Page 13

Chapter 12

I woke up the next morning, determined to keep a positive attitude about all the unwanted changes in my life. Robert and Jamie had welcomed us into their home and were trying to help us, so I put a smile on my face when I entered the dining room wearing frayed jean shorts and a blousy lilac top, one of the outfits Jamie had purchased last night.

“That looks cute on you,” she said, looking up as she laid a platter of bacon on the table where Damiano and Robert were sitting.

“It’s my favorite color,” I admitted. “My dad always buys me lilacs on my birthday.” Don’t think about your birthday, Evie. Or your dad. Or your brothers. Or pretty much anything. So I pushed the thoughts away and took a seat.

“I know you’re probably used to wearing the Bouvier brand, but all the boutiques were closed by the time I went shopping last night.”

“I do, but I shop at regular stores as well. Everything you bought is perfect. Thank you.”

“Okay,” she said, sliding onto the chair beside her husband. “We’ve got a lot to do regarding appearances. Why don’t we talk about that over breakfast?”

“Are you going to reconstruct my face? If so, I’d like to look like Angelina Jolie,” I teased, drawing chuckles from around the table.

Jamie shook her head. “I’m not going to change anything about the structure of your face, Evie. Your eyes though, they’re your most striking feature, so we’ll start there. Have you ever worn contact lenses?”

“No.”

“Okay, I’ll teach you. We have a supply of colored ones here. I think brown would be best, if that’s okay.”

I appreciated her asking for my input, attempting to give me a semblance of the control I craved over my own damn life. “That will be fine.”

Robert inspected me as he nibbled on a slice of bacon. “Your look is very classic, Evie. I was thinking we should go a bit edgier with your hair. Shorter and darker. I could even add a lilac streak, if you want.”

Suppressing the grimace I felt at the thought of cutting my hair, I forced a smile onto my face. “That sounds… great.”

Jamie rubbed a palm over her husband’s bald head. “Don’t let the lack of hair fool you. Robert really is good at finding the best styles for people.”

“Do I have to become a cue ball too?” Damiano asked flatly.

Robert grinned at him. “Exactly the opposite. We’re going to let your hair grow out.”

“The broken nose though,” Jamie said, circling her fork with a bite of pancake on the end. “Will you let me fix that, Damiano? I think it could change your entire look. Add in the long hair and a beard, and you’ll be virtually unrecognizable.”

His finger swooped along the crook in his nose. Despite that, he was a very handsome man with his dark hair, olive skin, and cheek bones that would make a model weep. And those lips… gahhh! I mentally scolded myself for noticing.

“If you think it will help, do it,” Damiano replied. “But won’t there be hospital records and staff to worry about?”

“It’s an outpatient procedure, so we can do it at my office after hours,” Jamie informed him. “My surgical nurse is a woman we helped who was in an abusive relationship. Robert and I paid for her to go to nursing school, and she’s become a vital part of our team. Very trustworthy.”

“How many people have you helped?” I asked before forking a bite of fluffy pancake into my mouth.

Jamie hummed, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. “Not sure of the exact number, but it’s a few people per year. We’re very selective, which is out of necessity. We only take people who are referred by someone we trust. Like Rodrigo.”

“Have you heard from him today?” Damiano asked, worry etching lines into his forehead. He really seemed to care about the older man.

Robert gave him a thumbs up. “He texted this morning with the one-word code we use to let me know he’s safe.” A smug smile inched across his lips. “We probably won’t hear from him for a while. He’s shacked up with that cleaning woman.”

“A maid?” I asked, and Robert chortled.

“No, she cleans up… messes other people leave behind.”

Oh. I got the message. “What’s the code?”

I realized that was none of my business as soon as I asked it, but he answered anyway. “Tiramisù, but we change it every few months.”

For some reason, that gave me the giggles. “I love tiramisù. There’s a place in New York my father takes me every year for my birthday that has the best I’ve ever had.”

Robert pointed a thick finger at the man beside me. “Then you’ve never had Damiano’s. I could eat an entire pan of his without blinking an eye.”

“Which would be fine if I was a cardiologist,” Jamie said dryly.

I was still trying to process the fact that the killer beside me could even find his way to the kitchen, much less make tiramisù.

Robert leaned back in his chair, eyes to the ceiling as if reminiscing. “I think it was about ten years ago when me and Rodrigo found you working away in the kitchen, Dame. You couldn’t have been more than fifteen, but you were whipping and stirring like a pro.”

“My mama taught me everything I know,” Damiano said quietly, and Robert gave him a sad smile. I wondered what that was all about.

“I just thought your cannoli were a dream until you served us your tiramisù. Mmm, so decadent.” His eyes closed and his mouth gaped open.

“Would you cool it?” Jamie asked. “They don’t want to see what your O-face looks like.”

“Agreed,” grunted Damiano, his nose crunched up.

Jamie continued, “Okay, backstories. We decided it would be best to say you’re both only children and that your parents are no longer living. That way there won’t be any questions about your families.”

We nodded as Robert took over. “Jamie and I have a beach house in the Keys, so you can stay down there as a newlywed couple.”

“No!” I practically shouted, leaping from my chair and jerking my thumb in Damiano’s direction. “I am not marrying him.”

“On paper only,” Jamie said in a soothing voice. “There are two bedrooms in the house.”

“I have to live with him ?” I was pretty sure my eyeballs were about to spring from my head and onto the table.

“Honey, what did you think was going to happen?”

My brain scrambled for an answer. “I don’t know. I guess I thought we’d live on the same street or something.” Okay, I admit. That sounded a bit lame.

“Evie, there’s safety in numbers. And anyone looking for you won’t be looking for a married couple. It’s really the best cover.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my back on them, pacing a few steps away. What they said made sense, but I didn’t like this. Not at all. But I was scared, and truth be told, I didn’t want to be alone. After a few minutes of silence where I massaged the tightness in my temples, I finally turned back around and leveled everyone at the table with a glare.

“If we do this, I have some rules.”

Damiano’s lips tipped up on one side, like I was fucking amusing him. “By all means, tell us your rules.”

“I’m not living with some Mafia thug,” I announced.

“Well, I’m obviously not with the family anymore,” Damiano pointed out, and I narrowed my eyes at him.

“That means no whacking anyone.”

Giving me a curt nod, he said, “Fine.”

“Also, no drugs.”

His jaw clenched, and his voice was firm and quiet. “I don’t do drugs. Ever.”

Walking up to him, I poked him in the chest. “And you better not leave your dirty socks in the living room.”

As I whirled around and stomped from the room, I heard Damiano mumble, “We’ve only been married ten seconds, and she’s already nagging.”

I made a sound of annoyance in the back of my throat and tried to talk myself down. Otherwise, I’d be the one doing the whacking.

“Okay, try one more time.”

“It’s so big,” I complained.

Jamie chuckled. “Evie, it’s fourteen millimeters in diameter.”

I stared down at the contact lens on my fingertip. “Are you sure? It seems like it’s bigger than a dinner plate.”

“I assure you, it’s not.”

The bathroom I shared with Damiano had a knee space, and I was seated on the small, padded chair with a stand mirror in front of me. “Okay, I’m trying again.”

Holding my eyelid with the fingers of my other hand, I edged the contact lens toward my cornea. It seemed to triple in size the closer it got, and I let out a whimpered, “Shit,” before pulling my hand back. “Sorry, Jamie.”

A dark presence seemed to invade the space a second before I heard a deep voice ask, “What’s going on?”

“Evie’s just having trouble getting her contacts in,” Jamie explained to Damiano, and my face flushed with embarrassment. Why the hell was this so hard? Millions of people wore contact lenses every day.

“Turn around,” he demanded, and my stupid body did what he asked without my permission. Taking the lens from me, he rinsed it off with the small bottle of solution sitting on the counter before arranging the devilish piece of silicone hydrogel on his index finger. “Open wide, Evie.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

In answer, he placed a large hand on top of my head and tilted my chin up. “Putting this in for you. My brother started wearing contacts when he was sixteen, and he acted like a little pussy.” Then he added with a smirk, “Just like you.”

My eyelids popped open wide in shock and anger, but before I could come up with a snarky retort, he stuck the lens in my eye.

“Aghhhh!” I shrieked, his low laughter providing a background to my distress. “You… you…”

“How does it feel?” he asked, completely unaffected by my irritation. I blinked rapidly about a thousand times, surprised when it felt… normal.

“It’s okay,” I admitted reluctantly.

He pointed at the white case sitting on the counter. “Now do the other one, or I’m going to do it for you.” His smugness pissed me off, and I swiveled around, completely motivated by stubbornness now.

I got the lens on my cornea on the second try.

“Good girl,” he said, stroking a hand over the top of my head before strolling casually back into his bedroom.

His touch and parting words roused an unwelcome feeling in my throat, but I swallowed it down and mumbled, “Asshole,” as I looked over at Jamie. She was covering her mouth with her fist, but I could see the smile hiding behind it.

“They look good. What do you think?” she asked, gesturing to the mirror.

At first glance, I was startled. The blue eyes I’d seen in the mirror for over eighteen years were gone, replaced by brown ones. Tilting my head from side to side, I said, “I don’t hate them. They look very natural. It’s just different.”

“That’s the point,” she said, patting me on the shoulder. “Now let’s get Robert to work his magic on your hair.”

“Can we talk about the money?” Robert asked as his hands worked in my hair.

“What money?” I asked, purposely not looking at the strands of my caramel hair falling to the floor.

“Uh, the almost seven million in cash that’s currently sitting in there,” he replied, tilting his head toward the house. We were in the small building behind his house that he used as a makeshift salon.

“Oh, well, I don’t really know much about it besides the fact that asshole Luca was going to buy me with it.”

“Yeah, but since it’s yours now, I was—”

“It’s not mine,” I argued, and Robert’s hand stilled before he set his scissors down and rested his hands on his knees, bringing himself to my eye level.

“Damiano said he was giving it to you.” I stared blankly at him, and his eyebrows pressed together in confusion. “He said he planned to give the cash to you when he dropped you off with your family. He didn’t tell you that?”

My heart rose up into my throat. What the hell?

“No,” I told him, swallowing hard to try and clear my windpipe. “Why?”

“He thought you and your family could use it.” A chagrined smile quirked his mouth up on one side. “Of course, at the time, he didn’t realize who you were and that you probably have more cash than that in your couch cushions.”

“W-why wouldn’t he just give it back to his father when he went back home?”

Robert shook his head, looking slightly amused. “He wasn’t going back, Evie. He was going to take you home and then scram.”

“Scram?”

He sighed and stood upright, bracketing his jaw with his hand before stroking downward. “If Luca Cappitani gives you an order, you do it or else. You get what I’m saying?”

My mind worked to keep up, to put all the pieces together. “Damiano was going to let me go, but then, if he went home without his father’s purchase , he would be dead meat.”

“Now you’re getting it,” he said, picking up the scissors again, holding a piece of my hair between two fingers and snipping off the ends. “And don’t even ask me why because I can’t give you the answer to that. All I know is that once Luca found out who you were, everything changed. Damiano knew you—and every member of your family—would become a target.”

As Robert finished the haircut, I was silent, processing everything I knew, but it still didn’t make sense. Damiano didn’t even know me. Why the hell would he care if I was a target? Why the hell would he protect me when I’m sure it would have been simpler for him to disappear without me in tow?

When Robert started brushing the dark-brown color onto my hair with a black, long-handled brush, I spoke again.

“This thing you and Jamie do… do you have a success rate?”

When he was silent, I lifted my eyes to find his jaw clenched. Finally, he said, “Almost perfect. Only one loss.” His voice took on a hint of anger. “He didn’t follow our directions.”

“What did he do?”

Robert’s eyes dropped to mine, boring into them like he was imparting something very important. “We told him no contact with anyone in his old life, but he didn’t listen. He called his mistress, and, of course, the Bratva had her phone tapped. That’s how they found him.”

His lips pressed hard together as his hands continued their work.

“Why were you asking about the money earlier?”

“Oh, yeah. That. You’re not going to have to worry about rent or anything, but I was wondering if you minded using that money for yours and Damiano’s living expenses.”

“Like I said, it’s not mine, so I don’t care,” I replied. “How long until Luca forgets about me so I can go home?”

“That asshole has a very long memory, Evie. There was one guy who wronged him and then disappeared. Luca found him nine years later and decapitated him in front of his wife and kids.”

Bile rose in my throat, and it took great effort to swallow it down. “So if he’s not going to forget about me, what’s the end game?”

“Someone has to take out Luca. No one under him has the balls to do it, so it has to come from the top. From Leo, the Don. The only problem is, Leo is Luca’s uncle, and he’s always been reluctant to kill a member of his own family.”

“How noble of him,” I said sarcastically, sliding my hands beneath my thighs. I thought maybe we were going into hiding for a couple months or something, but any hope of seeing my family anytime soon was beginning to fade.

“Damiano’s brother is talking to Leo, but there’s no guarantee it will work. He has to be cautious though so Luca doesn’t find out. We need to keep Fiero in place because he’s the only one we can trust within the family.” Robert pressed a finger against the back of my head. “Tilt forward.”

I did, feeling air against the back of my neck. Though with all this new information, some missing hair seemed a lot less important.

Once the color was done processing, Robert sat me in another chair and leaned my head back into the single shampoo bowl along one wall of the metal building.

“Oh my god, that feels good,” I sighed as his fingers scrubbed and massaged my scalp.

He looked down at me and smiled. “Jamie says the same thing. She loves when I wash her hair.”

This big man’s face took on the consistency of a melting marshmallow when he spoke of his wife. “You are the cutest couple,” I commented.

“You and Damiano will be too.”

I jerked upright, splashing water and shampoo all over. “We are not a couple,” I gritted out, and Robert’s eyebrows lifted high on his forehead as he eased me back down.

“Okay, killer. Calm down. All I meant was that you two will look good together. Should be easy enough to make people believe you’re really newlyweds.”

Even the thought of that rankled me. “Except for the fact that I don’t like him.”

“I’m aware,” he said with a chuckle. “But you’re going to have to show off your acting skills and pretend when you’re out in public.”

My nose crinkled because I knew he was right. “I’ll start working on my Oscar award acceptance speech,” I grumbled.

Robert laughed. “Good. Though no one says you have to act nice when you’re not in front of others.” His grin turned positively wicked. “In fact, when you’re in private, I think you need to give Damiano hell every chance you get.”

With an upward curve of my lips, I assured him, “Oh, that, Robert… that I can do.”