“What? Che? I can’t hear you?”
Since Antonio hadn’t loosened his chokehold one iota, there was nothing to hear. My lover was being unnecessarily brutal. Cruelty wasn’t necessary. I should have been horrified, but I wasn’t any more dismayed by this than when Antonio had made Paulie recite the Hail Mary with a gun to his head.
“Antonio,” I said, “we don’t have time. I don’t know why no one’s here, but it won’t last.”
He looked me over, lingering on my throat, which must have been a shade of red that was about to go black and blue.
I turned to Domenico and said calmly, “Who sent you?”
Antonio loosened his grip a little.
I continued. “I’ve seen him kill people. And I’m no angel either.”
How could I revel in it? How could I align myself with the most savage part of the man I loved? And how could I feel so right about it? So empowered by murder?
“P-P-P…” the man sputtered.
Antonio and I exchanged a look and understood each other very clearly. Antonio removed his hand.
“Patalano,” he croaked. Domenico looked at Antonio expectantly, then me, breathing hard.
A beat passed before Antonio spoke low and with forceful intent. “Liar.”
In one fell motion, Antonio bent and scooped Domenico’s knees and pulled them up. The railing became a fulcrum and the man’s body a plane, and he tumbled down the space between the stairs. I heard banging and grunting, but I didn’t look. I only had eyes for Antonio.
Then it stopped.
Antonio wasn’t breathing heavily, as if he’d expended zero energy, physical or otherwise. His gaze burned my skin, peeling it off and looking through me. I felt vulnerable and soaked in desire, bare before him and still safe.
“You’re made for this life,” he said.
“I’m made for you.”
Below, someone screamed, and the camera behind me whirred to life. He took my hand and pulled me upstairs. He took the steps two at a time, not as if he were rushing but as if the steps were simply too small for him, and I kept up. I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know why, because he hadn’t told me where we were going. But hand in hand, step for step, in a pine-scented breeze, I made it to the top landing.
“We don’t have time,” he said without breaking his pace. “There are no cameras here, so we could get out. Paulie’s here. The place is crawling with his family, but it looks like Donna Maria found me.”
Antonio turned back to me as he shouldered the door, checking on me. Admiring. Connecting. Yanking that spiritual tether between us.
Before the door clacked open, I noticed the floor and walls shaking in a consistent rhythm. Not an earthquake.
He yanked me forward, pushing the door all the way open and drawing me onto the roof where a helicopter waited. The pressure of the air almost slammed the door on me, but he held it. The rotors spun against the orange haze of the setting sun, and a man crawled out of the cabin to hand Antonio his headset.
“You got clearance to Montecito,” he shouted over the whip of the rotors. “Maintain at two thousand. Call in at squawk oh-three-five-one.”
“Got it.”
Antonio motioned to me and headed for the cockpit. I ran after him.
“Are you joking?” I tried to gather my whipping hair together and failed.
“Get in.”
“We can’t run away!” Even as I said it, I knew how ridiculous I sounded. Of course we were running away. “And you can’t fly this thing!”
“Yes, we can, and yes, I can.”
“You didn’t tell me you had a pilot’s license!” I yelled over the wind.
“I don’t. Now get in before I pick you up and belt you in like a child.”
I hesitated, and Antonio didn’t have time for that. He picked me up by the waist and tossed me into the helicopter. I dropped into the bucket seat just as he reached for the belt.
“I have it.” I tugged the belt. “Just promise me you’ve done this before.”