“We’re being chased,” Smithy said.

“By who?”

My relief was immediately replaced with dread. Maybe he would be happy to get rid of me. He’d achieve the same level of revenge over my father without having to endure my presence.

“I don’t know,” Smithy said.

“Bandini’s soldiers,” I shouted over the car’s noise.

There was a pause as Wolfe digested the information.

“Angelo’s father?” he asked.

Another crashing sound exploded in the air, and our vehicle flew three feet forward as they smashed into us again. My head hit the steering wheel. I let out a breathless groan.

“Francesca, where are you?” Wolfe’s voice grew tighter. I looked around, trying to find signs.

“I-190,” Smithy said, snatching my schoolbag from under his feet and looking for my phone. “I’m going to call the police.”

“Don’t call the police,” Wolfe shot out.

“What?” Smithy and I yelled in unison. Bandini’s guys were getting close to us again. The Cadillac coughed and made a terrible sound. The bumper was scratching over the road, dragging over the concrete. It reminded me of the noise vehicles on the videogame Grand Theft Auto made before they burst into flames. Angelo and his brothers used to play that game all the time during our summers in Italy.

Angelo always won.

“I’m coming for you. Take the Lawrence Avenue exit.” I heard Wolfe picking up his keys. I didn’t remember ever seeing him drive. Ever. Either he was driven, or he sat next to me as I drove around the neighborhood.

“I’m not a good driver.” I tried to keep my emotions under control, reminding him that he shouldn’t be as sure as he was of my abilities to get us out of this in one piece. My eyes looked for the exit he was talking about, my eyeballs running maniacally in their sockets.

“You’re an excellent fucking driver,” Wolfe said, and I heard him zipping through traffic, breaking approximately two thousand laws based on the honking and yelling in the background. “Besides, if something happens to you, I will blow up the entire Outfit and put every Made Men in Chicago behind bars the rest of their lives, and they know it.”

“I think it’s because I married you,” I muttered, blinking away the tears so I could spot Lawrence Avenue better. Smithy shook his head in my periphery. It wasn’t the time or the place to discuss this.

“It’s not your fault,” Wolfe said. “I threw his son in jail for the night, and his firm is under IRS investigation. He wants to get back at me through you.”

“Is it working?” My voice shook. I heard the engine of Wolfe’s Jaguar straining against the speed. He didn’t answer me. Another bump to our car. I held back a sob.

“They’re running us off the road,” Smithy yelled, slapping the dashboard. “Can I draw a weapon?”

“Don’t you dare,” Wolfe barked. “If a hair on Francesca’s head accidentally moves…”

Just as he said that, the loudest crash of all rang in my ears at the same time that the air bag shot out, knocking our heads backward against the headrest. White powder floated in the air like confetti. The Cadillac screeched and rolled to the side of the road, and I felt something hissing underneath us. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t open my mouth. I couldn’t even groan. My nose felt like it’d been pushed to the back of my head. I wondered if I broke it. I pondered if now, that my face was all jacked, my husband would finally lose interest in me.

That was the last thought I had before I passed out.

“Francesca? Nem? Talk to me,” Wolfe demanded in the background. A dark screen spilled over my eyes as my eyelids gave in. I wanted to answer him but couldn’t. I heard him slap his wheel. “Damn it all to fucking hell. I’m on my way.”

I dragged my eyes to Smithy with whatever energy I had left. His head began to bob as the airbag shrank back, and he groaned in pain.

“She’s fine,” Smithy croaked. “Bleeding from her mouth and nose. Her eye doesn’t look too good, either.”

“Fuck!” Wolfe yelled.

Smithy unbuckled himself and reached across, unbuckling me, too.

“Should I…?” Smithy started at the same time Wolfe barked, “Yes. Draw your weapon. And if they get close to her, by God, kill the bastards before I do. Because I would be much less humane.”

I passed out after that. It felt like a thick blanket of nightmares covered me, suffocating and scorching hot. I was there but not really. I didn’t know how much time had passed. The first thing I remembered were the blue and red police lights shimmering behind my closed eyelids, and Smithy explaining to the police officers that we didn’t see them, and that they took off without getting out of their vehicle. Their license plate was missing, of course, but they were probably just punk kids who wanted to vandalize an expensive new car. Then I felt Wolfe’s arms wrapping around me and carrying me, bridal-style, to an ambulance. He tucked me in a gurney and barked when someone else tried to touch me.

“Sir,” a male paramedic snapped, “we need to put a brace on her neck and strap her to a backboard to stabilize her in case of spinal injuries.”

“Fine. Be gentle,” he snapped. When I opened my eyes, I noticed that Wolfe wasn’t alone. A chubby man in a fancy suit with a black mane stood next to him.

A paramedic shined a penlight into my eyes, patting my body and looking for any visible injuries. My forehead was bruised, and my entire face felt swollen and sore.

“If she lands in the ER, we’ll need to issue a statement,” the guy next to Wolfe was texting on his phone, still staring at it. “It’s going to look bad.”

“I don’t care what it looks like,” my husband retorted.

“When an airbag goes off, you have to go to the hospital. If you don’t, you have to sign an Against Medical Advice form. I would strongly suggest we just take her and get her checked.” I heard a soft female paramedic’s voice and blinked my eyes open. She was an attractive woman in her late twenties, and I wondered, briefly, if my Lothario husband was going to put his schmuck in her, too. Suddenly, I despised her, to a point I wanted to tell her I was feeling fine, just as long as she left us alone.

“Darling?” Wolfe probed, his fingers skimming my face gently. Too gently for me to even believe they were actually his. “We’re going to take you to the hospital.”

“No hospital,” I groaned into the palm of his hand. “Just…home. Please.”

“Francesca…”

“It’s fine. The airbags went off but didn’t touch us,” Smithy interfered.

“She’s going to the hospital,” Wolfe argued.

“Sir…” the man beside Wolfe tried to argue.

I wondered if he was like that because there were people around us. Because he ought to be nice and gentle to me in public. The thought scared me to death because something deep inside me wanted to cling to this new side of my husband and never let him go.

“Please. I just want my bed.” My voice broke midsentence as I tried hard not to cry. I had a split lip I was pretty sure was going to reopen if I did. The gorgeous paramedic tapped his shoulder, and I almost mustered the strength to bite her head off, but then he shook out of her touch casually.

“It’s just shallow bruises,” I croaked.

“Get a private doctor to my place in an hour,” Wolfe snapped his fingers in the suited man’s direction, then turned back to me.

“Home,” I told him.

“Yes. Home.” Wolfe brushed hair from my face.

“Thank God,” the suit next to him muttered under his breath, already making the call.

“Shut up, Zion.”

“Yes, sir.”

I woke up in my bed some hours later after a doctor’s visit that stretched for almost two hours. Wolfe was sitting on the couch in front of my bed, working on his laptop. The minute I cracked an eye open, he placed the laptop on the couch, stood up, and made his way to me. I curled under my sheets, too sore to be touched, but he just sat next to me and kept his hands in his lap.

“How is Smithy?” I asked. He blinked at me as though the question itself was ridiculous. Was I speaking in English? Pretty sure I was. Then a smile hung on his beautiful face, like the moon, and I knew—with a good portion of melancholy—that I was in love with this cruel beast of a husband. That for another one of those glowing, genuine smiles, I would butt horns with my father, slay dragons, and hand him my pride on a silver platter. It was depressing to admit, even to myself, that I was under his thumb.

“That’s the first thing you ask after being chased off the roads by mobsters? How the help is doing?” He brushed his thumb across my cheek.

“He is not the help. He is a driver and our friend.”

“Oh, Nemesis.” He shook his head, his smile widening as he pressed a gentle kiss to my forehead. The gesture was so touching I was on the verge of bursting into a sob. Without asking if I’d like water, he brought the glass on my nightstand to my cracked lips, helping me take a few sips.

“Sterling is worried like crazy. She went to the diner down the road and got you enough waffles to build a Hansel and Gretel candy house.”

“I’m not hungry.” I shifted in bed. Somehow, everything hurt even more after a few hours. It wasn’t actually bruises, but the impact of the adrenaline on my body as it wore off.

“Shocking.” My husband rolled his eyes. Senator Wolfe Keaton rolling his eyes exasperatedly was a sight I never thought I’d see.

“But I would love a cigarette.” I licked my lips, tasting the salty flavor of my dry blood. He walked over to my desk and took out a thin Vogue cigarette from its pack, sitting by my side and sliding it between my lips. He lit it for me with my Zippo, like in an old black-and-white film. I smiled around my cigarette.

“Are you going to make it a habit?” he asked.