His grip was a vice, hauling me up from the glass-strewn floor with a single, powerful surge of his arm.
My head spun wildly as I scrambled to find my footing on the slick marble, missing one shoe and hobbled by the heavy velvet of my dress. But Dante didn't give me time to stumble. He pulled me flush against his side, his left arm wrapping around my waist, locking me against the solid, unyielding heat of his body.
"Don't let go of me," he ordered, his voice barely a rasp over the echoing chaos. "Do exactly what I do."
I nodded, the frantic adrenaline burning away the last remnants of my panic. The civilian art restorer was dead. The woman pressed against the Don of the American Cosa Nostra was a soldier remembering how to breathe in the trenches.
Dante moved. We didn't run wildly; we
