“SHOT SUCCESSFUL.”
The comm in Joe’s ear crackled, threatening a breakup of communication with the others, but he was laser focused on clearing the next hallway inside the house. Snipers at the back and front took out whatever guards they could pick off while the rest of them stormed the grounds.
He could have dressed in gear like the rest, but other than a Kevlar vest and leather gloves, Joe hadn’t given it much thought. And even the fucking vest had been thrown on him by his father with a harsh, “I am not going to explain that to your fucking mother, thank you.”
Joe caught sight of a flash at the end of a hall as he rounded it, and instantly threw his body back around the corner.
Brraaaap.
Bullets peppered the floor.
Joe heard one or two ricochet.
Shit, these guys weren’t playing around. Frankly, he was fucking surprised that Rich Earl had access to as many trained guards as he did.
But then again, like the Marcellos had pointed out when Joe mentioned it, anyone’s loyalty, time, and protection could be bought with the right amount of cash in their hand. So was the way of a criminal without morals or honor.
Joe waited for the raining bullets to stop.
Then, he waited some more—just long enough to know the guy was probably peeking around the corner to see if he had hit his intended target. Joe stuck his gun around the corner first, and then his face second.
His finger was already wrapping tight around the AR-15’s trigger when he saw the guy peer around his side of the hallway, and there was no hesitation when Joe cocked his finger back twice in quick succession.
One bullet plugged into the guy’s throat.
The other, between his eyes.
The man with the ski mask-covered face dropped to the ground like a sack of rotten potatoes.
“Clear,” Joe uttered.
As he stepped down the hallway, he could hear the crackling picking up on the bottom level of the large estate. One of Rich’s fucking idiots had managed to shoot some kind of decorative oil burner that was a little too close to drapery.
It went up like a dried Christmas tree.
Nothing to stop it.
Nothing to help it.
The smoke was rising, now, and he was kind of pissed off that it had happened at all. Unnecessary complications, really.
Something else to worry about.
Joe moved into the hallway, and several men followed behind. Lucian and his son, John, quickened their steps just enough to head past Joe as they came to a staircase. One that lead to the downstairs, to the upstairs, and down another hallway.
“Fuck,” Joe muttered.
“We’ll go upstairs,” he heard Lucian say.
“We’ll begin clearing out and checking rooms downstairs,” Dante said from behind Joe, although he heard him just fine in his damn ear.
“We’ll take this hall, and check the rooms,” his uncle, Theo, said.
“Everyone out in ten.”
Lucian glanced back at his brother just as he had started climbing the stairs. “Dante—”
Dante was already moving downstairs with Giovanni on his heels. “Ten minutes is all we can afford, Lucian. There’s security on this house. It’s burning down. Someone is coming—they have to be. We can’t be here when they get here, okay? Ten minutes.”
“You can be gone in ten minutes if I don’t have her,” Joe said, done with any pretense that he gave a fuck about someone giving him orders, “but I will be here until I find her.”
Because she was here.
Liliana had to be.
Joe saw the dinner for two in the dining room, and the lipstick stains on the glass of water next to the nearly-finished plate of salmon. They’d found the dance studio set up specifically for a ballet dancer shortly after they stormed the house.
She was fucking here.
Somewhere.
He just had to find her.
The group split into three smaller ones, and separated to their respective areas. No one said goodbye, but occasionally, the comm in Joe’s ear would buzz with someone muttering something to their partner.
“I’ll start on this side,” Damian said.
Theo headed past the two men in the hallway. “I’ll hit the end first.”
Joe was already rearing back, and letting his foot slam into a door just below the knob. He didn’t think they needed a fucking update on what he was doing.
Kind of seemed obvious, didn’t it?
An empty bathroom stared back.
Fuck.
He moved on.
It was an office, next.
Then an empty room altogether.
He was getting fucking nowhere. And by the sounds coming from his ear, everyone else was in just about the same predicament. The rising upset continued between the men as more empty rooms stared back at them.
Joe was just getting progressively more and more pissed off. So, maybe when he came in front of the next door, and expected that room to be empty, too, he kicked it a little harder than was necessary to get it open.
And his whole world stopped.
Because there she was.
At first, Joe blinked at the sight in front of him. The grip on his gun loosened as he took in Liliana’s sobbing form—bruised, welted, and bleeding face, her dress a mess of blood, and rips, and the pointe shoes on her feet. She hadn’t seemed to notice the door open, or that he was standing right there.
Ready to save her.
Joe took in the man on the ground, too. The belt tight around his neck, and the back of his skull beaten in with a broken lamp beside him.
Apparently, she hadn’t needed him to save her.
She fucking saved herself.
“Liliana,” Joe said.
To him, it was a murmur.
To everyone else listening in the comms, it must have been a shout because they all quieted at once. Like they weren’t even there to begin with.
Or maybe that was just his world tilting back on its proper axis.
Who was he to say?
“Liliana.”
Joe set his gun aside, and rushed into the room. She was finally looking at him then—all bruised eyes, and bloodied lips. He reached for her, but she was already reaching back. She held on to him for dear life—it was in those moments when he couldn’t breathe from how fiercely she was hugging him that he finally learned what that really meant.
But he got it.
And it was okay.
Because he was holding her like that, too.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he murmured against her bruised cheek, dotting soft kisses to the same spot. “Sorry it took so long; sorry it happened at all. I’m so sorry, Tesoro.”
Liliana just kept shaking her head.
Shaking all over, really.
His hands found welt marks on her jaw and throat in the same shape as the width of the belt around Rich’s dead neck, and the man was fucking lucky.
Lucky that he was dead.
Lucky Liliana had done it.
Lucky he never had to meet Joe when he was fucking inspired, and had a damn good reason to kill.
Oh, the rosary around his throat never felt as light as it did in those moments. He wouldn’t even have apologized or confessed for that one. There wouldn’t have been a need.
“Get them off,” Liliana mumbled in his neck. “Please get them off.”
He didn’t know what she was talking about, but her hands were fumbling between them, and her legs kicked against his form. He figured it out then when she sobbed, and shuffled her feet like she was trying to kick off the goddamn pointe shoes.
“Get them off!”
“Okay, okay,” Joe whispered.
He made quick work of removing the satin ribbons tied around her calves and ankles before he pulled the shoes from her feet. As soon as they were gone, Liliana sucked in a deep, ragged breath of air.
It sounded like freedom.
“We have to go.”
It shouted in his ear.
It also came from the doorway.
Joe didn’t even mind being rushed, now.
He got what he came for.
“Let’s go over this again, Miss Marcello.”
“There’s nothing to go over,” Joe heard Lucian’s lawyer snarl.
The speaker on the chair in front of Joe and Lucian crackled with the volume of the lawyer’s irritation. A simple wire tap had been placed in Liliana’s hospital room so that Joe and Lucian could listen in from a nearby room while the detectives made their rounds.
“It’s okay,” Liliana said.
Joe flinched.
Beside him, Lucian stiffened.
Her voice was faint—it had been like that since he pulled her from that room. She didn’t want to talk, and when she did, it was like she wasn’t there at all. It was going to take time for her to absorb what happened, and adjust accordingly.
Or, that’s what people kept telling him.
Joe wanted to tell those people to fuck off.
“You’re saying you have no memory of the home Rich Earl purchased in Vermont—no memory of being there, or how you got away from there?”
Joe had to give the detective credit, really. He kept hounding on this line of questioning like it was going to get him somewhere. And maybe with a woman who wasn’t Liliana—one who hadn’t grown up in the life—he might have tricked her in to saying something of use.
She wasn’t so dumb, though.
She wasn’t falling for it.
“The last thing I remember is looking up and seeing the emergency room sign above my head,” Liliana said, repeating the one line of her story that wouldn’t—because it couldn’t—change. “I’m sorry I don’t have the answers you want.”
All it took was a few documents, and a good look around the mansion in Vermont for the police to suspect someone else had been there with Rich, and his men. They found the women’s clothes, and all the other things he had set up for Liliana. They found his papers linking himself to the place, and then the information he had been gathering on Liliana, too.
It didn’t take geniuses to figure it out.
She showed up at a hospital the same night Rich’s estate was attacked, and partially burned. She arrived battered, and broken.
They put two and two together.
It made four.
It also made a fucking media circus, and a shitshow for the rest of them.
“I think if maybe you tried a little harder,” the detective started to say.
“You’re edging closer to a harassment suit with every word,” the lawyer warned, “and you know it.”
“We are trying to piece together this investigation, sir.”
The lawyer scoffed. “Is that the line you’re going to play with me?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Look at her.”
Joe cleared his throat, and glanced away from the speaker. He didn’t need to be in the room—he couldn’t be anywhere near someone who might see his face, and connect him to what had happened—to know what the lawyer meant.
Liliana was hurt.
Bad.
She’d not just been hit, no.
She’d been beaten like a dog.
“How many hits to the head does she have to take before you believe that she can’t remember what happened, detective?” the lawyer asked. “How many drugs need to show up in her system before you realize she was not an accomplice, but a victim in all of this? How many bruises and split-open welts do the doctors need to describe for you to understand she was a survivor of a man who she has a violent history with?”
“I—”
“Why are you trying to make a victim in to a criminal, sir?” the lawyer murmured.
Lucian rested back in his chair, and stared up at the ceiling. For a moment, Joe wondered if the man was praying because that seemed to be a popular thing with the Marcello family. Family, and God.
One always came before the other.
He respected it, really.
“Had they just handled this the first time,” Lucian said under his breath, “then she wouldn’t need to do this all over again. She wouldn’t have to justify why she’s a victim. This wouldn’t have needed to happen at all.”
Yeah, Joe knew that.
Got it, too.
“It’s over, though,” he said. “The bastard’s not coming back.”
Lucian shook his head. “But she knows. She’s always going to know, Joe. People didn’t protect her—the system failed her.”
“Or it’s going to make her more amazing,” Joe returned, shrugging.
His companion glanced over at him. “You think?”
“How could she not be?”
Joe didn’t know what was going to happen from here on out. He didn’t know what Liliana’s plans were for her life, or for them.
Was she going to keep dancing?
Was she going to be as vibrant?
Was she going to love him?
He didn’t have those answers—despite wanting and needing them like nothing else—but that was okay, too. He didn’t need to have the answers for those questions. They weren’t his answers, and this wasn’t about him.
It had never been about him.
This was Liliana’s life, and her choices from here on out could only reflect what she wanted and needed the very most. He was going to be there—or not, if she didn’t want him to be—to support whatever in the hell she wanted to do.
And that was okay, too.
That’s what love had taught him.
He still hadn’t gotten to tell her yet, though.
“My wife wanted me to thank you,” Lucian said quietly.
Joe nodded. “You really don’t have to.”
“She’d like to have you over for dinner, too, but …”
Yeah, the media.
His face.
Separation of church and state, so to speak.
Joe had to go underground, and keep his name out of it. He needed to go back to his life, and pretend like he hadn’t left it. He needed to let the hell this had caused blow over so the trail went cold, and the case was closed. Or, as closed as it could be, all things considered.
How long was that going to take?
He didn’t know.
“Maybe someday,” Joe told Lucian.
Lucian smiled faintly. “There’s definitely going to be a someday, Joe.”
Liliana was sleeping when Joe finally slipped into her hospital room. The clock on the wall showed it was just past one in the morning, but this was the safest time. The nurses were focused on their work, the detectives were gone, and the families of other patients had left, too.
Well, mostly.
“Wondered when you were going to sneak in here,” Lucian muttered in the corner.
Joe shrugged one shoulder. “Have to be careful.”
“I appreciate the effort, Joe.”
Beside the man, his wife slept peacefully covered in her husband’s suit jacket. Joe had drifted around—although made sure to stay out of sight—the hospital and grounds enough to watch people come and go for Liliana all day.
Her sisters.
Brother.
Cousins.
Aunts and uncles.
Grandparents, too.
Even friends, and the owner of the ballet company.
She had a steady stream of guests, and her room showcased it with all the flowers, cards, and helium balloons filling one corner. She certainly hadn’t gone without attention and visitors which made him feel somewhat better.
And entirely lonely.
Because he hadn’t been one.
He was sure she noticed it.
“Jordyn,” Lucian murmured, carefully waking his wife from her sleep.
“W-what?”
The woman blinked sleepy eyes at her husband, but didn’t seem to notice Joe standing just beyond the closed doors.
“Let’s step out for a minute, Jord.”
“Why would we—”
Her words cut off when her gaze landed on Joe.
“Oh,” Jordyn said quietly. “About time you showed your face, don’t you think?”
Joe smiled a bit. “My apologies.”
“She asked about you.”
Joe nodded. “I figured she would.”
Jordyn said nothing else, but allowed her husband to help her from what looked to be the most uncomfortable place to sleep that he’d ever seen. Then again, it probably felt like a fifty-thousand dollar mattress when someone was exhausted enough to not care.
Who was he to say?
Lucian and Jordyn passed Joe by quietly, but not before the woman reached out and patted his cheek with a soft touch.
A mother’s touch.
He recognized it because of his own mother.
Joe was not the type to let someone else touch him—certainly not someone he didn’t know very well, and hadn’t spent much time with on a personal level.
And yet, Liliana’s mother felt familiar.
Fine, even.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“Please don’t thank me.”
He really hadn’t done very much at all.
Nothing worthy of praise, or thanks, anyway.
Jordyn smiled, and shook her head. “Have a good visit, Joe. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of you.”
Lucian gave Joe a look. “Someday.”
“Yeah, someday,” Joe echoed.
Joe only moved once the two had left the room, and the door hissed as it closed. He pulled a chair away from the wall, and dragged it close to Liliana’s bedside. Her eyelids didn’t even flicker with a realization that he was there. Not even a twitch of her muscles. He had been told she was medicated—probably morphine—and that would force her to rest whether she wanted to or not.
In a way, he was grateful.
She needed to rest, and he didn’t want to wake her up just because he was selfish.
In another way, he wanted to see her.
Speak to her.
Tell her.
Tell her everything.
Joe settled himself on sitting in the chair, and imprinting her image to his memory. Her bruised face, and the bandages that had been carefully placed over welts that had broken the skin. Each mark made his heart heavier, and every bruise left his rage festering something awful. She hadn’t suffered any broken bones except for her foot—two toes, and a bone on the side of her foot, apparently. Or, that’s what had been told to him. Two to three months of recovery for that, and absolutely no dancing.
But it was done.
It was over.
Joe slid his hand in with Liliana’s beside the tucked in, stark-white hospital blanket. His fingers interwove with hers, and he stroked his thumb along the side of her hand. The only spot on her fucking hand that wasn’t bruised.
Jesus.
“You look sad,” he heard her whisper.
Joe glanced up, and found pretty hazel eyes watching him, although still a little sleepy. “Hey, Tesoro.”
Liliana managed a smile for him. “Hey.”
“I’m not sad, Liliana.”
“No?”
“No,” he promised, “not now.”
“Why the frown, then?”
Joe laughed. “Don’t I always frown?”
“Not like that.”
Yeah, well …
“Sorry I couldn’t come in today,” he said, reaching up to cup her cheek in his palm. “Too much going on, and I have to lie low for a while.”
Her smile faltered. “What does that mean?”
Now or never.
“Until all of this blows over with the media and cops, I have to go away. Back to Chicago, and make sure I’m seen, and whatever else.”
“You’re … not staying?” she asked.
So faint.
It killed him.
“I’m sorry,” was all he could say.
No excuse would be good enough.
Nothing was going to make it better.
“I’m sorry, Liliana. This was how it was supposed to go before you and me … yeah,” he said lamely. “And everything else made it worse. None of that matters, though, because you’re good and you’re here. Right?”
“Matters to me, Joe.”
Yeah, he bet.
It mattered to him, too.
“What if I give you a promise,” he offered.
Liliana sniffled. “What kind of promise?”
“That I’ll be back. And we can start this all over again, if you want. We can do this different the next time—do it better, if you want. We can be Joe and Liliana without business, and everything else. Because I will be back as soon as I can. If you want me to, I’ll call, and we’ll figure shit out that way, too.”
She was quiet for a long time.
He didn’t say a word, either.
She broke the silence first. “Calls would be nice.”
He chuckled, and leaned over to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Every day, I promise.”
“Are you going to stay until I get out of the hospital?”
No.
“My flight leaves in the morning,” he said.
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry.”
Sadly, she whispered, “Won’t you love me, Joe? Don’t you love me? I love you.”
He blinked.
His words failed.
His heart ached.
How could she not know?
How could she not know that she was everything to him?
“I love you more than anything,” he told her. “I am always going to love you, Liliana. Won’t you let me show you?”
“When?” she asked.
Joe didn’t even have to think about it. “Forever.”