“Vermin,” he mutters, and I gasp as I hear the front door downstairs open even though I haven’t buzzed anyone in.
“Iris, honey, there’s a line of glamorous people out on the sidewalk waiting for you. Get your butt down these stairs pronto!”
Bobby.
I look at Adam, and he stares back at me, and then I dash out of my open apartment door to the top of the stairwell. Robin is down there wheeling their Vuitton luggage inside, and Bobby is standing with his hands on his leather-trousered hips, a huge fur-trapper hat on his head. I sense rather than see Adam move to stand close beside me, and I try not to visibly flinch when he puts his arm around my shoulders, his grip digging into my upper arm.
“You’re being rude, mouse, introduce me to your friends.”
I walk stiffly down the stairs as Sophia and Maria crowd into the small hallway behind Robin, and I’m mortified to see Santo and Felipe are with them too. I pause on the bottom step and feel Adam beside me again, and I close my eyes for a horrified second when his hand lands on my shoulder, pulling me in tight against him.
Bobby yanks his hat off his head, frowning as he tries to get a measure on the situation. It’s silent for a few seconds, everyone watching everyone else.
“I’m Adam Bronson. If I knew you were coming I’d have baked a cake!”
He laughs, that hideous, forced jovial laugh that makes me shudder, and Bobby shakes his head, muttering “Oh I don’t fucking think so” as he hurls his fur hat on the floor and launches himself bodily at Adam.
“Madonna santa,” Maria breathes, stepping back quickly as Adam unbalances and hits the deck, Bobby straddled on top of him like a feral cat. Adam shoves him off easily and stumbles to his feet, swearing, swinging round to stare at me.
“Maybe you should call the police on this dickhead, not me,” he says, dusting himself off. “I’ll come back later. This isn’t my kind of party.”
He elbows Sophia out of the way to get past and she shoulder-checks him right back, almost unbalancing him again.
“Asshole,” she spits.
Adam leers toward her in reply and every Belotti in the place steps forward and starts shouting and shoving him at once, some in English, some in furious Italian, and then he’s suddenly yanked backward by the scruff of the neck and dragged straight out into the street. I didn’t see Gio arrive but he’s here now and I gulp, frantic with relief that at least his family haven’t come en masse to deliver terrible news.
Everyone tumbles out into the street as Adam sprawls on his ass in the snow.
“Get up,” Gio says, standing over him.
Adam slides around on the ice as he hauls himself to his feet, undignified. He stares between Gio and me for a few seconds and then starts to laugh.
“Oh, I get it now,” he says, gesturing between us as if he finds the idea hilarious. “I wouldn’t bother, mate, she’s dull as fuck.”
Gio glances at the sky and sighs, then smacks his fist hard into Adam’s jaw, sending him sprawling across the sidewalk into a heap of black bin sacks from the fish restaurant two doors down. Adam crawls forward, wiping stinking food waste from his clothes. Smirnoff, God bless that cat, appears from nowhere at the scent of fish and swipes his claws over Adam’s hand a second before Gio lifts him back on to his feet by his lapels.
“You want her, you come through me,” he says, right up close in Adam’s face.
A sudden and unexpected sensation of inner strength powers through me, like a shower of metallic lightning bolts firing themselves around my bloodstream. I step forward and lay my hand on Gio’s arm, because much as I appreciate the protective ring everyone has instinctively thrown around me, it’s time for me to be my mother’s daughter. Adam is my demon to dispel, I have to do this for myself.
“Stop. Gio, please, I don’t need you to fight this battle for me.”
He looks sideways at me, breathing hard, and I see all of the Italian passion and fury burning bright behind his beautiful dark eyes. I hold his gaze steady, willing him to listen to me, and after a beat he does as I’ve asked, letting Adam go with a small shove. I nod, grateful that even in this moment of true anger, Gio is a man who is prepared to listen to the needs of others. I think he understands how important it is for me to finish this on my terms.
“You shouldn’t have come here.” I draw myself up to my full height as I turn to look Adam square in the face. “New York is my home now. I’m never coming back to London, nor to you. I’m not scared of you anymore, I’m done letting you be the monster under my bed. You’re a nobody, a miserable, pathetic excuse for a man who gets his kicks from manipulating people when they’re at their lowest. Well, newsflash, Adam. I’m not at my lowest anymore, and I’m not your mouse. I’m not your anything, in fact, and I never will be, so get the hell out of this city and never set so much as a foot near it again, do you hear me?”
Adam smirks down at me, his lip swollen and ugly. “Big talk,” he says. “You’ll come crawling back.”
“I promise you I won’t. These people have taken me into their lives and into their family—” I begin.
His sharp bark of laughter cuts across me. “Family? You’re nobody’s family, mouse.” He pouts his split bottom lip at me in fake sympathy, and I note his flinch of pain with satisfaction.
Behind me, Gio makes a sound somewhere close to a growl and takes a step toward us, but Santo raises his hand and moves in front of his son. A temporary stillness falls over proceedings at the older man’s intervention; even Adam seems to defer to his authority.
“Iris is my family,” Santo says, leaning heavily on his cane.
Maria steps up beside her husband. “And mine.”
Sophia takes her place in the line. “And mine.”
Felipe moves beside his brother. “And mine.”
On the front step of the noodle house, Robin and Bobby stand side by side. “And you better fucking believe she’s our family too,” Robin half shouts, looking mutinous.
Adam glares at them all. “Bunch of fucking losers,” he mutters, blood dripping from his lip, stark against the snow.
I gaze around at each and every one of them, proud and overwrought. “Bunch of fucking heroes,” I say.
And then I walk right up close to my ex, liberated, all fear gone. I smell his stomach-churning cologne for the last time as I think about the living hell he put me through, and I quietly acknowledge the strength it took to leave him when I was at my lowest ebb. I think about the girl I met in the alley a few weeks ago, and on behalf of every woman living in fear of a controlling man, I raise my chin and stare that bastard down one last time. I deserve to have the final word.
“Eat glass, Adam Bronson.”
39.