Page 65 of Assistant to the Mafia

Grace nearly bumped into another patron rounding into the restroom. “Oh! I’m sorry.”

The other woman smiled and waved dismissively. “You have an adorable family. I couldn’t help but see you dancing out there.” She angled past without saying more and left her words hanging in the air.

I have an adorable family… Emotion rushed through her and Grace hurried into the nearest stall. She barely paid any attention to her motions, her heart racing. Romeo had made a joke earlier about being on a family date, and all of a sudden, she wanted all their dates to be family dates. She wondered if she could talk him into that.

Motion in the mirror behind her as she rinsed the overly sudsy soap off her hands drew her gaze up, but she wasn’t prepared for what she saw. For who she saw.

Filip Tracey, with a gun aimed at her head.

Their eyes clashed in the mirror and all the terror from the night of her apartment invasion slammed into her.

“You’ve really made a mess for me, bitch.” The seething anger in his voice was jarring. He didn’t sound anything like the unassuming valet she remembered.

The breath shuddered out of her and Grace let her arms fall from the sink basin. The motion-activated faucet shut off as water dripped from her fingers. “Why…?” There were better questions she could ask, but she felt absolutely certain he would pull that trigger if she even genuinely considered screaming.

Filip’s dark eyes narrowed. “Ya religious?”

The question surprised her and Grace frowned. “Not especially.” One more mark against her in her mother’s book.

“Then I suppose ya may never know.”

Instinct dropped her to the ground as an explosion shattered the tense near-silence in the restroom. She shrieked on reflex, until the impact of her butt hitting the hard, cold tile knocked the air from her lungs. Broken glass from the mirror rained down around her, most of the shards missing but one piece managing to slide through her pantleg. She couldn’t even hear the glass, or whatever sound Filip made as his feet moved.

Light reflected off a piece of precariously balanced mirror, onto her new ring, catching her eye in a surreal moment.

“You have an adorable family.”

“Will you marry us?”

“I am not letting you go.”

Grace twisted in place, not thinking about Filip’s gun or the shards of glass on the dirty floor. She just propelled herself forward and up until she made contact with her attacker’s knees, his gun going off again and deafening her to anything and everything else in the world around them. She crashed into his legs with her full weight, never in her life more grateful for being as large as she was, and let gravity take over.

She hadn’t lied, she wasn’t religious. But she said a prayer that it would be enough. That Filip would crack his head on the floor or a stall and at least go limp.

She was sprawled awkwardly over his legs, gasping for breath from yet another hard impact. For a moment, she thought she’d won. Then he started thrashing, his legs struggling, and she scrambled in an effort to keep him pinned.

His gun came back into her line of sight as he finally leveled it with her head, but it wasn’t the one that went off next. Her eyes widened as his arm jerked back, blood bursting from his arm and the gun slipping from his grip. She almost didn’t hear the shouting.

“Fucking get him up! Wrap his goddamn arm and lock him down, don’t even talk to him.” Romeo’s voice was the first to penetrate the ceaseless ringing in her ears, and Grace finally lifted her head.

Mo and one of the men that had come with Enrico—the one that was not her new guard—moved into positions on the opposite side of Filip. Mo lifted Filip’s gun, tucking it away.

Romeo crouched down beside her, slipped his hands under her arms, and swiftly unhooked her from Filip’s legs. “There you go, angel,” he murmured as if Filip hadn’t started shouting and cursing in the background. Or maybe Filip had always been doing that, and Grace had been tuning him out.

Grace focused her attention on Romeo, realizing finally that her eyes burned. She was crying again. “He—I … almost—”

“Shh, I know, I know.” Romeo pulled her close, tucking her head into his shoulder and reaching down. “You’re okay. Just hold on to me.” He scooped her up and turned toward the door.

“This isn’t over! This’ll never be over!” Filip shouted.

Romeo paused at the open doorway and glanced over his shoulder. “It’s over for you.”

Grace held tightly to him, struggling to catch her breath as Romeo walked. She knew they were outside from the cooler, cleaner air and the breeze dancing over her. That was also how she knew the mirror had definitely bit into her leg when it sliced through her pants. But the stinging, though unpleasant, didn’t seem bad enough to be worth making a scene over.

Romeo blew out an agitated breath. “You’ve always been good at assigning people to the right jobs,” he said unexpectedly. “Maybe I’ll line up a bunch of supposedly qualified contenders later this week and let you pick your next bodyguard. Since the last two couldn’t seem to stay alive long enough to even fucking protect you.”

She gasped and lifted her head from his shoulder. “He’s dead?” Visions of Al flashed through her memory.

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