Page 89 of Wicked Rivals

There had to be a door somewhere.

Enzo grabbed my arm and pulled me behind a shrub just before the gate swung open and a black sedan passed through it.

Not Stefano’s car.

I caught a glimpse of the man in the back through his open window. Much older, smoking a cigar, and his skin appeared an unhealthy shade of gray. He had to be ill.

My first thought landed on Benedetta's father, Benedict Capaldo, but I couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure. The man in the vehicle seemed like a ghost compared to the pictures I’d seen online.

As the car made its way up the drive, my son and I used the opportunity to slide through the gates before they closed and locked us in again. We made it just as they shut behind us.

“Run, Enzo,” I shouted.

We ran hand in hand until we reached the little blue car idling at the curb, waiting for us. We darted to one side, and as soon as I verified the driver's identification, we slid onto the back seat and slammed the doors shut.

“Lock the door. Push the button on your side,” I said.

No one said a word on the drive to Brooklyn, not the driver, not my son, not me.

My mind jumped into overdrive, moving through all my various mental lists of what needed to be done now that we were out of the house and away from Stefano’s estate.

We wouldn’t be able to use the café’s front door, so we would have to use the rear entrance and head straight up the backstairs to the apartment.

Enzo and I needed to each pack a small bag, sticking to only the essentials. I planned to grab our passports and other fake documents quickly, and then we could be back out of there in less than ten minutes.

From there, we would take the second car I had ordered and go to the bank, so I could get everything out of my safe deposit box. Money for the airline tickets. A burner phone for booking flights.

For my son and me, a flight heading west. Maybe Phoenix. Maybe Los Angeles.

Then we would have to ditch our real IDs and get to the train station first before going to the airport.

Four train tickets then… two adults, one child, and an infant. And purchasing them with cash would make it a hell of a lot harder to track down. Whichever train left the earliest. The first one heading south would be the one Enzo and I would travel on.

The driver hit a big ass pothole, and Enzo banged his head on the window.

I reached over and touched his cheek. He hated it when I fussed over those things. He wanted to be tough like his…

No, like himself.

With any luck at all, my son and I would be out of New York before Stefano found out we were missing.

Once he found out, the situation could still get messy.

It would get really messy.

Stefano would track my movements by following the money or try to anyway. The trail would be easy to follow at first. Ubers to my apartment and then to the bank.

A man like Stefano with vast resources could easily track down the airline tickets purchased under our real names as well.

I didn't have any idea if his reach extended to TSA agents. I knew he could call the mayor. He could bribe someone to put a block on our IDs. Maybe even get us added to a no-fly list.

But none of that mattered.

They would find our seats empty on that flight.

Even if he saw through my fake money trail and checked the train station, no one could tell him about a woman who had bought a ticket for herself and a young boy.

Witnesses would only remember the information I fed them. A young mother trying to keep her cranky toddler happy while her husband changed the baby’s diaper in the restroom.

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