From ashes to fire

Hallway grip

*Livia*

It is not a decision. Decisions require choices that do not come with a hand at the back of your neck.

Nico turns toward Elio. "How many exits?"

"Main lobby is covered. Service route has two men near the loading dock, maybe three. Garage entrance is clear for the moment."

"For the moment," I repeat.

Elio looks at me. "I hate to promise a nice evening and disappoint."

Nico ignores him. "Your car?"

"West garage. Driver's got the route."

"Move Bellini and Giacomo through the laundry corridor. Keep them alive."

Giacomo spits blood at the floor near Nico's shoe.

"Go to hell."

Nico looks down at him. "You first."

The words are quiet. Flat. Giacomo's face tightens.

I hate the small part of me that feels safer because of it.

Elio reaches inside his coat and pulls out a lemon candy. He holds it toward me, wrapper bright against his scarred knuckles.

"Sugar?" he asks.

I stare at it.

My hands are shaking. I fold them into the sleeves of Nico's jacket so neither man can see.

"No… thanks."

"Fair enough."

He puts it back in his pocket without making a face about it. The courtesy lands strangely. Enzo's people use kindness as a receipt. Every favor has a price printed in invisible ink.

Nico steps toward the door.

"Wait," I say.

He looks over his shoulder.

"Who are those men?"

"Vitale soldiers," he says, looking slightly confused.

"I know that."

"Then why ask?"

Because I need him to understand that Marco will not be the last familiar face waiting in a hallway. Because Enzo has men in clubs, restaurants, parking garages, hospitals. Because some of them call me Miss Rossie. Some call me Liv. Some have watched me carry Enzo's coffee into meetings and looked away when I came out crying.

I swallow against the dry ache in my throat.

"There are more," I say. "Not just those two."

Nico watches me.

I point at Giacomo without looking directly at him. "He works security for the foundation, but he handles the ugly stuff when Enzo wants it quiet. He's been at the house since last year. Marco drives when Enzo doesn't want official cars on the records."

Elio's expression loses its easy edge.

"And?" Nico asks.

I press my thumb into the old coin at my wrist. "There's Rafe. Blond hair, scar above his lip. He likes to wear a gray suit because he thinks it makes him look less obvious. He carries a knife in an ankle holster."

"Elio," Nico says.

Elio has already taken out his phone. "On it."

"There's another one, Dante Vescari. He won't be near the ballroom. Enzo sends him ahead. He checks routes, building plans, staff schedules." The words come faster now, as if I can get them out before I lose my nerve. "If he knows I'm in this hotel, he'll be near the garage. He has tattoos on his fingers. Saints' names. He limps when he gets tired."

Nico's eyes stay on mine.

"How long have you been keeping track?" he asks.

Three years.

I do not say it.

"Long enough."

His jaw shifts once. It is the only sign that my answer reaches him.

A sharp citrus scent drifts under the bathroom door.

My body goes still.

It is probably someone's cologne. A hotel air freshener. A cleaning cart rolling past in the corridor.

My lungs stop anyway.

Bellwether smells like antiseptic lemon cleaner.

The memory does not arrive softly. It drops over my head.

White walls. White sheets. White plastic cup with two pills sitting in my palm. A nurse in blue scrubs saying I needed to cooperate if I wanted to go home. Enzo standing beside the door in a cream suit, his eyes damp and devoted for the benefit of anyone watching.

"She gets frightened when she feels cornered," he had said.

I had been cornered.

I had said that.

The nurse wrote something down.

Nico says my name.

I do not answer.

"Liv."

His voice is closer.

I blink, and the bathroom comes back into focus. Black marble. Gold taps. Blood on Giacomo's mouth. Elio watching me with his phone lowered.

Nico is standing in front of me.

He does not touch me.

"What did you smell?" he asks.

The question is too careful. It makes heat crawl up my neck.

"Nothing."

"Use your words."

I look at him so sharply that he should take a step back.

He does not.

"I said nothing… nothing is a word."

"You went pale."

"I'm wearing a housekeeping uniform in a men's bathroom while your friend zip-ties people to the floor. Pale is reasonable."

Elio makes a soft sound through his nose. Nico does not look away.

The citrus smell thickens.

My stomach twists.

"Lemon cleaner," I say, hating the words as soon as I give them to him. "It smells like Bellwether."

Nico's face changes by degrees. The coldness does not leave it. It settles into something worse.

"The clinic?" he asks.

I nod once.

He looks to Elio. "Get her out through the service hall."

The command cracks through me.

"I can walk myself."

"I know."

"Then stop talking like I'm luggage."

His gaze cuts back to mine. "Fine. Walk beside me."

"Better."

"Do not mistake that for permission to run."

My laugh comes out brittle. "You really are allergic to sounding normal."

"I have no interest in sounding normal."

Elio opens the bathroom door a few inches and checks the corridor. "Clear enough. We need to go."

Nico gives Giacomo one last look. "If either of them gets loose, break something useful."

Elio's brows rise. "You're in a mood."

"Move."

I follow because the corridor outside is empty and because standing still has never saved me. Nico stays at my left. Elio walks behind us, gun concealed now beneath his coat, his hand resting near it.

The service hallway looks different from before.

It is narrower. Brighter. The fluorescent lights buzz with a sickly electric whine. Cart wheels have carved black marks along the gray walls. Somewhere nearby, dryers churn through wet linen.

I keep my eyes on the exit signs.

Right turn, loading bay. Straight ahead, employee elevators. Door at the end, marked STAFF ONLY.

My fingers brush the coin at my wrist.

Nico notices. "You always do that?"

"What?"

"The bracelet."

I shake my head, "No."

"You're a bad liar."

"You're a bad conversationalist."

"That is not a denial."

I glance at him. His face is set forward, profile hard beneath the overhead light. He looks recovered from the attack if I ignore the faint grayness under his skin and the way his left hand flexes once at his side.

"Do your headaches make you annoying," I ask, "or were you born gifted?"

Elio snorts behind us.

Nico's mouth almost moves. "You have a lot to say for someone who has no plan."

The insult lands exactly where he means it to.

My pace breaks for half a step.

Then I see the double doors at the end of the hall.

And a man leaning beside them.

Gray suit.

Blond hair.

Scar above his upper lip.

Rafe looks up from his phone.

For one awful second, he just stares at me.

Then his mouth opens.

"Miss Rossie."

Every muscle in my body locks.

Nico sees it. His hand closes around my upper arm, not hard, but firm enough that I cannot pretend it is accidental.

"Who?" he asks.

My voice does not work.

Rafe tucks his phone away. His smile is slow, almost apologetic. "There you are. Mr. Vitale has been worried sick."

The lemon smell is back. Stronger now, mixed with machine oil and damp heat from the laundry room.

My throat closes.

Nico's grip stays on my arm.

"Liv," he says, low enough that only I can hear. "Tell me."

I force air into my lungs.

"Rafe," I whisper. "He's Enzo's."

Rafe's smile fades when he recognizes Nico.

"Moretti." His gaze drops to Nico's hand on my arm. "This is a private situation."

Nico's fingers loosen immediately.

I feel the change. He lets me go as if the skin beneath his hand has turned hot.

"She named you," Nico says.

Rafe looks at me again. The concern returns to his face, polished and familiar. "She's under stress. We all know how Liv gets when she's overwhelmed."

My knees threaten to fold.

He says it exactly like Enzo. Same soft patience. Same small sigh wrapped around my name.

Nico steps forward.

I catch his sleeve.

"Don't," I say.

His eyes come down to mine.

There is violence waiting in him. I can see it in the way his shoulders have gone still. In the silver flash inside his dark eyes.

"Please," I add, and the word tastes like rust.

Rafe takes the opening.

"Liv," he says gently. "Come here. Enzo is waiting in the room."

The hallway vanishes around the sentence.

Enzo is waiting in the room.

I know the room he means even though we are three floors below it. Suite 1804. The curtains pulled shut. A bucket of champagne sweating beside the bed. His cufflinks placed neatly on the glass table while he decides whether I have earned forgiveness.

I have been pulled through hotel corridors before. I have been held by the elbow, the wrist, the back of the neck. Enzo prefers nobody see bruises above the collarbone. He likes his damage easy to explain.

My body remembers all of it at once.

Go still.

Do not make him angry.

Do not give him a reason.

Rafe takes two steps toward me.

"Elio," Nico says with a snap of his fingers.

Rafe moves faster.

His hand clamps around my wrist.

The contact tears something loose in me.

I jerk back, but he has me. His fingers bite into the place where Enzo used to leave white ribbons around my skin. Nico's jacket slips from one shoulder. My clutch falls and spills open across the concrete.

Cash. Lip balm. Compact. My cracked prepaid phone.

Rafe drags me toward the double doors.

"Let go of me," I say.

My voice is thin.

He tightens his grip. "You're making a scene."

"There is nobody here to see it."

His eyes flick toward Nico, and that soft, patient mask slips.

"Mr. Vitale is waiting," he says again. "Don't make him come looking… it would not end well."

Rage rises so fast it burns through the fear.

Three years of being carried back to rooms. Three years of letting men call it concern. Three years of watching them trade looks over my head while I tried to sound sane enough to deserve my own life.

I drive my heel down onto Rafe's foot.

He curses.

I twist hard, grab the compact from the floor with my free hand, and s***h the jagged edge across the back of his wrist.

Blood beads bright against his skin.

Rafe releases me with a shout.

Nico is there before I can step away.

He hits Rafe once.

The sound is dull and final. Rafe's head snaps sideways into the wall. He starts to fall, and Nico catches his suit jacket in one fist, holding him upright.

"You put your hands on her," Nico says.

Rafe blinks through the blood at his temple. "She's Vitale's."

Nico's expression does not change.

"No," he says. "She isn't."

Rafe laughs once, breathless and wrong. "You don't know what you're stepping into."

Nico brings him closer by the lapel. "I know exactly what I'm stepping into."

Elio has the double doors secured, one hand pressed to an earpiece. "We've got movement at the garage. Dante and two more."

Nico releases Rafe.

The man crumples against the wall, clutching his bleeding wrist.

I stand there shaking, compact still raised in my hand.

Nico looks at it, then at me.

"You hurt?" he asks.

I want to say no. The old answer presses against my teeth.

Instead, I look at the red marks already blooming around my wrist. "Yes."

The word comes out almost soundless.

Nico's face goes very quiet.

He does not reach for me. He crouches, gathers the scattered cash and phone from the floor, and puts them back into my clutch. His movements are precise, almost formal. When he stands, he holds the bag out.

"Keep the compact," he says.

I take it.

Elio looks toward the garage doors. "Listen. We have maybe sixty seconds before this hall gets crowded."

Nico turns to me. "You’re coming with us now."

My anger is still roaring under my skin. It keeps me upright.

"And if I say no?"

His gaze drops to the bruising on my wrist, then rises again.

"Then I put you in a car with a driver of your choosing, give you cash, and spend the rest of the night keeping Vitale's men away from it."

I stare at him.

"That is a terrible plan," I say.

"Yes."

I swallow, "He'll find me."

"Yes."

"You'll get people hurt."

"Probably."

The bluntness knocks the breath out of me.

Nico steps closer. Not close enough to touch. Close enough that I can see the faint strain around his eyes from the attack, the dark ink at his throat, the rosary chain resting against his skin.

"I can keep you alive," he says. "But you have to let me get you out of this building first."

The word let sits between us.

Not obey.

Not belong.

I have to let him.

Behind us, Rafe groans. Somewhere beyond the doors, men's voices rise near the garage.

I look at Nico. Then at Elio, who has already moved aside, clearing a path instead of blocking one.

A choice.

Small. Terrible. But mine.

I pull Nico's jacket back around my shoulders and grip my clutch tight.

"Fine," I say. "But if you put me in a locked room, I will burn your house down."

Elio flashes me a quick, startled grin.

Nico's eyes hold mine.

"You can try," he says.

Then he takes the lead toward the service exit, and I follow him into the dark.