From ashes to fire

Magic fingers

*Livia*

The men's bathroom smells like cedar soap, stale cologne, and something sharp underneath it, like metal left in the rain.

I slam the door shut behind me and lock it.

For one breath, I lean against the wood with both hands pressed flat to the dark paneling.

The room is empty.

No, not empty.

A sound comes from the far end, low and broken. A man trying very hard not to make one.

There are mirrors along one wall, black marble sinks beneath them, polished brass fixtures. Past the row of stalls, near the frosted window, a man is on the floor beside the counter.

He is dressed for the gala in a black suit that probably costs more than my first apartment. His jacket lies in a crumpled heap beside him. One hand braces against the marble, fingers spread so hard his knuckles have gone white. The other is clamped over his eyes.

Tall. Broad shoulders. Dark hair cut short at the sides, longer on top, damp at the temples.

He does not look up when I move.

"Go away," he says.

His voice is low, roughened by pain, and it has the kind of authority people obey before they think about it.

I glance at the door.

Giacomo is out there somewhere. Marco too. Maybe Enzo has already left the ballroom. Maybe he is standing in the lobby, smiling at donors while his men comb through every hallway in the hotel.

The man on the floor makes another sound. His body jerks hard enough that his shoulder strikes the cabinet beneath the sink.

I flinch.

"Are you hurt?" I ask.

"Do I look like I want a conversation?"

"No. You look like you want an ambulance."

His head turns a fraction. I get a glimpse of his face through the space between his fingers.

Olive skin gone gray around the mouth. A hard mouth. A straight nose. Dark eyes squeezed shut beneath heavy brows. There is a pale scar at his left temple, almost hidden by his hair.

He looks familiar.

Not personally. I have never stood this close to him. But I know that face from photographs in newspapers, from gala invitations, from Enzo's occasional, contemptuous comments over breakfast.

Nico Moretti.

The Moretti heir.

The man Enzo calls a parasite when he is drunk enough to forget I am supposed to think he is civilized.

My stomach drops.

Of every bathroom in Manhattan.

Nico's jaw locks. His hand slips from the marble, and a muscle in his arm knots beneath his shirt cuff. His fingers curl inward against his palm.

A cramp.

The sight pulls me backward through years and flour dust.

Nonna kneeling beside Mama's bed while the curtains stayed closed against the summer light. Mama crying quietly into her pillow because the pain behind her eyes had swallowed the whole room. Nonna pressing her thumbs into the soft place at the base of Mama's skull, then lower, near the neck and shoulder.

"Not magic," Nonna would tell me afterward, when I begged to learn. "Just hands. Sometimes hands remind the body it can let go."

Nico sucks in a breath through his teeth.

I should leave.

He is a Moretti. He belongs to a world built from the same blood-dark rules as Enzo's, maybe worse. Enzo once said Nico had a body dumped in Red Hook because the man skimmed from the wrong shipment. I never knew which of Enzo's stories were true. He collected rumors like trophies.

Still, Nico is on the floor. His hands are shaking. And I know what pain looks like when someone is ashamed of it.

"Do you get headaches like this often?" I ask.

His laugh is one dry sound. "You planning to take notes?"

"I'm trying to figure out if you're dying."

"Disappointed I am not?"

"No, being discovered with a body is not something I need."

He lowers his hand from his face at last.

His eyes are dark, almost black, with thin streaks of silver near the pupils. They fix on me with startling focus despite the pain carved across his face.

He sees everything in one quick sweep. My borrowed housekeeping uniform. Bare feet. Torn out hairpins. The clutch held against my ribs like a weapon. The panic I am failing to hide.

"You aren't hotel staff," he says.

"Gold star."

"Who are you running from?"

"Why are you on the bathroom floor?"

His stare sharpens.

Then another cramp hits him.

His back bows. One hand slams against the marble counter. A soap dish rattles into the sink.

The sound knocks something loose inside me.

"Can I touch you?" I ask.

He looks at me again, and the room goes very still.

The question seems to confuse him more than the pain. "What?"

"I might be able to help. A little. I don't know what this is, and I am not a doctor, so don't start looking grateful. But my grandmother used pressure points for migraines and muscle spasms." I swallow. "If you say no, I leave you alone."

A noise sounds outside the bathroom door. A man's voice, muffled through the wood. "Check in there."

My blood turns to ice.

Nico hears it too. His gaze shifts toward the door, then back to me.

"Vitale?" he asks.

I do not answer.

His expression changes anyway.

Enzo has never been subtle with people from this world. His charm works best on strangers. Men like Nico know what lives under it.

The handle rattles once.

Locked.

"Do it," Nico says.

I stare at him.

"Your hands… whatever you think you can do" he says, each word clipped. "Do it."

There is no time to explain. I cross the bathroom fast and drop to my knees beside him.

Up close, I see the ink disappearing beneath his white dress shirt cuffs. Black lines over his wrist. The edge of a saint's face, maybe. His skin is hot despite the chill rolling off the marble floor.

"Tell me if I hurt you," I say.

"That would require speaking."

"You have been managing it beautifully so far."

I put two fingers at the base of his skull, just below his left ear. He jerks at the first contact, every muscle in him going hard.

"Easy," I whisper.

His eyes open.

I press carefully, feeling for the tense cord of muscle under skin. My other hand settles at the side of his neck, my thumb just beneath the ridge of bone. Nonna's hands were thicker than mine, warm and flour-soft even after fifty years of kneading bread. She always worked slowly, with patience that had nothing to do with gentleness.

"Is that worse?" I ask.

Nico's throat moves.

"No."

"Good. Then stop glaring at me like I stole your wallet."

"I don't carry one."

"Of course you don't. You probably have a man whose only job is holding your money."

For a second, his mouth threatens to move.

Then he shuts his eyes again.

I adjust the pressure. His breathing comes ragged at first. His shoulder bunches beneath my hand. The cramp in his forearm tightens, fingers clawing against his palm, then eases by degrees.

Outside, the bathroom handle shakes again.

"Locked," a man says.

"Open it."

My stomach drops lower.

Nico catches my wrist.

His grip is firm but not painful. His eyes are open now. The silver in them is clearer, cold and watchful.

"Don't move," he says.

I give a thin laugh. "That is a very funny thing to say to a woman hiding in a men's room from armed psychos."

"Are they armed?"

"Probably. Enzo likes accessories."

The grip on my wrist tightens once, then releases.

He reaches for his jacket, but his hand shakes halfway there.

"Don't," I say.

"I need my phone."

"You need to sit still for thirty seconds."

His eyes cut to mine.

Most men hate being told what to do. Enzo hates it like it is a crime against nature. His anger always begins quietly, with that tiny pause where he decides how much pain a person has earned.

Nico's face gives me nothing.

Then he leans his head back against the cabinet and says, "Thirty."

I blink.

"Did you just listen to me?"

"Don't get carried away."

The bathroom door takes a hard push from the other side, like someone throwing themself into it shoulder first.

The lock holds.

For now.

I press lower along his neck, working the tight band at the top of his shoulder. His breathing catches when my thumb finds a tender point.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Adjust."

"Bossy."

"Spicy."

The word lands wrong because it sounds like Enzo's people outside, because it sounds like he has known me longer than five minutes, because Nico says it through pain and still makes it feel like a challenge.

I glare at him. "You don't know me."

"No," he says. "But you ran into a men's bathroom rather than let Vitale's men take you upstairs. I know enough."

A crack splinters through the room.

The outer lock gives.

I pull my hands back.

Nico catches one before I can rise. His palm closes around mine, hot and strong. The cramp has loosened, but his face is still pale.

"Stay behind me," he says.

The command hits my chest like a fist.

I yank my hand free. "Absolutely not."

His eyes narrow.

"I have been staying behind men for three years," I say, keeping my voice low because if I raise it I will start screaming. "It has gone terribly for me."