okay, this was bad. This was really, really, really fucking bad. How did he know she was here? My mind began racing as I tried to put the pieces together, tried to figure out how much trouble the two of us were in.

 

If he knew where she was staying, then he must have known that I was the one who brought her there. And if he knew that…well, then, why hadn’t he gone for me the second he saw my face? It’s not like there were many witnesses out here, and most of them would be too drunk or too tired to deal with whatever shit was going down at this time in the morning. My hands shook as I drew my cigarette to my lips again, drawing a deep drag into my lungs and exhaling it in a futile attempt to calm myself down, to get myself in check.

 

I made my way, as casually as I could, past the hotel doors and looked inside. There was no one at reception, and Alfonso was leaning up against the desk, looking around. He looked bored and impatient, and I knew that this wasn’t a guy you wanted to piss off, so I prayed that the staff would make their way back out soon enough. But then…would they tell him where she was?

 

That was the problem with places like this. They were under the radar, but so much so that they didn’t have to bother with most of the rules of privacy that other hotels did. She had given them a fake name, but then, one of them might have recognized her—and they were twice as likely to give her up if Alfonso slipped them a decent bit of cash to jog their memory.

 

I wanted to kick the door in and drag him out onto the street, get him as far away from Maria as I could. She was sitting up there in her hotel room with no knowledge of what was about to happen to her, no idea that the man her father had promised her to had turned up with an apparent urge to make good on what he was owed. I clenched my fists and stood there for a few moments longer, glad this place didn’t have much in the way of security to remove me—I must have looked suspicious as hell, but I didn’t care. I needed eyes on him.

 

A receptionist finally emerged, and smiled politely up at Alfonso. This was bad news. I needed to get in there and get Maria to safety, but I had no idea how I was meant to do that without alerting Alfonso to my presence. I began to pace up and down, my entire body feeling as though it was frozen solid. I tried to ignore the tension in my muscles, how much they ached to be holding a gun or a knife or something, anything, that would allow me to take out Alfonso without trouble. But no such luck—I would have to use my ingenuity. And whoever I could find who was on my side. I watched as Alfonso spoke to the receptionist, and tried to figure out where I could go from here.