Page 37 of Assistant to the Mafia

As carefully as she could, Grace withdrew her aching and probably bleeding arm.

Almost simultaneously, the calm voices erupted into shouting. It was hard to keep up with everything that was said. It sounded like chaos, but certain pieces jumped out at her.

“Exit the vehicle with your hands up!”

“Fuckin’ floor it!”

“Hands!”

She heard something about a weapon and more variations of commands to get out of the car, and a lot more cursing, and all at once the car lurched forward. She couldn’t help but shriek briefly, clapping her hands over her mouth in an attempt to stop herself in the hopes they wouldn’t have heard her.

Instead, the car came to an abrupt stop seconds later as a horrendous crash of metal-on-metal and a violent jolt reverberated through the frame. She screamed again, tears leaking free, and wasn’t entirely sure whether or not she’d taken a hit when she heard the echo of a gunshot in the melee.

“—trunk! Pop the trunk!” someone shouted from beyond the car. His voice drifted through the hole of the missing brake light.

Fresh desperation slammed into her and Grace forgot all the fears shackling her into silence. She slammed her palms against the nearest flat surface, kicked at the walls beneath her feet, and screamed at the top of her lungs. She wasn’t even sure the word ‘help’ properly formed on her tongue. One of her bare toes bent improperly, sending a new zing of pain flying through her, but she hardly recognized it.

More shouting reached her ears and another gunshot went off as the car physically shook, and then all at once, the lid of the trunk released. Daylight and a sweeping gust of fresh air rolled over her, more welcome than she’d ever imagined.

Grace reared back, blinking rapidly and hoping she wouldn’t have to fight off whoever had abducted her.

A man in a police uniform leaned into her line of sight with a gentle smile. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he said. “We’ve got an ambulance on the way for you. Let’s get you out of here.”

She licked her lips, clutching uselessly to Romeo’s ruined coat. “Home,” she whispered, tears rushing her eyes. “I want to go home…”

He held out a hand. “How about we get you to a hospital, and maybe someone comes to take you home from there?”

Grace registered the sound of approaching sirens in the distance and forced herself to unclench, just a little. She nodded and let him help her out of the trunk. It was an awkward fumble, and another officer ended up coming to help, but she made it out.

The officers kept her from turning toward the car, and quietly asked her a few seemingly simple and rather obvious questions, so she answered with relative honesty. It only took another minute for two ambulances to arrive, and she was ushered without argument over to the nearest one. The officer who’d made first contact gave her his card, wished her well, and mentioned possibly reaching out in the future. They didn’t even say anything about offering protection until she was safely at home, or at least safely at the hospital.

Grace tucked the card away before allowing the paramedics to guide her back on the gurney and close the doors. “Is it possible to make a call?” she asked the female, who was fussing over the cuts on her wrist.

The male, making notes on a chart, glanced up. “You’ll be able to call whoever you need from the hospital.”

Grace frowned, sniffled, and said, “Then could we get going? Surely you can understand why I don’t want to stay here.”

“We need to get some temporary stitches on this before we go anywhere,” the female finally said. She started reaching for supplies as the male set down the papers he was working on, strapped on gloves of his own, and moved up to help.

All Grace could do was sit there, pain not-so-slowly setting in, as the paramedics followed their own routine. She wanted nothing more than to be back in Romeo’s arms, but it felt like it might still be hours before she’d even be allowed to call him.

twelve

Family First

Romeo told Mo to wait out front with the car and stormed up to his mother’s manor. He was in no mood to take his goddamn time, and he paid no mind to the fluttering staff he startled on his way through to the back reading room where he finally found her. “Mom, I need your help,” he said as he barged into the room.

His mother, Eleonora De Salvo, nearly dropped her Kindle as her head whipped around to face him. She pulled her bejeweled reading glasses from her face and frowned at him. “Romeo, sweetheart, what could be so—”

“Amber’s at Lucy’s school, trying to take her. That’s what.” There was so much more, really, but that would get his mother moving. He could tell her the rest in the car. Or later. Telling her what he had hoped barely an hour ago would be good news suddenly felt like tempting fate.

His mother jumped up, leaving the Kindle on the sofa, and rushed forward. “Amber? You must be mistaken. That woman disappeared years ago!”

Romeo felt his lip curl at the reminder. “You don’t have to tell me. But it’s her, all right, and this is not the fucking day for her shit. I need to get Lucy out of that school and I need to make sure she’s safe before I go back to work.”

Eleonora clamped onto his sleeves. “Of course I’ll go with you,” she said, “but you can’t be thinking about going back to the office with that woman running around. I’m sure Dante would understand.”

Romeo blew out a breath, forcing himself to settle a degree, and moved a hand to his mother’s shoulder. “You know how it is, Mom. Nothing ever happens one-at-a-time. I was in the middle of something that’s also very important.”

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