From ashes to fire

Getting a choice

*Livia*

For one second, I expect anger.

Instead, something guarded moves across his face.

Then he reaches into his jacket and takes out a black phone.

"Fair," he says.

The word is so unexpected that I almost miss it.

He taps once. Twice.

"Elio," he says when someone answers. His voice has changed. The rough edge is gone, replaced by something flat and dangerous. "Private men's room outside the spa corridor. And fast. Two Vitale men at the door. Bring no one loud."

He listens.

"No. I am fine."

The lie is immediate. Clean.

I know that kind of lie. I wear it like perfume.

Nico ends the call and pushes himself upright using the sink. He is taller than I thought, easily a foot over me. The movement costs him. I see it in the brief tightening around his eyes, the way his fingers grip the marble before he lets go.

He slides on his jacket without buttoning it.

Under the open collar of his shirt, ink runs across his chest. Dark lines. A small flash of a rosary chain at his throat.

"Do you have a weapon?" he asks.

I look down at my clutch.

"Does a lip balm with a broken cap count?"

"Useful."

"I also have a compact with sharp edges."

He gives a small huff, "Terrifying."

"Mock me again and I'll show you how sharp."

His gaze drops to my bare feet.

The hard set of his mouth shifts.

"Where are your shoes?"

"Long story."

He gives a small shrug, "We have about ten seconds."

"Then no story."

A man's voice carries through the door.

"Miss Rossie? Mr. Vitale wants you returned to the suite."

My body locks.

Nico looks at me.

The man outside tries the handle. "Liv, don't make this worse."

Marco.

I close my eyes.

There is a particular kind of terror that comes with hearing someone use the name you answer to in a gentle voice. My skin remembers his careful politeness, the napkin pressed to my cheek, the click of the bedroom lock after Enzo walked away.

Nico steps closer, placing himself between me and the door.

He does not touch me.

"Is that one of yours?" he asks.

"No."

"Look at me."

I do, because his voice makes it sound like an order and a question at once.

"You want to leave this hotel?"

"Yes."

"Do you want police involved?"

The question catches me off guard.

"No." The answer comes too fast. I force air into my lungs. "No police. No hospital. No doctors."

His gaze sharpens at the last word.

I hate that he notices.

"Fine," he says. "My people will get you out."

"I don't know your people."

He gives a small shrug, "You know Vitale's."

"That does not make yours trustworthy."

"No," he says quietly. "It doesn't."

The door shudders under another blow.

Nico checks the time on his phone. "Elio is thirty seconds out."

"You have a strange definition of quiet."

"He'll be quieter than they are."

I should laugh. I do not.

Nico takes his jacket off again and holds it out to me.

I stare at it.

"Put it on."

"I have a uniform."

He shakes his head, "Your uniform has the hotel's crest. Vitale's men will remember it."

"I am not wearing your jacket."

"Then carry it." He says. “Put it on when you need it.”

"Why?"

"Because you are freezing."

I am. I did not notice until he said it. My arms are covered in gooseflesh beneath the thin navy sleeves. My feet ache from the marble floor.

The jacket is black wool, heavy and warm. It smells faintly of cedar and clean soap, nothing like Enzo's sharp citrus cologne.

I take it because I am cold, not because his concern makes something in me feel too tender to look at.

The door crashes inward.

Marco comes through first.

He has one hand raised, palm out, as if he is approaching a frightened animal. Giacomo steps in behind him, shoulders filling the doorway. The broken-nosed man spots Nico and goes very still.

"Moretti," he says.

Nico stands with his back half-turned toward me. His posture is easy. His right hand rests at his side.

There is no weapon visible.

That only seems to make Giacomo more nervous.

"Bellini," Nico says. "You work for Vitale now?"

Marco's eyes flick toward me. "This is a private matter."

"She appears to disagree."

"Miss Rossie is unwell."

The word lands in my stomach like a hook.

Marco says it carefully. Concerned. He even looks sad.

For three years, Enzo has built this version of me in other people's heads. Delicate. Volatile. Prone to misunderstanding ordinary kindness as danger.

Nico does not look back at me.

"Did she ask you for help?" he says.

Marco hesitates.

"No."

"Did she ask you to take her upstairs?"

"Mr. Vitale is worried about her."

Nico's face remains still. "That was not my question."

Giacomo moves first.

His hand goes inside his jacket.

Nico moves faster.

I barely see it. One second Giacomo is reaching for whatever he has hidden there. The next, Nico has twisted his wrist behind his back and driven him face-first into the marble counter. The crack of bone against stone makes me flinch.

Giacomo snarls. Nico keeps pressure on his arm until the man's knees buckle.

Marco takes a step toward me.

Nico's voice turns lethal. "Don't."

Marco stops.

A new figure appears in the doorway behind him, broad-shouldered in a dark patterned shirt under a black coat. His hair is cropped close. A scar cuts through one eyebrow, and he holds a pistol low at his thigh with the casual grip of someone who knows exactly what it can do.

He looks at Nico, then at Giacomo folded against the sink.

"Well," he says. "Bathroom line was longer than expected."

Nico does not take his eyes off Marco. "Elio."

"Yep, boss."

"Take them out."

Elio's gaze slides to me. It pauses on my bare feet, the oversized jacket, my hands curled around the lapels.

He does not smile.

"Miss," he says, polite enough to make the gun stranger. "Do you want these two gentlemen removed from your vicinity?"

The question feels unreal.

Nobody asks me what I want when Enzo's men are in the room.

Marco watches me. His face is tight now. Afraid, maybe. For himself. For me. It hardly changes anything.

"Yes," I say.

Elio nods once.

"That's all I needed."

He moves.

Marco tries to swing at him. Elio catches his arm, turns, and drives him into the wall with a brutal efficiency that steals Marco's breath. Giacomo struggles under Nico's hold, but Nico presses his wrist harder until he goes limp with a strangled curse.

No shots. No grand threats.

Just violence, quick and ugly and practiced.

My knees weaken.

Nico notices, he seems to notice everything.

He releases Giacomo only when Elio has zip ties around both men's wrists. Giacomo slumps against the wall, blood on his mouth.

Nico looks at me.

"You can walk?" he asks.

The question sounds almost gentle after what I watched him do.

My throat is dry. "I walked in here."

"Good. We leave now."

The order breaks something open in me.

I pull his jacket tighter around myself and step back. "No."

Elio glances between us. His expression does not change, but his pistol lowers another inch.

Nico's face goes blank. "No?"

"I am not going anywhere with you."

"You cannot stay here."

"I know that."

"Vitale's men are in this hotel."

"I know that too."

His gaze moves over my face, reading whatever panic has slipped through the cracks. "Then stop arguing for sport."

A laugh escapes me, thin and ugly.

"You think I am arguing for sport?" I ask. "You drag me into your little war with Enzo, put your jacket on me, give orders like I belong to you, and you think I am being difficult?"

His eyes go very dark.

Behind him, Marco coughs blood into the sleeve of his suit.

Nico says, "I have not dragged you anywhere."

"Yet."

The word hangs between us.

Elio looks down at the floor, as if the marble has become deeply interesting.

Nico takes one slow breath. The pain has left him pale, but the command is back in every line of him.

"Fine," he says. "What is your plan?"

I open my mouth.

Nothing comes out.

A taxi. Queens. The locker. Cash. A bus station. Somewhere with a name Enzo cannot find.

Except Enzo always finds names.

Nico waits, one eyebrow slightly raised.

I hate him for waiting. I hate that his question is reasonable. I hate that I have no answer I trust.

"My plan is none of your business."

"That is not a plan."

I huff, "Maybe I like improvising."

"Spicy," he mutters.

"Call me that again and I will improve your headache with the compact."

Elio makes a noise that might be a laugh, then clears his throat when Nico cuts him a look.

Nico steps aside from the door.

The movement is small. Intentional.

"You are free to leave," he says.

My pulse stutters.

He is giving me space. A clean path past him, past Elio, past the men who came for me.

It should make me feel better.

Instead, I stare at the open doorway and see Giacomo in the lobby. Marco in the stairwell. The hotel manager asking if I wanted someone called. Enzo waiting upstairs, probably still smiling for photographs.

Nico watches me without speaking.

Outside the bathroom, a hotel security radio crackles.

Then another voice answers, too clear in the quiet corridor.

"Mr. Vitale wants every exit covered."

The air leaves my lungs.

Nico's hand closes around the brass rosary at his throat.

Elio looks at me, no jokes left in his face.

"Listen," he says softly. "You can walk out that door if you want. But you won't get three feet before somebody calls him."

I look at the hallway.

Then at Nico Moretti.

I do not trust him.

I trust Enzo less.