Page 73 of My Dark Ever After

It was a swift lowering of his brows. “Yeah, he’s a good guy too. He deserves more than his lot, though, you know? He never wanted this.”

“He told me. But he is what he is, and I think he’s made some kind of peace with it,” I offered. It was true—even when Raffa could have told me the circumstances of becoming a reluctant mafioso, he hadn’t. Instead, he’d insisted again and again that he enjoyed what he did.

The lying, the stealing, and even, when necessary, the murder.

“There are always other options,” Philippe said with a shrug as he pulled into a parking lot. “We’re here.”

This was my opportunity to run. I just had to time it right, because I was quick, but Philippe’s legs were twice the length of mine, and he was built leanly like a runner and not thickly like Ludo, who was slower than me.

My heart panged thinking about Ludo back at the villa. He hadn’t wanted me to go into town without him, but he was still recovering from the bullet wound he’d gotten at Impruneta, so Philippe had been assigned to me instead.

He was going to be almost as pissed off as Raffa when they discovered me gone.

When Philippe opened the door for me, he took my arm and wedged it through his own.

“Rush hour,” he explained. “It gets busy.”

Merda.

I smiled at him. “Right. I’ll stay close.”

He tugged me into the crush of people heading toward the station, moving quickly without rushing. I kept my eye peeled for a police officer or somewhere I could give him the slip, but the open area around the station was too exposed.

There was no room to operate as Philippe dragged me through the turnstiles and onto the platform, and he held me pressed tightly to his side as we walked toward our train car at the end. Overhead, an announcement claimed there were two minutes to board before departure.

“Hey, stop that,” I said suddenly, a little too loud.

A couple waiting for the train across from ours turned to stare.

“Stop touching me,” I said again as I struggled away from Philippe, who was scowling at me. “I saidstop!”

“Hey.” An older man with a German accent stepped forward. “Hey, you should not be touching her like that.”

“Please, help. He won’t let me go,” I begged.

The man in the couple to my other side started forward to help, and two women joined him, converging on us.

For the first time since I’d left the Uffizi, Philippe looked alarmed.

“Take your fucking hands off her,” one of the women demanded. “I’m going to call the police.”

“Do it,” someone else agreed. “He’s harassing her.”

“Let go!” I demanded, leveraging all my weight against Philippe.

He had to use both hands to clamp me close. “Stop this,” he hissed.

I tipped my head back to cry, “Help!”

The two men and a few more who had joined our group surged forward to manhandle Philippe off me.

A voice over the PA system announced the train was about to depart, so I pushed off Philippe, leaving him to the crowd of Good Samaritans, and sprinted onto the train just as the doors started to close.

I watched in horror as Philippe broke away from the group by punching one man in the throat and dived into the closest train car.From my angle, I couldn’t tell if he made it or not, but I decided not to wait around to find out.

I moved down the aisle of the train away from where he might have gotten on, making my way to the end car. It was first class only, but luckily I had my ticket, sweat-damp and crinkled in one fist. I took the steps to the lower level and found a place in the nearly empty car at the very back. Slumping low in my seat, I trained my eyes on the door to the car. I wasn’t sure what I would do if Philippe showed up other than try to hide, but I didn’t want to be taken by surprise.

“Waiting for someone?”