
Published by Choco Lune Imprint 2014 at Smashwords

Copyright Taylor Hill © 2014

This book and its contents are the property of Taylor Hill and Choco Lune Imprint and may not be copied, shared or re-sold without prior permission from the author or publisher. This book is a work of fiction and all characters and situations depicted within should be considered as such.

All rights reserved.
Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

By now civilization was already far behind. The cracked and boiling Italian highways had long ago given into roads that could scarcely be called roads at all—winding, narrow dusty tracks that ascended and curved around the great green and golden hills of the Sicilian countryside—while the rickety old bus that traversed them seemed like it could fall to pieces at any moment. Well ok then, Rebecca observed, taking a deep careful breath, if you're looking for adventure then you've come to the right place—so there's that at least.

On one side of her, the vast steep hill (almost a mountain really) continued to crawl lazily towards the azure sky, its rocks and ridges entangled with olive trees and grape vines, while on the other, the side closest to her—the one right outside her window—it disappeared completely into heart-stopping nothingness. Outside her window, mere feet from the edge of the road, the hillside gave way to a steep and jagged cliff-face, beyond which the entire geography of the island lay beneath like a tapestry, from the rich white sands to the endless sparkling Mediterranean ocean. If only she could actually bring herself to look, she was sure she would find it beautiful. Why, oh why hadn't she sat on the other side of the bus?

Rebecca did not have a head for heights. Rebecca in fact, did not have a head for many things. A fact which had always bothered her and had, in a roundabout way, served as the impetus to take this spur-of-the-moment trip in the first place. It wasn't like she was a coward, she could stand up for herself whenever she needed to, be assertive in the face of ill treatment from others (which, to her great frustration, she had found her anxiety seemed to invite more so than for others). No, it was more like something in her biology, a sensitive, uneasy constitution. Anxiety. Anxiety with a capital A. Always and so often, despite the truth of who she was, the fear was never far away. That was why, despite having now been almost three months on the trip of a lifetime—a language studies exchange in Naples—she had, for the most part, not enjoyed it at all.

Run towards your fear, that was what the book said, live in the moment, meet each anxious experience with open, courageous arms, because that is your opportunity to grow. It made sense, even if she knew it mightn't be easy. She glanced into her bag, at the crinkled spine of the self-help book she had bought on a whim late one night while browsing Amazon and ran her thumb thoughtfully along its edge. She _could_ be more. She _was_ ready to seize the day. All it would take was some good old-fashioned bravery. And so, with a gulp, she turned and looked out of the window, over the daunting edge and out at the majesty of the island below. And yes, it was beautiful.

The world seemed to freeze, the electricity of anxiety converting seamlessly into the powerful exhilaration of awe as she looked out at the sprawling world before her. She was so lost in the sight of it that it took her a moment to realize that the world actually _had_ stopped—or at least the bus had anyway. Raising her shoulders she looked up over the edge of the seat in front of her to see that they had pulled in beside a rusty old bus stop at the side of the road. It seemed like a strange place to put a bus stop—there was nothing around for miles, save for a stony old graveyard that looked like it hadn't been in use for decades—but nonetheless there _was_ one passenger waiting to board.

Rebecca wasn't one to stare (she preferred to avoid the possibility of an embarrassing confrontation) but she was still so stricken by what she'd seen out the window that she didn't take her eyes away as the young man boarded the bus. Dressed in a dusty cream-colored linen shirt and old slacks, with a farmer's cap pressed down over his smooth olive-tinged brow, the guy looked like he'd stepped out of the nineteen twenties. In one hand he held a leather suitcase, while with the other he fished in his pocket for change to pay the driver, before turning into the aisle and looking right at her. Her, not anybody else!

Rebecca's heart immediately jumped into her throat. He smiled, with lips smooth and soft and almost pink in comparison to the darker tone of the rest of his face. His beautiful face, which was rich and smooth and handsome, big brown eyes that were open and honest, slightly inquisitive as they peered right into her own. Rebecca immediately dropped her gaze as she felt a stinging blush break out across her cheeks. Ok, so there was still work to be done and if the way to beat anxiety was to face it willingly, then she would just accept this particular bout for now. Because there was no way she was looking back at this guy. He walked further down the aisle and, with her eyes firmly to her lap, it seemed to her that he paused slightly as he passed her seat, before continuing down to the back of the bus.

Ten or fifteen minutes later they reached the small mountain village of Montagna Del Mare. The photos she had browsed online before setting her destination—the ones that had filled her with such warm romantic wonder—in reality didn't do the place justice. The pale white-bricked buildings were even more quaint, even more magical in the warm blue of the real sky than they had seemed on the screen of her worn-down old laptop. But what was she going to do now that she was here? What next?

The other passengers disembarked, while a fresh wave of painful anxiety came over her. Just what was she doing here anyway, she wondered?

This time she didn't notice as he passed her, she was too caught up in her own personal misery to see that now he really did pause and consider her carefully as he went by, before gripping his suitcase and stepping off of the bus. Now she was the last remaining passenger and she had to get up—there was no other option. She glanced into her bag again, picked it up in one hand and stepped off.

Outside, the heat was amazing and the blue sky above seemed to sprawl across the entire globe, bathing everything in its powerful glow. Come on slugger, she told herself (that was what her dad always called her, "slugger"), you can do this. Make the most of this, all this beauty. She looked down the road as the bus turned and went back the way it had come, rumbling down the steep mountain road and disappearing around the bend. Ok, what now? She began walking towards the village and she'd barely passed the corner when she heard a voice call out from across the road.

"Excuse me!"

She turned to the sound of the voice, soft but deep and thick with the Sicilian accent. She felt a jolt as she saw that it was the guy from the bus, who had taken up a seat at a small metal table in the corner of a wide sunbaked courtyard outside a café across the street.

"Speak English, yes?" he called, "American or British?"

Rebecca smiled, hoping that her uncertainty wasn't showing. "Um, yes, American," she said, "you're from here?"

"Sicily yes, though far across the island."

"It's very beautiful."

His eyes lit up with delight and he smiled beautifully, broad and honest and gleaming. "Yes, it is." He gestured to the seat across from him. "Please, it is hard to talk across the road, no? Will you join me? Unless... you are waiting for somebody else?"

Her smile faltered slightly. What was she waiting for exactly? She began to form her polite refusal, but it wouldn't come out _. Live in the moment, run towards that which you fear... that is how you grow_. Before she was even aware of what she was doing she found herself walking across the road towards him and, as she did, his smile broadened even further. He stood to pull out a chair for her.

"My name is Piero," he said, "and I would be honored if you would join me for a coffee while I wait."

Oh My God. Her heart raced and her mind was awash with flitting thoughts and voices as she struggled to make sense of her situation. This kind of thing never happened to her and if it did, she made sure to get out of it as soon as possible. What was the correct procedure here? What was the etiquette? More importantly—what was his interest in her? Romantic or merely friendly?

"You are a little flustered no? The heat is too much?"

Rebecca smiled, using all of her strength to get a grip on herself. Deep breaths, deep breaths. "Yes," she lied, "yes, it's quite hot for me, I'm not used to it. Back in Chicago at this time of year it could still be freezing now, snow..." her voice trailed off into a mouse-squeak.

Piero raised a brow as he considered her, the smile falling from his face into something more serious. "Chicago," he said, "Al Capone, bang bang bang..."

"Ha, yeah," Rebecca smiled, "I guess that's what it's famous for, that and the blues, but really it's just like any other city."

Piero smiled again. "Well I am a glad to hear that," he said, "and the blues—I love the blues—such powerful music, such sorrow. Do you play?"

"Do I...? Oh, no, I played a little piano growing up but not much. Do you? Play, I mean?"

"Yes," Piero nodded. "I play, I play and sing, though not the blues. Not the American blues at least. I sing the folk songs of the island, which are, in their own way, also sorrowful."

Woah, so he was a musician too? And, by the way he spoke, she wouldn't be surprised to hear that he was a poet as well. Rebecca wasn't sure if she'd landed in heaven or hell. It all depended on whether she blew it or not.

An old woman appeared from the arched doorway of the café and Piero clicked his fingers at her, authoritatively but not rude, before unleashing a spiel of rapid Sicilian-dialect Italian that Rebecca could barely make out. Pausing he turned back to face her.

"Do you speak it?" he asked.

"Oh, um... a little. _Un po'_. But your dialect is hard for me to understand."

"No problem, I tell her that we would like some coffees, sound good?"

"Yes," Rebecca smiled, "thank you." She turned to the old woman, whose wrinkled weather-beaten face was inscrutable in its expression. "Thank you," she said again and the woman nodded slightly in return before going back inside, leaving them alone once more in the sun.

"So, are you visiting somebody here?" she asked Piero.

He nodded solemnly. "Yes."

"Oh, family?"

"No, not family."

There was something in his expression that made Rebecca not want to press him, as though he had come here under somewhat tragic circumstances, perhaps to a funeral or to visit the grave of an old friend—which would explain why he'd been waiting at that old historic-looking graveyard further down the mountain. Now that she was beginning to calm down a bit and get back in touch with her emotions, she found that it saddened her to see him that way. Though they'd only just met, she felt that he was a good man, a deep soul even, though maybe that was just her own projection of him. Regardless, she preferred this cute Italian stranger when he had that big open smile of his.

"I must apologize," Piero said, "I have invited you to join me and I have not yet even asked you your name..."

She smiled. "Rebecca."

"Rebecca," Piero repeated slowly, sounding the word out to himself, before smiling in a warm, self-satisfied way. "It is a beautiful name. Rebecca, I am very glad that I could make your acquaintance today." He reached out his hand, almost formal in his manner, and when she took it (or rather, let him take hers) she felt a tingle shoot down her spine and into her belly at the touch of his warm, smooth palm.

She was spellbound for a moment and sad when he let her go again, drawing his own hand back to his side of the table.

"I hope you do not mind that I asked you to join me," he said, eyeing her expression with a look of puzzlement.

"Oh," Rebecca blurted, "no, of course not. I'm glad you did."

Piero smiled again. "Good," he said. "And you are not due anywhere else for now?"

"No," Rebecca said, "I'm just visiting for the scenery. I don't really have any plans."

Ok, she knew she shouldn't say things like that to strange men while on vacation in a foreign country—especially when no one knew exactly where she was right now—but she felt certain she could trust this handsome, open young man sitting across from her. It seemed like a risk she was willing to take.

He laughed, a rich joyful chuckle. "I like that," he said, "that is how it should be. Get on the bus and let the rest take care of itself, yes?"

"Something like that," Rebecca smiled, feeling self-conscious now.

"No, I mean it," Piero continued, "life is so short before it ends and you never know when it may—you should live it completely while it is still with you."

"Exactly," Rebecca nodded, as if that had been her attitude all her life, instead of one she was right now trying desperately to learn.

"Rebecca," Piero said, "I have come to this village under dark circumstances. I do not know if I will leave it again. Not while I am alive at least."

Her eyes widened. What, exactly, did he mean by that? "Oh," she said, not being able to think of anything else to say, "I'm sorry to hear..."

He waved his hand dismissively and smiled again, though this time with a darker fire in his eye. "Please," he said, "don't be sorry. It is just how it is. It is, how you say, destiny perhaps."

Rebecca considered this. He _had_ just said that he thought he might die here, right? She hadn't been imagining things? Surely he couldn't be serious.

"Yes, it is true," Piero said, his taut dark-skinned jawline tilting slightly as he gave a single, stoic nod. "You see Rebecca I have come here seeking vengeance against the men who inflicted a terrible grievance upon my family, many years ago, and because this is my destiny, I know I may not live to see another morning. That is why I am so glad that you are here, that I could have one more moment to experience the incredible beauty that this world can bring to us, even if it _is_ only for a moment."

Before she had time to answer, the old woman returned with a silver tray and two cups of rich black Italian coffee. It smelt wonderful, but Rebecca, staring open-mouthed at the man before her, barely noticed.

Did she believe him? Perhaps he was just amusing himself with the naivety of this awkward, flustered American student who'd wandered like a fish out of water into this remote and beautiful mountain village that he himself probably knew so well. After all, he did seem like the kind of guy who could readily get lost in a fantasy world of his own design (and, lord, how she wished he would take her with him there too), but somehow she felt that he might be telling the truth here. He seemed so honest and open about it, almost as if he truly was at peace with his own death now. The thought terrified her, not least of all because now that she'd met him she wanted the chance to spend many more days and perhaps even weeks in his company, if that was even remotely possible. But regardless of the attraction, no matter who he was, she couldn't let another person walk willingly into the face of death like that.

Maybe she should just make her excuses and leave, she considered. I mean, he probably wasn't serious anyway, was he? It was too absurd, he had to have been messing with her. She looked up at him, lost in his own thoughts as his clouded eyes peered out across the countryside towards the sea, and she knew in that moment that she would stay. Regardless of whether it was the truth or not, she would stay with him at least for the time-being and learn more about what circumstances had brought him here. And if he _was_ telling the truth—then surely it was her duty to do whatever she could to dissuade him from making such a tragic mistake, wasn't it?

"What are you thinking about?" she asked him and Piero, smiling as he was jerked with a gentle awareness back to the present moment, turned back to face her.

"I am thinking about how my father used to take us to the beach when I was young. He was such a strong, powerful man, but he was noble too and, oh, how he liked to laugh. When we went out on these trips he brought such joy to me and my mother. I remember when I was a child, no more than four or five, I was paddling in the water when I looked back to see if they were watching, but they were not looking at me. They were looking at each other, with such love and passion—some lovers lose their passion when they have children but not my parents—it was the intensity of true and burning love. And though I did not know exactly what it was, not in those words at least, I remember how I felt—how happy I was to have two parents with such love and joy in their lives to share with me. I did not feel annoyed or jealous for the attention, because even though they weren't watching me then, I knew that they would always have enough love inside them for all of us and more."

_Squee!_ Ok, it was clear then, he was a poet, even if he didn't actually write poetry, the way he spoke... this guy had a soul as deep as the sparkling blue ocean beneath them. Piero tilted his head as he looked at her with sly inquisitiveness.

"What is it?" he said.

"It's beautiful," Rebecca replied, her voice quiet and careful, "what you said, that's really beautiful. It sounds like they loved you very much."

"Yes," Piero smiled, "they _did_. We were not wealthy, in fact you could say that we were poor—if money was the only measure, but in that case I would say it was the one who measured who was truly poor—but I never wanted more than what we had. My father was a great man and I could only hope to achieve half that greatness in my own life. If I did I would die a proud man."

"He's not with you anymore?" Rebecca asked, feeling a pang of pity that was surprisingly painful to her.

"No," Piero said, "he is dead ten years now, longer even. I am twenty-two and I have lived twelve years since his life was stolen."

"I'm sorry."

Piero looked pained himself now, but not because of grief for his father, more because he seemed upset at Rebecca's reaction. "Please," he said, "I did not mean to make you sad, we should be happy. It is a beautiful day, the island is glorious around us and we are alone with each other up here in the mountains in this wonderful little village with coffee so fine you could get it nowhere else. If you do not smile for me now, I will be very sad myself and I refuse to spend my final hours on earth in sadness and regret."

How could she refuse? She smiled for him, and it was a genuine smile, one that widened as she saw his own smile in return, but it was also tinged with uncertainty and concern for this tragic figure before her.

Piero brought his cup to his soft lips and sipped his coffee. "Ah," he sighed with satisfaction, "see for yourself, it is delicious. Tell me you could not get it anywhere else?"

Rebecca took a drink from her own cup and she had to admit that he was right. She'd never tasted coffee so rich and fresh and tangy and delicious. "It's true," she giggled, "I don't think I could get it anywhere else."

"Ahh, see?" Piero smiled, "even as darkness approaches there is always beauty to be found."

"Yes," Rebecca answered, "but does there have to be darkness? Can't we just have the beauty, the joy?"

Piero shook his head. "No," he said firmly. "The darkness is the price. It is the only thing that lasts. All else is just a moment—love is just a moment, all life is just a moment—only death is forever."

Well, Rebecca considered, her companion may have been able to enjoy life with such a pessimistic outlook at the forefront of his mind, but for her it definitely took away from the beauty of the moment. She placed her cup back on the table and considered him thoughtfully.

"But enough talk of such things—death and darkness—why focus on it now when there will be time enough later? Tell me about yourself Rebecca, tell me what brings you here to Montagna Del Mare, without even knowing why you have come?"

Ooh, good question. Was it one she could answer? Even now, she wasn't fully sure herself just what she was doing here, but it seemed clear to her at this stage at least that if there was anybody who would understand it would be Piero himself. She wasn't sure why, but somehow she just knew. Rebecca cleared her throat quietly and prepared herself to speak.

"Well," she said, "I guess it's kind of a long story..."

"We have time," Piero smiled.

"Yes, I suppose we do. Well..." Rebecca felt a wave of discomfort as she prepared to open up to another person—a person who was in fact a complete stranger to her—which was something that she didn't think she'd ever been able to do for all the nineteen years that she'd lived. Clenching her fingers tightly against the anxiety, she determined herself to just go ahead and take the plunge. After all, she might never even see him again after today. What did she have to lose?

"A few months ago, I came here on an exchange program from CCU, Chicago City University, where I'm enrolled back home. I'm studying Italian, though my grasp on it is a whole lot worse than your English. I'm almost embarrassed..."

"Ah yes, but here in Europe we must know English," Piero smiled with a knowing tilt of the head, "how else would we fully enjoy the music?"

"Ha, I guess," Rebecca smiled, "you've got to know the words before you can sing the blues, something like that?"

"Exactly," Piero laughed.

"Well anyway, I thought it would be this amazing, life-changing experience for me, like somehow all the problems I had in my life back home would just disappear and I would discover my true self. I don't know, something corny like that..."

She looked at him and the gaze he returned seemed to suggest that, in his opinion at least, it wasn't such a far-fetched idea after all. Not for the first time since meeting him she felt a little light-headed and dizzy. Piero was smart, thoughtful and above all else drop-dead gorgeous, and the two of them had seemed to hit it off instantly. Most of the time Rebecca couldn't even look at a guy she liked without having a panic attack and withdrawing inside of herself until it was too late and now this? It was unbelievable. Whatever she'd been expecting to find out here it hadn't been this...

"So yeah," she said, reminding herself that she was supposed to be the one doing the talking now, "needless to say it didn't exactly turn out like I'd wanted. I mean I suck enough at making friends back home as it is—in fact besides my sister, my roommate Sandy and my friend Tina, I don't really talk to anybody much—so you can imagine how it was for me when I got here. How hard I found it."

Could he? Piero didn't seem like the kind of guy who would have trouble talking to anybody, it probably wouldn't even occur to him that there was anything to feel anxious about, so how would he know what she was talking about? She looked at him across the table, her face slightly-pained as she tried to glean from his expression whether or not she was getting through to him.

Piero considered her thoughtfully and then took a slow sip of his coffee. "The pain in my life came to me suddenly," he said, "before that I didn't even know what pain was, but when it came it came all at once. It sounds like your pain has been coming to you in drips and drabs throughout your life, never enough to fully force you into action, instead just enough to see you suffer in silence day after day, night after night, and so on. That must be very hard to bear."

Yes! That was it exactly. Her life wasn't hell, there were good moments, good people and she had everything she could ever need—which had in fact even made her feel guilty sometimes about feeling sorry for herself—but her anxiety had caused her to suffer at a low-level for a very long time now, for as long as she could remember even. It was its own kind of torment.

"Sometimes it takes great force to remind us we can fight back," Piero said, "if there is not enough force, you might forget you have such strength to begin with."

Rebecca smiled and now she let the affection she felt for him show in her face (even if she didn't have the guts just yet to show the lust as well). So somebody did understand! And even better they didn't think she was being overly-dramatic or self-pitying in talking about it. Piero looked back at her with a solemn expression and then reached over and softly took her by the hand. She actually felt the pleasure shake her body, as if she'd had a miniature swoon, but if Piero noticed her tremble at his touch he didn't seem to mind.

"I can see how such a thing would make you tired over time," he said, gazing deeply, thoughtfully, into her eyes, "but you are _here_. Now, you are fighting back. That to me is as beautiful as anything else that has ever existed in this world."

Smiling back, her eyes almost drooping with desire, Rebecca reflected that she could think of at least one other contender for most beautiful thing to have ever existed—Piero himself.

He released her hand again and took a sip from his coffee cup. That had been one moment that Rebecca hadn't wanted to end, but with any luck there might be some even better ones coming up. She felt now that he surely couldn't have been serious about his actual intentions that day. A man like him seemed incapable of harming any other human being, regardless of what they'd done. No, it was probably some kind of poetic metaphor—a way for him to avoid whatever true pain had really brought him there. She told herself that it had to be true. The alternative was too horrible to even think about. She didn't want to lose him, not now that she'd only just found him.

"Please continue," Piero said, "it has been a long time coming—I can tell this—and now it must come out. All of it."

"Well the truth is," Rebecca said, "it's been horrible. I mean, it's not like I haven't had people to talk to, there are other English speakers at the campus in Naples, but somehow I guess I just shied away. At first I thought it would just take a little time for it to naturally happen, for me to make friends, but it never did. I never got up the nerve to hold a full conversation with somebody. Instead, I watched as all the others became best friends, went on trips together and even hooked-up in some cases. They must have thought I was such a weirdo and it made me so frustrated, because I'm not. I'm just a regular girl... I just... sometimes I just can't bring myself to feel like it."

Her voice trailed off as her gaze rested in her lap and her shoulders slumped as if all the emotional weight that she'd been carrying around with her these past months had miraculously disappeared. She felt faint and breezy and incredibly relieved. It was amazing. She hadn't realized how much pressure it was putting on her just by carrying all that personal pain.

When she looked up at him again, he was smiling with a mixture of sympathy and affection and then his gaze carried down to her lips and rested their for a moment with a faint heat that had slowly entered his eyes. It was almost as if he was admiring a magnificent, passionate (and yes perhaps even erotic) work of art and yet somehow Rebecca didn't feel at all like she'd been affronted. She was happy to just sit still and be admired by him.

Piero looked up at her again, his passionate gaze smoldering directly into her eyes.

"You are so beautiful," he said, "I cannot express how honored I feel that on this day of all days, I should have the chance to be the one to hear you speak at last from the soul."

"Well," Rebecca shrugged, blushing and glancing down at her coffee cup, "I don't know if I'd call it an honor, but it's definitely a first anyway. For both of us."

"And let me see if I can finish the story," Piero said, "after suffering so much in silence, pain that you didn't think anyone could or should understand, finally you stood up and said: Enough! I can take no more of this, how you say, bullshit! And then, not knowing exactly what to do, you set out from Naples and eventually found yourself here. Am I correct?"

Yes, he was correct. Giggling with delight at the passion Piero showed in expressing her viewpoint in a way that was somehow both blunt and elegant, Rebecca nodded emphatically. "Yes," she said, "that's pretty much it."

"Then you have cast off the first of the chains that have bound you up until now. You are making yourself free." He stood slowly from the table and looked down at her, Rebecca admiring the slender outline of his well-toned body beneath the flimsy material of his shirt. "I must ask that you excuse me while I use the restroom," he said. "Will you be here when I return?"

"Um... yes?" Rebecca said, "Like, definitely yes?"

"Excellent," Piero smiled and then made his way inside the café.

Rebecca sipped her coffee and looked down the hill, at the sun-bathed winding road that disappeared around the scraggy curve of the mountain. She felt more confident and open than she ever had in her entire life. Even though she knew there were small patches of sweat beneath the armpits of her light white t-shirt and that her forehead must have been more than a little shiny by now from the joint heats of the sun and the excitement of being in Piero's company, she didn't feel even the least bit self-conscious. After all, people sweat, they get hot and sticky sometimes. To pretend otherwise would be the kind of pointless dishonesty that probably offended a guy like Piero right down to his sweet, simple-hearted soul. Oh boy, what had she done to deserve him?

When he returned from the dark doorway she saw that he had a small stringed instrument in his hand, like a tiny almond-shaped guitar. She raised an eyebrow at him with delighted curiosity.

"They had a mandolin hanging on the wall," Piero said, "I don't think they will mind me borrowing it for a moment, but we spoke of the blues earlier and I wanted to sing you a song of the island. These are the blues of my people."

"Piero," Rebecca gushed, "I don't know what to say. I'd be honored."

Seeing that she meant her words, Piero smiled and then, with surprising strength for a man with such slender arms, he lifted his chair closer to hers and set it down beside her.

"This is a song my father used to sing for me when I was a child," Piero said, "it was many years before I could bring myself to sing it and it fills me with regret that I waited so long. When I play it now, I feel his strength inside me, his nobility. I feel like I am his son."

With deft, gentle fingers, precise and yet also totally free, Piero brought the guitar pick to the strings and began to play an elegant, slow and sorrowful melody. His eyes glazed over as he lost himself in the music and Rebecca felt its enchanting embrace draw her in too. Her lips parted as she listened, following the sorrowful lilts and turns of his tremolo-picking. Now he began to hum, quiet and low at first but rising in volume as his rich, expressive voice joined the elegance of his playing. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel that power with her hand, but she was afraid to put him off so instead she just sat, spellbound, and listened as he sang in Italian. The pathos of the song, the pain of peoples long past and times forgotten, was too much for her to bear and she felt a tear roll down her cheek as he gently finished playing.

"Did you feel it?" he said, looking at her closely, distant flames in his eyes.

"...yes," she replied, her voice a whisper.

Piero placed the instrument gently on the table and then he took her hand. They moved to their feet together as if they were one being. He looked down into her eyes as he brought his other hand to her cheek and softly brushed away the trail left by her tear with his thumb. Her whole body trembled at his touch and she opened her lips for him, inviting him, begging him to kiss them and wipe away the pain that had brought them here, together to this moment. Understanding perfectly, without a word, Piero leaned down and placed his warm, luscious lips over hers.

The sky was beginning to turn a deep orange now as evening descended and when they stepped back from their embrace—which had seemed in itself to last for a lifetime—Rebecca saw that they were no longer alone. Other villagers were joining them at the tables in the courtyard, as the elderly woman and an equally elderly man moved amongst them taking orders. Somehow none of them seemed the least bit interested in the passionate young man and woman embracing at their secluded table over in the corner. This was Europe after all, people probably showed their passion like that every single day.

Still holding her hand in his, Piero slowly sat back down and Rebecca did the same. She felt like there were no thoughts in her head, no words to speak, the kiss had wiped it all away.

"You must be hungry now," Piero said, "I would like to share with you my favorite meal. It is not complicated, quite simple in fact, but it is the thing that I would most like to eat before I face my destiny."

There he goes again speaking about "destiny", Rebecca considered, a surge of discomfort now diluting the heady and pleasurable afterglow of their kiss. Was he really only being fanciful, like she'd imagined earlier? Now it seemed even less likely than before. Everything about him seemed to intimate a man facing his final demise—from the sorrowful, gentle power of his song to the burning passion of his kiss. She felt a new kind of anxiety, one that was tinged this time with a powerful determination. It was the will to save him, to stop him, to bring him back from the brink of the abyss before he threw himself willingly over its edge and was gone forever from this world.

"Have I lost you to your head once more?" Piero asked, a thoughtful glint in his eye.

"Oh... um no," Rebecca answered, "that sounds very nice."

"You are sad again," Piero said, "I do not wish to make you sad. I will go make the order but please, I only wish that you enjoy it when it comes."

Rebecca nodded, forcing a smile that quickly disappeared as he left to re-enter the café, the mandolin gripped casually in his palm. Yes, she was sad again, of course she was. How could she not be sad to hear that such a beautiful soul was truly planning to just throw it all away?

The courtyard was now well populated with locals from the village, though they paid her little heed as she watched them from the quiet corner table and she too had little interest for them. The sky was darkening and she sensed that her time with Piero was coming to an end—unless she could do something to hold onto him, but what?

A moment later, he returned, solemn and gorgeous as he carried a small tray piled with what looked to be tiny sautéed peppers, onions and olives, surround by jagged hunks of fresh white bread. She forced a smile again as he sat, and looking at her, sighed: "Perhaps you are right to be sad. The time for joy may be behind us now, it would serve no purpose to deny."

He gestured to the meal. "Please, help yourself. This was my favorite thing to eat growing up, though of course nobody can make it like my mother did."

"Thank you Piero," Rebecca said, carefully scooping up some of the vegetables onto a piece of bread. Yes, it was delicious. Yes, she was sad.

"Do you enjoy?" Piero asked.

"Yes," she said, "it's amazing. But you're right, I _am_ sad and I don't think anything can change that. Not if you really mean it when you say what you plan to do."

Piero nodded grimly. "Yes, I mean it," he said. "I am sorry that it makes you sad. For me too, it is sad."

She stared at him now openly, completely free and ready to speak her mind. "But you don't _have_ to," she said, "you don't..."

"I don't have to?" Piero repeated, with silent wonder as if amused at the absolute absurdity of the proposition, "For twelve years I have waited, knowing that it was my destiny, knowing what I would one day be called to do. There is no choice now. I must."

Rebecca sighed, dejected, and gazed into the dish between them. The food was delicious, it was true, but she no longer had much of an appetite and, judging by Piero's grim demeanor, neither did he. As she sat there turning ideas and phrases over in her head, looking for a way to get through to him, a sleek black limousine caught her eye, cruising up the mountain road. Its menacing, shiny surface made a stark contrast to the pastoral, picture-book village around it.

Piero turned to follow her gaze and as he did his entire composure changed. His body tensed and he lowered his brow as he watched the car. The hatred and anger he must have now felt was so strong that it seemed to radiate from his entire body.

"Rebecca," he said, "you must go now. The bus returns to Palermo in twenty minutes. I will wait until I know it is gone before I act. I would not have you see what happens next."

Her brow furrowed instantly. No, no she couldn't let this happen. Whatever he had in mind she knew it would be bad, whoever was in that limousine wouldn't back down to anything less than murder, somehow she just knew it was true.

"No," she said, her voice quiet but firm, "I'm not leaving you."

His eyes were wide as he implored. "But you must! You cannot stay here now, I will not allow it."

"I'm not leaving Piero, I'm not going to let you do this."

He watched her with his big, shining eyes for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity as she stared back at him, quiet, passionate and determined not to back down. Finally he sighed.

"But I must," he said.

Rebecca shook her head. "Then I'll sit here and watch you do it. If you want to go against all the good that I know is inside you, then let me see it. There can be no other way."

"Look," Piero said, "here they come. See them now and tell me you wish to stay one moment in the presence of such terrible evil."

Rebecca turned slightly on her chair as three men dressed in rich, perfectly tailored suits, wearing sunglasses even though it was almost dark now, stepped like renegade soldiers into the courtyard. An uneasy silence seemed to settle over the entire area and the opulent nature of their clothing did nothing to diminish the brutal hostility and roughness of the men who had brought it in their wake. They were Mafiosi, she knew, they had the exact same way of walking as the ones she would occasionally see when passing through the Orange Grove neighborhood and surrounding areas back home in Chicago.

They took a table far across the courtyard, leaning back in their chairs with aggressive confidence as one of them barked an order to the old man who had hurried over to serve them.

"No," Rebecca said firmly, turning back to face Piero whose burning gaze was still on the men across the courtyard, "I _don't_ want to stay and I don't want you to stay either. We could leave now, return to Palermo..."

"The one in the brown is Fedro Santini," Piero said, ignoring her plea and watching the men as if there were nothing else in the world but he and them. "He is a vicious, cruel man whose penchant for violence is only matched by his own brute stupidity. The bald one across from him is Frankie Falcone, an American, though he has lived here for as long as my own life. But it is the one in the middle who I have come here to face. That is Libano, the man who killed my father."

Helplessly, Rebecca looked back at the gangster who had so consumed Piero's mind for more than half of his life. "Libano" wore a thick dark beard around his sagging jowls and his lank, slicked back hair spilled down greasily all the way to his shoulders. Rebecca did not believe true evil existed in the world, but if she did she would be sure that she was looking at it right now. Everything about the man seemed hateful, angry and cruel.

"Please leave Rebecca," Piero said, a slight quaver entering his low, determined voice. "please go now, before it is too late."

"No," she said, "not unless you come with me when I do."

Piero's shoulders fell with defeat, but it was not a defeat to her wishes. It was clear that he would not be stopped and if it pained him so much to have Rebecca there, perhaps he had decided that there could be no other way.

"Very well," he said, "if you must see me when I act—if you must see what my destiny demands of me—then I will make sure at least that you know why it has to be so."

He focused his attention back on her and as the anger went out of his eyes it seemed to leave a great, painful exhaustion in its wake. The power of his hatred for the men who had wronged him was so overwhelming that it was like it was draining him of his very soul, like his young, lithe twenty-two-year-old-frame was simply not strong enough a canticle to contain such powerful negative emotion.

"Like I told you earlier," he said, "my father was a simple farmer—an honest man who made his living through honest means—he did not have greed or desire for anything more than what he already had, a wife who loved him, a son who adored him, and the humble means to provide a good living for them both. A man like that inspires nothing but fear and hatred in such a killer as Libano, because he knows there is nothing he can do to coerce or control him.

"First they came with offers of money. A gangster from the city, a cousin of Libano's, needed somewhere to hide from the police after a botched kidnapping in Rome, and since this area is under Libano's control they decided to send him here. My father politely refused. I remember how he treated the visitors with such calm respect before he ushered my mother to take me back inside, I remember the frightened wonder I felt to see him so calm in the face of what was, even to me, such obvious menace and evil.

"Then they returned with threats, but still my father refused them with the same polite fairness. I am a simple man of simple means, he said, I do not want anything of your world and ask only that you leave me to be in my own. Imagine how such a reasonable invocation could be its own death warrant for the man who spoke it, then you will understand the true nature of these animals who call themselves men.

"They could have sent their fugitive to any other farm on the island and indeed that is what they eventually did. But that was not enough. My father had offended them, first by refusing the allure of their wealth, and second by dismissing the strength of their threats. To such men that is an offense worth killing for, and why not? To men like Libano other human beings have no more value than cattle or sheep.

"I cannot express to you the pain, the disbelief, the agony I felt when an old neighbor came to the house in tears to tell us that my father had been gunned down in the village—this village—where he had come to deliver wool to the market. They tried to keep me sheltered from the truth but I knew from that very moment that the mean-spirited hateful man who had visited our farm in recent weeks to speak to my father was the one responsible. I knew that it was Libano who had killed him."

Rebecca winced for the pain of that little boy who'd had so much stolen from him, so suddenly, so early in his life. She reached out and took Piero's hand, stared at him longingly, her eyes wide and shimmering as they filled with tears.

"Piero," she said, "I'm so sorry that happened to you."

"It is the past now," he said, his voice firm and cold, "history, that cannot be changed or undone. All that I can do now is avenge my father and honor that goodness that carried him throughout his life and filled him with the strength to be a man and stand up in the face of such evil. In my suitcase I carry a pistol and when I hold it I will do so with the same precision with which I held the mandolin when I sang to you earlier. And as it did then, my father's voice will guide my hand once more."

"But Piero," Rebecca sighed, her voice uneven, desperate, "don't you see? Then you're only playing their own horrible game. If you do something to those guys, those sick assholes over there, then they really have won. You're just feeding into the violence and hatred. Is that what you think your father would have wanted from you? Is that how he would have wanted you to live?"

Piero's stony composure broke for a split second and for just a moment Rebecca caught a glimpse of that scared and uncertain little boy who had endured such tragedy so many years ago. It made her want to wrap her arms around him, press his head against her shoulder and cover him with kisses. Never let go. But it was only there for a moment and then Piero regained the determined, fatalistic expression that had taken him over since Libano's limousine first snaked its way up the mountain road.

"No," he said, "that is not what he would have wanted, but nonetheless it is what I will do. For all his great strengths and character, my father was not without fault. He should not have let Libano leave the farm that second day he came calling with such outrageous demands and threats, he should have known that these thugs do not make such warnings lightly. My father should have killed him when he had the chance."

Rebecca winced again, she could feel him slipping through her fingers with every word. With every second that passed he seemed to grow more determined to carry out his terrible goal and, as he did, it seemed like more and more of that beautiful, kind soul she had come to know in him was being quenched like a faint flame in the winds of a howling, midnight storm. Soon there would be nothing left but hatred and malice. She had to do something to stop him, to save him before it was too late.

"If you do this," she said, "I will never forgive you."

Even though she meant the words with every fiber of her being, Rebecca immediately regretted them as she saw the pain it caused on his face, the solemn resolve, twisted now by agony and remorse. But perhaps it was right that he should feel it—because it _would_ break her heart to lose him now in such a terrible way, truly, it would. He had to be made to understand that there were more souls in this world now than just him and the men he had come there to face. Just like Libano had when he destroyed the life of a good man years ago, if Piero killed him now it would leave only tragedy behind.

"Rebecca..." Piero said, his voice now hoarse and barely a whisper, "please. I hope that someday you will come to understand. Someday you will realize why we found each other today. It is proof that my destiny is true, that I should be given such a wonderful experience of beauty with such a beautiful soul as yourself. I have to believe that."

Her brow furrowed as she stared at him, her heart brimming with such mixed and contradictory emotions that it physically hurt. She felt such sympathy for him, such sorrow for what he'd been through, but also anger for what he intended to do next, for how he would leave her here in the wake of his revenge. How could she be expected to just go back to her life after that?

"You really believe it," she said, "don't you? That the universe is guiding you, that it's watching out for you?"

"I must," Piero said, "I must believe it."

"Well maybe it is," Rebecca answered, imploring him now with wide, searching eyes, "but if so, couldn't it be that the universe—God or destiny or whatever it is—sent me here _not_ to share your last moment, but to stop you from doing what you came here to do? To save you from making a terrible mistake?"

Piero's gaze dropped to his lap as his face crinkled with uncertainty. It was like she could hear the gears turning as she watched him and for the first time since Libano and his gang had arrived she felt the warm, fragile pang of hope in her heart. She was right, she considered as she reflected on the words that had seemed to spill from her breast without any thought. It made as much sense at least as Piero's idea that destiny had brought him here to exact vengeance on these men.

But for Piero such an idea had been with him for so long that he was clearly not ready to give up on it. When vengeance has been the motivator for so long it cannot be discarded so easily—not without leaving a gaping black hole in its place.

"No," Piero murmured, his tone failing to match the firmness of his words, "no that cannot be so. Vengeance must be done. Libano has caused too much harm already, now it is time for that to be taken away from him. I am the only one who can do it."

"And then what?" Rebecca said, feeling more sure of herself now, "Are you going to gun down all the other Mafiosi in this country as well? Because if it's only Libano then you can be sure someone just as bad if not worse will be willing to take his place once he's gone."

A slight, uncertain smile appeared on Piero's soft lips though Rebecca certainly did not feel like there was anything to smile about. "You are very clever Rebecca," he said, "it is true, I cannot kill all of them, I cannot do anything to diminish the force of evil in this world. But I can kill Libano, I can ensure that there is justice in this one instance at least."

"I don't think you believe that," Rebecca said, "I don't think you really believe that there's any justice in gunning another human being down like a dog in the street. That's what men like him do and yes, you're right, they deserve to pay for it, but not like this."

Piero did not speak for a moment and Rebecca waited patiently despite her own anxiety as he formed his thoughts. She was sure now that he could be reasoned with, persuaded, but the chance was spinning on the head of a needle and for now at least it could still go either way.

"When I was sixteen," Piero said finally, "I borrowed my neighbor's shotgun, telling him that it was to hunt the wild dogs who had been invading our farm, and then I went into Palermo to the club where Libano and his masters were known to conduct their business. Back then, inflamed with the fires of youth and still reeling from the loss of my father six years previously, it was not enough that I should deal with Libano—I intended to kill all of those men in that organization. I wanted to wipe them off the face of the earth completely.

"I waited all night in an alleyway across from the club and when they finally showed up I moved out of the darkness towards them, and the shotgun clutched beneath my father's jacket—itself several sizes too big for me—was almost the same height that I was. I went to the back of the building where a low basement window would give me opportunity to take aim and fire at will, a foxhole to shoot through where they would not be able to return fire, provided I caught them off-guard and moved fast with an aim that was true. I was ready to do it then Rebecca, truly, and if there was chance that I too would die then I would do so willingly with the name of my father on my lips.

"I lay down on my stomach, the broad jacket spread out over my body and the gun perched and aimed beneath me. I had them in my sights, my aim was on Libano and I was ready to do it when another entered the alleyway. It was the doorman of their club, a big dumb hateful brute who had probably caused as much pain and suffering in his own life as any of them. If he had known what I was really there to do I would have died before I'd even seen him. I would have died and Libano would have lived.

"But he was stupid and mistook me for a homeless boy. Presuming me asleep, he kicked me in the side and when I turned to look up at him, my over-sized coat still covering the gun beneath me, the terror I felt so arrested me that I could not utter a word. You drunken little rat, he said, if you don't get out of here we'll break your legs. I nodded wildly, words now returning as I apologized and promised to move as soon as I regained my strength. The brute told me he would be back in two minutes and if I wasn't gone by then they'd make me pay for my indolence. When he turned and went back to the door, I got up and—hiding the gun beneath my father's coat—hurried away. The time was not right, I knew. I had been spared for a reason."

"What was it?" Rebecca asked, thinking now that if something had made him doubt his mission then, it might be possible for it to do so again.

"It was my mother," Piero said, firmly, solemnly, "she needed me, she was all I had, and it was a terrible thing that I was prepared to leave her alone like that just to exact my revenge. I knew that I was needed at home, that I had to be with her, and that I would have to wait from then until the time was right to really do what was called of me. That was why I was spared."

He looked at Rebecca, his gaze open and serious and careful. "If my father had lived I think they would both have gone far into old age, strengthened and nourished by the force of their love. But after his death, she was never the same. In ten years she seemed to age three times that and though I looked after her to the best of my ability, loved her with the same power that I had always loved them both, there was nothing I could do to mend her broken heart. Three days ago, I found her, cold and still in her bed. Finally she was with the one she loved again and soon I would be with them too. But first I had to fulfill my obligations in this world. I spread my mother's ashes on the grave of my father and then I took the bus to Montagna Del Mare, knowing that Libano and his accomplices dined here on this day every week. That is where I was today before I found you."

Rebecca felt the pain and anguish of her empathy for him well up inside her like a wave of daggers. Now at last she could fully understand him, fully understand his sense of purpose. This bright, clean hopeful soul had had everything he'd ever held dear to him taken away by the callous cruelty of wicked men. No wonder he was so ready and willing to take such drastic action in the name of revenge. His life had been robbed of everything else.

"Oh my God," she whispered, "Piero, I'm so sorry."

She reached out to take his hand and though he lifted his other in protest he did not stop her from taking it in hers and squeezing him tight. He tried to dismiss her pity but his voice broke off into nothingness, a quaver of emotion that even he could no longer subdue. It was a moment before he had the strength to speak again.

"Now I am alone," he said, "and the circle can finally be complete. Now there is nobody to miss me when I'm gone, to need me in their life. Now, there is only me and Libano."

She squeezed his hand tighter, studying his beautiful face which seemed to be striving with every inch of his being to remain stone-faced and cold. She could almost see the sorrow and hardship that he'd endured, foaming like the waves of a tempest tide just below the surface of that cold, determined expression. Surely it could not be long before it washed him all away, everything that he was, lost to pain and suffering.

"No," she said, "that's not true. Piero, you do have somebody who needs you—you have me."

He winced with genuine pain, his eyes determined to keep their gaze anywhere but from the power of her own. "Please," he murmured, "don't say this to me now."

"But I have to," she said, "I know we've only just met and I know that you've lost so much, but this is the truth. I do need you now. Yes, I need you to stop this crazy mission of yours, but more than that, I need you in my life. I need you to be with me."

He did not speak, his gaze still burning into the near-distance beyond her, but neither did he take his hand from the comfort of her own and she strove now to put all of her soul, all of her goodness into that touch, to imbue him with the honesty of her words.

"You've lost so much," she said, "but now you've gained something once again. You've got me and if you want me then I'm yours. That is the universe Piero, _that's_ destiny. This is how it works."

Still he would not look at her, still he struggled to hide the pain from his expression, and yet still he allowed her to pour her love and acceptance into him through her touch.

"Tell me you don't want me," she said, "tell me you don't want to be with me, to get to know me and spend days and weeks and maybe even months and years together after this. Tell me that and I'll go right now. Because truthfully, I have no desire to sit here and watch you doom yourself forever."

Over their shoulder, Libano and his men burst forth into guffaws of hateful laughter and Piero's mouth twitched with anger in response. Rebecca squeezed his hand tighter and now at last he squeezed back.

"My mother," he said, his voice barely audible in the darkness of the night, "my father... everything is gone."

"I know," Rebecca whispered, "and I know that I can't imagine how hard that must be but I promise you that if you want me I will be here for you. I'll let you return to goodness again and leave all that rage and pain here where it belongs. Come with me, come with me back to Palermo and we can figure it out from there."

His gaze drifted to her face and his deep brown eyes widened with such sorrow and pain and internal conflict. With all these forces raging inside of him it was no wonder that he couldn't speak. But now they did not have the time to wait any longer. She would have to do something drastic.

"We have five minutes before the bus arrives," Rebecca said, "I'm going to go wait for it and you can do whatever you believe is right. But remember what I said before, if you go to those men then I will never forgive you. I will never forget the joy, the brightness and the hope that might have been before you destroyed it all."

She stood to her feet and tried to take her hand from his but he would not release her, he stared up at her with such anguish that she wished to embrace him with a fierceness that was almost violent, to crush the darkness that had impelled him here with such force and power that only love could remain. Above all, she wanted to kiss him, to taste his lips again and have them wipe out all thought of the outside world as they had done before. But she knew that she could not. Not now, at least, in this moment.

" _Rebecca..._ " he whispered as she took his hand away.

Tears brimmed to the sides of her eyes but she fought them back. "No," she said, "don't even say goodbye to me. If you kill that man then you have no right to leave me now on any kind of good will. You will have destroyed me along with yourself."

His hand lay limp on the table as she stepped away from him. She walked back across the courtyard, tears now streaming freely down her cheeks, but she did not look back even once as she returned to the street. The terror inside her begged her to return, to try to force him out of action with her presence, but she knew that she could not. This was the only way and her courage demanded it of her. Piero would have to decide for himself and if he did the wrong thing then she would never forget the pain he had forced her to endure. She was sure at least that he knew that now.

She walked back to the bus stop, a short distance that felt like miles with legs that seemed crafted from concrete. She walked back to the bus stop and there she waited.

The nights were warm in Sicily, balmy and soft as if the sky was a dark blanket that covered the world. Rebecca's heart raced and the tears still fell but as they slowed and dried on her face she felt a kind of numbness take over her. It was as if there were simply no more emotions to drain from the well of her soul and an approximate sense of peace—one that held with it still the dull ache of anguish—began to fill her body. Now there were no thoughts, no words in her mind, it was just her and the bus stop and the night.

She did not turn to the sound of footsteps that she soon heard approaching from behind her. Instead she continued to look out at the brown and purple tapestry of the island at night, the twinkling lights of the towns and villages and houses below like a mirror to the ancient stars in the sky above. In the distance she heard the sound of garbled laughter from back at the café, carried and distorted on the wind as if the voices were ghosts from some distant age, long forgotten in the mists of the past. The footfalls slowed as they approached her, her breath catching in her chest as they stopped behind her. She felt a hand, soft but firm, reach out to take her own.

"I could not say goodbye to you," Piero said, "my voice had disappeared. I could not bear to lose you, to live in that loss, even if it would only be for five more minutes on this earth."

She turned as he pulled her gently around to face him, the guidance of his touch soft but determined.

"I couldn't say it either," she answered, looking up into his beautiful solemn gorgeous face which was, like hers, also streaked with the dust of tears that sparkled in the moonlight like the reflection it cast on the ocean. "You have to know that I don't blame you, that I understand. What you'd been through..."

"I know," he said and the smile that lit up his face banished all numbness, all anguish, all pain from her soul like the blinding light of the sun after winter, like a fresh sparkling oasis after miles and miles of aching desert. "And I cannot say goodbye to you now either," he said, "I _will_ not."

Without thought, she threw herself into his arms, wrapping herself around his slender well-toned body, breathing in his cool, masculine smell, and squeezing, squeezing so tight that she almost felt like her body would meld into his from the force. He reached up underneath her flowing hair, caressed her back, his sparkling fingertips meeting the nape of her neck and driving sparks alive inside her. His soft, strong fingers gently brushed up her jawline, tilting her head as she leaned back with his guidance and then, instead of kissing, he simply looked down at her, his eyes into hers as she did the same back to him and, like that, the two just stared into each other, knowing each other, understanding each other, committing to each other now and for the long haul.

And finally, when she thought she couldn't wait any longer, when every fiber of her body trembled for his taste and tongue and lips on hers, finally then he kissed her and darkness was banished forever from the night.

The bus was empty when they boarded and Piero told her that it was likely they would have it to themselves, or almost to themselves, all the way back to Palermo. They took to the backseats, as far from the driver as they could get, so that the two of them could be alone completely in each other's company. Rebecca didn't know what would happen next. She'd reserved a single bed at the hostel in Palermo but if Piero could not find one for himself then it would still be no concern. They would wander the night streets of the city together if needs be, watch the hot, forgiving Sicilian sun as it rose up at dawn and bathed the world in the light of the new day. Piero had nothing to leave behind here and back in Naples she did not either have much for them to wait for. But now she had him and he had her and wherever they went from now on they would have all they could ever need.

They sat at the back of the bus in darkness as it bounced and rumbled over the bumps on the road, Piero caressing her side with one hand, while with the other he toyed gently with her hair, whispering closely in her ear about the sights and sounds hidden in the darkness outside. The heat of his breath on her ear and the poetry of his words imbued her and she thought for a moment about how she had climbed these same hills only hours earlier, how she had found exactly what she'd been looking for at the top of the mountain and how even then she couldn't have imagined just what that would be. Now they were together and for the first time in her life she felt strong, she felt whole—she felt complete. This was life and at last she was ready to live it.
Romeo of the Streets

A new adult romance/Mafia crime thriller novel by Taylor Hill

(Free Sample)

You can't run from who you are...

Sandy Guilianno is just like any average girl—a committed student, a hard-working barista and the only stable presence in the life of her wayward brother and aging, hospitalized mother—and now that she's escaped the rough Italian American neighborhood she grew up in for college, she feels certain she can finally leave the past behind and get on with her life. But the past has a way of repeating itself.

When Sandy's brother Lou gets involved with the local Mafia, Sandy is torn between wanting to escape the forces that dominated their early life and the desire to protect him--and the fact that he's started dating her best friend only makes it more complicated. But when Sandy meets Lou's new partner in crime, the brooding, mysterious Romeo Mancini, she finds herself inexplicably drawn closer to the heart of their criminal underworld...

Romeo Mancini is not what he seems. Fresh out of New York and working with the Chicago FBI, the young undercover cop has escaped his own troubled past, only to find himself embroiled in more danger and deceit than anyone should bear. He keeps his head down and stays focused on his goal, but he wasn't counting on Sandy Guilianno...

From the moment they meet, a spark is lit. Mutual desire and attraction grow into something neither can repress and now everything they've worked for in their separate lives is at risk. And the forces of darkness are already closing in.

Published by Choco Lune Imprint 2014

Copyright Taylor Hill © 2014

This sample of _Romeo of the Streets_ is for example purposes only and may not be copied, shared or re-sold without prior written permission from the author or publisher. To buy the full book in .mobi format visit Amazon, or to request the .epub edition email the author at _Taylorhill@choco-lune-imprint.com_

All rights reserved.

Chapter One: My Double Date from Hell

Field Report: Eden Nightclub 15:45—SALVATORE

Chapter Two: My Whole World Implodes

Field Report: The Streets 23:25—ROMEO

Chapter Three: My Ultimatum

Field Report: Angel Station 23:40—FERRET & EYEBALL

Chapter Four: My Time Apart

Field Report: FBI Headquarters 10:15—ROMEO

Chapter Five: My Treacherous Libido

Field Report: Eden Nightclub 14:30—LOU

Chapter Six: My Rationality

Field Report: Campus 13:20—SALVATORE

Chapter Seven: My Whole World Implodes—Again

Field Report: Eden Nightclub 21:30—ROMEO

Chapter Eight: My Number One Regret

Field Report: Meat Locker (exact location undisclosed) 00:00—ROMEO

Chapter Nine: My Fallen Hero

Epilogue: Dawn

Afterword

Sometimes your entire life can change on the spin of an imperceptible needle, launching off in an unimaginable trajectory, which begins, on the surface at least, as a moment like any other. As it happens you are oblivious, preoccupied, but looking back you always know it for exactly what it was—that single instant when the tides of fate finally rebelled against your ordinary life and shoved you forward into something far more meaningful, fulfilling and, yes, finally even terrifying. For me, it started that day in Gino's Café, with Lisa as we waited for the others, and if I had any idea then of the unbelievable new direction life had in store for me I think I would have ran a million miles. Now though, even after everything that happened, I wouldn't change a thing. Of course I wouldn't...

Even as I was sitting there, the February sun spilling in through the windows of the empty café illuminating the red and white _-_ checked tables around us, I was still unsure of why I'd actually agreed to do this. Could any good from the arrangement? Sure, I loved the big dumb galoot, but it wasn't as if I owed Lisa my support or assistance here, no matter how close we were. After all, I reasoned, by caving in and agreeing to join her on the "date" I was really doing her a _disservice_ , wasn't I? If she wanted to get involved with my moronic, posturing, typically alpha-male brother and his messed up lifestyle and poorly-thought out choices then I should have been doing anything in the world _other_ than actually assisting her in making such a terrible mistake—shouldn't I?

And yet here I was, the squeaky fourth-wheel to a total freakshow of an automobile that was just this minute tearing down the highway of life, about to burst into unholy existence, and no amount of oil or TLC was going to silence my squeaking about it this time. It was enough that I'd even agreed to be here in the first place. If Lisa thought my role at the table was to be the second feminine presence in the double date that would satisfy her and Lou's bizarre attempt at doing something "coupley" then she could go ahead and think whatever the heck she liked.

No, I was here as _chaperone_ only, to watch over her and watch out for her and, if I'm being honest, to watch to see if I could figure out just why in the world was she suddenly interested in Lou in that way to begin with—because I was well and truly stumped in that regard. And as for the second _masculine_ presence in this upcoming tête-à-tête-(à)-tête-à-tête? Well I could only imagine what kind of unsavory tough guy jerk Lou would be dragging along with him this time.

The Café was quiet that day, something that would have usually caused me to worry (it was after all the sole livelihood for both Gino and myself), but now it felt more like a saving grace. At least this way nobody would be around to see Lou embarrass himself with his over-the-top posturing. It was truly cringe-worthy, especially here on the Orange Grove, the close-knit Italian-American neighborhood we grew up in and where everybody had known us since childhood. The fact that it was known that Lou had had a good education and a (mostly) decent upbringing only made it worse when he acted the way he did, because people would know that he was capable of better. In fact only a few short years ago, I remember him as a gangly, bookish high-schooler with thick glasses and a mild but pervasive shyness—two years older than me but somehow almost _younger_ , if that makes sense—and no matter what he did now I felt certain that that was how everybody else remembered him too. (And ok, so maybe he had more excuses than most people to lash out and rebel, but didn't I as well? And when had I ever acted out or behaved impulsively or let my emotions get the better of me? Never. Somebody in this family had to keep their head on straight—if you could even call it a family at all anymore, which was, in fairness, up for debate...)

"You girls are looking more radiant than usual, eh? Must be some special guys today, eh, husband material!"

Gino laughed heartily to himself as he swept up the unused saucers off the table and replaced them with ones that were only marginally newer, his chuckle rumbling up all the way out of his paunchy stomach and causing his faded old apron to quiver with delight.

"Hardly," I smiled, "like I said earlier Gino, it's only Lou and his friend—and really you don't need to freshen the table, we've only been here for a few minutes."

"Eh," Gino shrugged in that old passive Italian way that comes on somewhere far past the fuming and possessive young stallion stage and paradoxically seems like its exact polar opposite in manhood. "You two make even the newest dining-ware appear shabby in comparison. Are you sure these boys aren't something special to you, no? Looking so beautiful the two of you..."

Lisa's eyes shone with enjoyment as she smiled up at him, lips painted with a dark purple gloss to set off the streak in her dyed-blonde hair. "Gino, you old cad," she grinned, "I bet you were one to watch back in the day..."

Gino threw up his arms in a quasi-self-deprecating shrug that seemed to say: well... I'll never tell.

"Hey, seriously," I said, "it's just a casual coffee is all. Why don't you go upstairs and take it easy. Have you eaten lunch yet? If anybody comes in I can serve them."

"And distract you from more important things? Not at all Sandra. My Café, my rules. Sit!"

Gino could be commanding when he wanted to be. I bet Lisa wasn't wrong when she guessed at his rakish younger days. Before I could protest Gino was off on the rounds, singing to himself in old Italian as he wiped the already-spotless tablecloths of the other tables around us. Lisa shot me a wide-eyed excited look like she'd really gotten a kick out of the old coot's playful teasing. Gino was great. He was like the father who hadn't failed me.

They were typically and irritatingly late—to be expected from Lou and his arrogant attitude to life—although I have to admit that when I looked up to see my brother at the door I was surprised by how much he'd changed since the last time I'd seen him, which had only been about a month or so previous. First of all there was the hair, now shaven right to the skin and causing his caramel-colored flesh to end in a shiny perfectly-rounded dome at the top of his head. Then there was the goatee and the ear-ring. Wow, he actually looked ok—not that I'd be letting him know that I thought so, of course—Lou didn't need any fresh excuses to further inflate his new-found ego.

But still, he was my brother and I loved him so I couldn't help but smile when I heard the bell ring and glanced up to see the jerk pushing open the clear-glass door to enter. What I guessed to be an equally-involuntary grin spread out over his face as he let out an arrogant shout.

"Oh! Two beautiful women! What have we done to deserve it?"

Lisa jumped up to run to my brother, leaning up to kiss him on the cheek and instead of cringing at the sight of them, my eyes focused on the shape of the guy behind them as he came into view.

Yes, he was kind of exactly like I would have expected and yet somehow he wasn't at all—not even in the least bit—and if you want me to explain what I mean by that then you're out of luck, because I wouldn't have been able to tell you then and I certainly wouldn't attempt it now.

But I can tell you in detail what he looked like, yes I can tell you that at least. The man behind Lou—and he was a man, I could tell that immediately, even if he was roughly the same age as Lou's still-boyish 21 years—was a little bit taller than my brother, with a similarly well-toned and muscular build that was probably requirement number one for guys like him when they set out to make their street-cred, although the way he carried himself was totally different to Lou and yet somehow still _kind of_ similar. He radiated the same aura of toughness, but without any of the effort that Lou seemed to go to great efforts to expel.

Yes he was, in his black leather biker's jacket, boots and jeans, an obvious threat in his every intimation but somehow, also unlike Lou, it wasn't because he was trying to be. He just _was_. And his face, paler than Lou's and made even more so because of the dark almond eyes that shimmered from his solemn expression, it was—forgive me—it was beautiful. He wore his hair longer and slicked back in that traditional Italian way that always kind of irked me but now somehow only further intrigued me, as if hundreds of thousands of old-blooded Sicilian generations were calling me back to the homeland through an eternity of primacy and lust and destiny and—

Yes, all this flashed through my mind in the space of a second or two, before I had time to catch myself and pull myself together. Jeez, thousands of generations of primacy and lust? I needed to get out more, seriously.

But damn, even though I was sure I'd want nothing to do with him once he opened his mouth, I couldn't help but admit that whoever he was, this guy was the sexiest thing I'd seen this side of a TV screen in months, maybe even years. Shame about the company he keeps, I thought.

The guy looked back at me, his big round eyes peering at me in a way that I couldn't quite read but seemed to suggest something like... I don't know, powerful interest or something? Whatever it was, I looked away quickly, reminding myself that I was here as chaperone, _only_.

"Hey sis, how you doing?"

Lou leaned down to kiss my cheek as I rose to greet him, putting my arm around his muscular frame. "Hi Lou," I said, "you look great, really."

Crap, I hadn't meant to say that, it just sort of came out and now it was too late.

Lou chuckled in his big gruff voice. "You telling me? Like I don't know..."

Jerk.

I looked past him, letting my gaze linger on his friend, waiting for the introduction and hoping to hell that my uncertainty and agitation wasn't showing.

"This is Romeo," Lou said, "I know right? What a faggy name."

"Oh!" Romeo protested immediately, although clearly in a humorous, obviously affected way, as if, not only was he being good-humored about the joke, but he was actually above the whole idea of being joked at anyway, merely pretending to play along out of his own private and untouchable goodwill. Or something like that... Man, I was really reading way too much into this guy. I hadn't even said hello yet.

"Hi, my name's Sandra," I said, putting out my hand in what I hoped was a purely platonic way, "but most people call me Sandy."

"Sandra," Romeo smiled, "your brother's told me a lot about you. I know he acts like an ass but he's alright. Seems to really care about you too."

His voice was slow and considered, tinged with the roughness of the street but also deep and rich and somehow sophisticated, as if it was also, like Lou's, mainly a put-on. But somehow I couldn't see this guy ever feeling like he had to pretend to be anything other than whatever it was he felt himself to be on the inside. It didn't make sense and I felt kind of dizzy thinking about it, as if there was some crucial piece of the puzzle that I just wasn't seeing here. Little did I know how right I was, but time would show me the error of my ways in that regard...

He took my hand firmly and shook it and I felt a tingle at his touch, despite the fact that I was sure the gesture was for him also certainly platonic. Even though that was how I had deliberately presented myself, I couldn't deny now feeling a mild disappointment in the pit of my stomach at being treated by him in the same way.

"Pleased to meet you," I said, surprised at how small and girlish my voice sounded when it came out.

Across from us Lou pulled out Lisa's chair for her to sit (chivalry? really? Who was this guy and what had he done with my brother?) and I felt my eyes travel automatically to Romeo's face, startled to see his eyes coolly on mine with a wry little smile touching his lips. What—did I expect him to pull out my chair too? Of course not, I was the _chaperone_ , wasn't I?

"Please, sit," I said, "welcome to Gino's."

"So you been to see mom lately?" Lou asked, taking his attention from my best friend for one solitary second.

"Not since last week," I said, "she's doing ok—as good as ever I suppose."

"I saw her this morning," Lou answered, "you should really get up to see her."

That was rich, coming from him. I was the one who always looked out for her. Sometimes Lou wouldn't go up to the nursing home for months at a time. And now, what? Just because he was trying some kind of new faux-grown-up attitude he was going to reprimand _me_? Where was he getting this from anyway?

I decided to let it go, not least of all because the presence of this cool, dark young man in the leather jacket was somehow, despite my best intentions, absolutely and completely dominating my emotional attention. I felt as if something was pulling me to him and I was afraid to even look at his face when I spoke. What the heck had come over me?

"So how do you know my brother?" I asked, hoping against hope that it wouldn't be anything other than some jerk-wad wannabe criminal stuff, so that I could hold that against him at least and somehow denigrate this near perfect image he was casting before me.

I noticed them share a furtive, private glance and thought: thank god! He _is_ just an arrogant hoodlum. He almost had me fooled for a minute there.

"Oh," Romeo shrugged, "this and that. We do some work together."

"In the bar, you mean?" Lisa asked.

Lou worked part-time in the campus bar at Chicago City University (CCU) where me and Lisa were freshmen—which was why I avoided the place like the plague—although wherever he got the money to fund his lavish lifestyle from, it certainly wasn't doing a shift or two a week there. Call it wishful thinking on Lisa's part, then.

Romeo and Lou looked at each other again with that secret, conspiratorial man's look and then he smiled. "Uh... no," he said, "not the bar."

Lisa pouted as if she wanted Lou to explain and I thought to myself: good, at least now you'll have to admit to yourself what he's _really_ like.

Unfortunately, at that moment Gino appeared at the table and clapped Lou on the back before ruffling his scalp like he was still a little boy and I had that to enjoy, if nothing else.

"Hey Louis! Look at you my boy, you're not a boy at all, eh? A man now!"

Lou was not pleased, he shook off Gino's grip. "Yeah, whatever old timer," he muttered.

"Lou!" I admonished. Gino was an old family friend and he deserved better than that, considering how he'd always been there for our family, first when dad left and then years later when dementia got the better of our mom. If I didn't have the café job to support my studies and pay for mom's nursing at the home I don't know what I'd have done.

Gino though, to his credit, didn't give a hoot. "Hey, Mr. Big now, huh?" he laughed, "It's good to see you Louis. You kids want coffee, cannoli maybe? On the house."

"Sure," Lou said, "and Gino, it's good to see you too."

"Thanks Gino," I said as he went to fill our order and I turned to Romeo. I wasn't going to let Lou off the hook that easily.

"So," I said, "not at the bar? Well how do you two work together then?"

I didn't have to look at Lou to know he was probably fuming that I'd brought the subject up again, even after Lisa had seemed to lose interest.

Romeo looked to my brother and then shrugged. "Oh," he said, "this and that, casual work."

Right, as if that explained anything.

"It's not something illegal, sweetie, is it?" Lisa purred and I cringed inwardly. I couldn't believe the way she was acting over him.

Lou looked at her and smiled his tough guy smile. "Well so what if it is," he said, "what's the law anyway? Just some other fool's idea of a way to control everybody else. I say fuck that. If it ain't hurting anybody, then what's wrong with it?"

"Ugh," I said, "nice, Lou, real classy."

Lou shrugged and then he and Lisa shared some private moment as she poohed and pawed at him in what was really and truly a most despicable way.

"Do you believe that too Romeo?" I asked, turning to my brother's friend, "that morality trumps the law?"

He stared at me—far more intensely than I would have expected from the question. If I'd aimed to put him on the defensive something told me that I might have pushed him further than I'd intended to. I suddenly felt very small beneath his gaze.

"Sure," he said, "why not."

"But love is the most important thing," Lisa said, still staring at Lou, "even more than law, or work or anything like that. Like, even a gang or whatever, right Lou?"

Lou smiled and just shook his head. Suddenly I wanted to be alone and I didn't know why. I'd give Lisa five, maybe ten minutes tops, and then I was out of there. Romeo was playing with his phone now, apparently having lost whatever tiny modicum of interest he might have had in me in the first place. He probably had some slutty bad-girl-type chick on the other end of the line, offering him something that he would never get here, not in the company of Lou's boring, down-to-earth sister.

Oh boy, why do I let myself get into these situations, I wondered? You can take the girl out of the Orange Grove, but you can't keep her people from dragging her back...

The woman, a girl really, and stripping to pay her way through college, strutted seductively around the catwalk, one slender arm gripping the pole as she kicked out a naked leg towards the crowd in one whip-fast, smoothly fluid movement that belied none of the uncertainty or anxiety within. To the men hidden in the red dimness of the crowd, sipping drinks and blinking slowly in the seedy heat of the nightclub, she was a goddess, an unattainable Amazonian—a fantasy. To Salvatore Falcone, sitting at the head of the table on the VIP balcony above the main-floor, smoking a cigar despite the rules of the venue that he himself had set—Salvatore whose eye she would, to no avail, try to catch every few minutes while dancing—she was nothing more than a piece of meat. She was cattle, livestock, as much a part of the apparel of the business as the bottles of booze behind the bar, the illegal slot-machines in the back "member's only" area, and the suitcases full of pure Columbian cocaine in the secret safe in the office upstairs. One of these nights he would probably sleep with her and then, if she became too attached he might have to let her go, maybe even introduce her to one of the brothel-owners downtown in an attempt at making one last buck from the girl before she passed out of his grip completely. It was only business was all. Nothing personal.

"Ace-high flush," he smiled, laying down his cards on the table, "hearts again."

Ferret winced in frustration but even that hot-tempered kid knew better than to let it show in front of Sal. There was a hierarchy that trumped all emotion to this thing. It was surprisingly effective at mood control.

"Wow, nice going Sal," Ferret said, "you really had me. I thought straight maybe, but I never saw the flush..."

Salvatore chuckled slowly, his eyes self-satisfied slits. Someone with more smarts might have thought he'd been cheating, although if they had smarts they'd still know not to say. Ferret though, he had balls, but he wasn't so smart. Sal looked beside him to Eyeball. Eyeball stared back and his solemn, cold face rippled with that sickly, strange smile of his.

"Impressive," he nodded.

"Anybody'd think I was cheating," Sal said, "but it's just my luck—it's been on the up and up all week. Not that I'd say, even if I actually really was cheating. Not to you schmucks anyway."

It was true, he was playing fair, but only because it was also true that his luck _was_ up and had seemed to be all week now.

"Good one boss," the rat-faced Ferret grinned and Eyeball laughed strangely. His face was pale and skull-like and his eyes were black—his dark, lank brylcreemed hair slicked back tight against his temple in the usual style. Even to Salvatore, who was his "Capo" and therefore the be-all and end-all authority in the young "soldier's" life, there was something about him that he found deeply unsettling. Eyeball, as though sensing this thought, let his face crinkle in good humor and then reached out to deal the cards again for his boss.

"Ok, so you all know why I called you here today, yes?" Sal asked, as on the catwalk below, Candy the dancer finished her display with a flourish and then glanced up quickly to the balcony to see if the nightclub owner had noticed, before reaching down to gather her flimsy underwear from the floor and then hurry away to make room for the next exotic performer.

Sal scrutinized the two younger men with a steady gaze and wrinkled brow. He was, at 32, still quite handsome and youthful in his dark Mediterranean looks, a fact of which he was only too well aware, and something that he used to his best advantage when moving among the harem of dancers in the pit-floor below.

"Sure," Ferret said, "it's about the college right, CCU? About getting some action up there, like you was saying."

"Right," Sal nodded, "and why not? There's a whole community of people around that campus, most of em young and impressionable and—even better—with tons of spare cash to spend. My only problem is I can't figure out why no other crew ever moved in up there sooner."

"Who knows boss? Maybe it's like you say, you're just a..." Ferret paused to sound out the words, foreign to his crude lips, " _innovative_ _thinker_."

Sal nodded grimly. "That's right."

Actually, he didn't want to admit that he thought maybe the reason no other Mafia cell in Chicago, a city seeped in years of Mafia culture and history, had ever moved in on the university community was because even the Mafia was an institution founded on certain ground-rules and ethical guidelines. Or at least it used to be. Now, things were different. Honor was dead. Good riddance, Sal thought.

"Yeah, all we need's somewhere to get started, a base of operations if you will, a hub for our little back-to-school adventure."

"That's right," Eyeball said, speaking up for the first time in detail since he'd entered the club. Even Sal, his superior, knew to pay attention when the notoriously reticent Eyeball said anything more than a few words. "I was thinking about that and you know who works up at that campus bar up there—Chips' or Chuck's or something they call it?—Louie the Mouth. I hear he's even doing a number on some little minx who goes to school up there. Joe Sacrimoni the baker's girl I think."

Sal raised an eyebrow. For a kid of 20 years old, Eyeball really had a way of talking like one of the old timers, you'd swear he'd lived on the Orange Grove for a hundred years or more. "Who?" Sal said.

Eyeball smiled. "Louie the Mouth. Louis Guilianno. Junior Lou..."

Sal stared. Ferret furtively glanced between his best friend and his boss, gauging their reactions.

Finally Sal nodded grimly. "That little pissant? You don't say..."

Eyeball began setting the deck again. "He did that little job for us last week, you know, the thing with the thing?"

"The liquor-store," Ferret clarified and both Eyeball and Sal shot him an irritated glance that even he knew was a sign that he should just shut right up and let the other two do the talking from here on out.

"Yeah," Sal nodded, "he actually surprised me with that. Didn't think he had it in him. Still, I wouldn't have used him for that if we had anybody else to get. Not with that damn coward of a father he had, that deadbeat asshole, I want nothing to do with the kid."

"So," Eyeball shrugged, "then you have nothing to do with him. Meet him once, weigh him up and then pass him on to me and Ferret. We've known Lou since we was boys. We get on well with him, right Ferret?"

"Yeah," Ferret sniggered, "we like the prick. Sure we do. Hell, he buys us drinks all night when we hang out together."

"What you doing hanging out with him?" Sal asked.

"Eh... keeping our ears to the ground is all, boss."

Sal sat back and sighed. "What about this other guy he did the job with, what you call him again?"

Eyeball smiled slowly. "Romeo Mancini," he said.

"Romeo?" Sal blinked, "what kind of name is that?"

Eyeball shrugged.

"Never heard of him," Sal said. "Where'd this kid come from anyway?"

"He's a New Yorker," Ferret said, "moody asshole, thinks he's a real tough guy. Friend of Chuckles Bonanno no less."

"Chuckles Senior?" Sal asked, leaning forward.

"Nah, Chuckles Junior," Ferret said, "the cousin."

"Yeah but still," Sal sighed, "that's quite a connection. What's he like?"

Eyeball shrugged. "I'd need a little more time to get a closer look, but he seems solid, not as flakey as Lou, maybe even make good membership material someday."

Sal narrowed his eyes. "You don't think about things like that. _I_ think about things like that. You just think about what I tell you to think about."

"Sure boss," Eyeball shrugged.

"Still though, I knew that little Guilianno prick didn't have the balls to pull that job off by himself. Get these guys on the phone. I want to meet Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee."

Eyeball smiled, leaning forward. "I had a feeling you'd say that," he said, "so I sent word before we even came up here. Assholes were on a date, you'll be amused to hear..." He laid out fresh cards to his boss. "Big Blind to you," he said.

Sal, Eyeball and Ferret all three, had their eyes to the main floor as the two young toughs stopped to ask the bargirl where to find the men in charge. She turned and pointed up to the VIP balcony and Sal smiled and gave a little wave down to his guests, the buzzing little flies flitting into his parlor. The Guilianno kid looked star-struck but the other guy seemed more level-headed and cool about being called to the meeting like this. He smiled wryly back up at them, as if in on the same joke, and nodded slightly. So this was "Romeo Mancini" then, the Bonanno connect from New York? He better have the brains to show the proper respect at least. This was Falcone territory and not only was Sal the local Capo, he was also connected by blood all the way to the top of the "family".

The young men walked slowly up the spiral steps to the balcony, Romeo leading, with that faint disinterested smile never leaving the handsome youth's face. "You must be Sal," he said, reaching out his hand in greeting.

Sal looked him up and down from his place at the table. He didn't get up. "How the hell you know I'm Sal, huh? How you know he not Sal?" He gestured gruffly to Ferret.

Romeo smiled wider, as if actually amused this time. "That's Ferret," he said, "I know Ferret... interesting guy. Dude can drink almost as well as a New Yorker."

"Get the fuck outta here with that New Yorker shit!" Sal commanded, but even he was laughing now too. This kid was alright. "Hey, you know Chuckles Bonanno? Chuckles Junior? My cousin used to babysit him when he was in diapers, Gracie Falcone, you know her?"

Romeo shook his head slightly. "Nah," he said, "but you know, some people say Chuckles is still in diapers. She still babysit for him?"

Ferret burst into laughter and even Eyeball smiled, but Salvatore narrowed his eyes. "That's a made man," he said, "you watch your mouth. You ain't in the company, are you?"

"No," Romeo said, "but Chuckles is a friend of mine, I meant no disrespect. If he was here he'd be laughing too. Trust me."

"Alright," Sal shrugged, "you want a drink? Sit down."

He beckoned to the bargirl down below who always had one eye on the balcony in case they called for her and she hurried up the steps, lest she invite the wrathful words and temper that would follow if she served them even a second too slow.

"How's that little gal you been running with?" Sal asked, cockeyed, considering Lou.

Lou blinked and swallowed, clearly surprised that Sal knew so much about what he was up to, let alone actually even cared. "Lisa?" he said, "good. She's good."

"Yeah? She go up to that CCU right? You work up there too, is that correct?"

"Uh, yeah Sal, just two nights a week. Gives me something to do... of course I'd much rather work for you."

Sal ignored the comment. "What's your girl study up there again?"

"Business and commerce mostly," Lou answered, "stuff like that."

Sal exchanged glances with Eyeball and Ferret and the three of them sniggered. "Is that so?"

"Yeah, she goes up there with my sister."

Sal leaned forward, suddenly serious. "Sister?" he said, "Hell, I forgot you had a sister. She must be... how old now?"

"Nineteen," Lou replied, "Sandy's nineteen. It's hard to believe. She grew up so fast."

"Yes, she did," Sal smiled. "Sandy Guilianno, nineteen. Imagine that..." he looked to Romeo suddenly. "What the hell's the matter with you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes.

Romeo, whose jaw had all of a sudden seemed to tighten to a tense, taut rigidity, shook his head. "Nothing," he said, "it's my ulcer."

"Ulcer," Sal said, "well what the hell you drinking scotch for?"

Romeo shrugged and then tipped up his glass, drained it and then placed it back on the table, his big dark eyes never leaving Sal's face, almost as if the little prick was daring him to bust his balls a little harder. Sal decided to let it pass.

"Well," he said, looking back to Lou, "all this is very interesting to me, because we've been thinking about going back to college ourselves, haven't we boys? Maybe enlisting to teach a class or two—the school of hard knocks, maybe. What do you think, you fellas come to that class if we run it?"

Romeo shrugged, Lou nodded. "Sure."

"That's good," Sal said, "that's very good. You might just find yourselves a whole hell of a lot richer—if you play your cards right."

"You know how to play cards boss," Eyeball said, "that's for sure."

"Fuggedabout it!" Sal grinned and then turned to Romeo and Lou, "my luck's been up all week. A sign from God maybe, I don't know."

Romeo and Lou exchanged glances and suddenly Sal decided he'd had enough of them. "Ok," he said, "get out of here, we'll be in touch. And tell that hussy at the bar to send Candy up here. I want to talk to her, ok?"

"Candy?" Lou said, "you got it."

"Good boy," Sal nodded and the two young men left the table.

"Arrogant little prick," Sal muttered as he watched them leave, "Lou Guilianno, acting like a big somebody—if only that deadbeat father of his could see him now."

"New shuffle's up boss," Eyeball said, directing Sal's attention to the deck, "fresh cards on the table."

"Damn right," Sal said and reached down to see what the Lord had deemed fit to deal to him this time.

I was still seriously P.O.'d about how the so-called "date" had ended, even though it was now two full days later and despite the fact that it was exactly what I'd been expecting from those guys in the first place. So why then had it felt like I should have gotten something more, if not from Lou then from his new friend—this "Romeo" guy?

I didn't know, I couldn't put it into words even to explain it to myself, and that particular fact was only making me even more irritable and frustrated. Why couldn't I just drop it? So what if the guy was a bull-headed, insensitive jerk? That just went with the territory on the Orange Grove. (And yeah, ok, so Romeo himself was from New York, but he was clearly from the _New York_ version of the Orange Grove, whatever name that went by, so the rule still applied.)

But still I couldn't put it out of my thoughts. Yes, I _had_ been planning to leave early myself but at least I would have made my exit in a somewhat polite manner. If I'd been given a chance to, that is. Instead, moments after whipping out his phone, Romeo had looked up sharply at Lou who was canoodling with my smitten-kitten BFF and said, simply: "Yo. We got to go."

Lou had glanced up, eyes glazed from love hormones and said: "what?"

"We've got to roll. Right now."

They looked at each other for a second and Lisa stared from face to face between them, wide-eyed and dazed. I felt my lips curl into a thin smile of distaste and shook my head slightly. Nice, guys, real nice...

"What is it baby?" Lisa had asked, smiling hopefully at her new beau like she'd forgotten to bring her self-respect as an independent woman out with her that day.

Romeo stood up. "Let's go."

"Sorry babe, it's important," Lou muttered, kissing Lisa's cheek and rising too.

"But isn't this important Louis?" Lisa had asked.

"Obviously not," I muttered and Lou shot me a dirty look.

"I'll make it up to you," he said and then the two jerks sauntered out, going straight back into tough guy-swagger mode. I watched Romeo's muscular back through his leather jacket as he left. The jerk didn't even look at me, let alone say goodbye.

So now, two days later I was still thinking it over when I came back into Gino's—this time to work an evening shift and help him out with the dinner rush. I was surprised to find the shutters were down, even though it was five pm and the café was supposed to have been open all day. Gino must have gone out to get something I reasoned, neglecting in my preoccupation to wonder what might have been so important that he couldn't wait until I'd arrived in for my shift first. In a moment I would find out exactly what that was and then I'd forget all about Romeo Mancini, at least for the moment anyway...

"Gino, you in?" I called as I swung my book-bag up onto the counter. No answer.

"That's weird," I muttered, noticing that the linen till-cover was still draped over the old-fashioned cash register on the counter. In fact the whole place looked as though it hadn't been opened at all that day.

"Gino?" I called again, stepping past the counter and out to the back hallway.

When I saw him my blood ran cold.

"Oh gosh, Gino!" I cried out, rushing forward to the unmoving lump of a man who was curled up and twisted at the bottom of the staircase. I fell to my knees beside him and placed my hands, softly but firmly on his shoulders. There was blood, not a lot, but enough to stimulate the first waves of an overwhelming panic that was about to wash over me. "Gino are you alright! What happened to you?"

No answer.

"Gino!"

This time there was a groan, faint and groggy, but alive at least. My shoulders collapsed in relief.

"Carmie, is that you?" he murmured.

"No, Gino it's me Sandy. Hold on, I'm going to call an ambulance to come get you..."

I rushed out to the office and picked up the phone but the line was dead. In a flurry I ran into the café to use the customer pay phone but then I realized I had no change in my pocket and the key to the cash register would be firmly wedged in Gino's inside pocket. I didn't want to risk moving him to try to get it.

"Ok, think Sandy, think..."

Free texts. I had a bundle of free texts on my phone to use up this month, which had been tiding me over in lieu of call credit for the last couple of days since I was trying to save cash wherever I could. Cursing my own frugality, I whipped out my phone and began frantically tapping.

" **Gino Accident at Café Can't call ambulance HELP!!!** "

I hit send to both Lisa and Lou, and then rushed back to Gino. I dropped to the ground beside him and placed my hand tentatively on his shoulder.

"Gino, what happened?" I asked.

"Sandra... I don'know, I must have fallen, I think..." Before I could stop him, he tried to get up, crying out in absolute agony as his abdomen moved but his twisted legs stayed exactly fixed in their sickeningly-warped position. They were broken, both of them, and badly by the looks of it.

"Don't!" I cried, "Stay still, I'll get help..."

That second, as if to prove my point, my cell phone started to ring.

"Hold on," I promised and then stood up to answer my phone. "Hello?" I choked down the line.

"Hello, Sandy?"

I blinked. For a moment I didn't know who it was and then the fog cleared. It was Romeo, Lou's new friend. "Romeo?" I said, "Where's Lou?" I didn't even have to time to wonder why it was him calling instead of my brother.

"He's not here," Romeo answered, "with Lisa I think. Are you ok?"

"No!" I shouted, unstoppable tears beginning to spill down my cheeks, "Gino's had an accident and I can't call an ambulance! Please help me!"

"Ok," Romeo said, "hold tight. I'll call the paramedics and then I'll come over myself and pick you up. You're at the Café, right?"

"Uh-huh," I nodded.

"Cool, that's not too far from the hospital—they'll be there within minutes. So will I. Everything's going to be ok Sandy. See you soon."

"Ok," I said, my voice choked and sniffling, "thanks."

The line went dead and I went back to sit by Gino's side until whoever arrived first, the ambulance or Romeo Mancini.

It went like this: the paramedics arrived in as fast and efficiently as a well-trained army, two tall, muscular men, striding into the café in their gleaming uniforms.

"Where is he?" the first one demanded.

"Out here," I called from the hallway door.

They burst into movement again, striding past me.

"Any idea what it was? Does he have heart problems, poor health?"

"No," I spluttered, "I think he fell down the stairs."

"Ok, good," the paramedic nodded and then they were beside him. "Sir, can you hear me?"

Gino murmured his affirmation and then they checked him over. One of them stood up and turned back to me. "Looks like he's got a couple of breaks. They're bad, but he's going to be alright."

"Ok," I nodded, feeling more helpless than I had in years.

"We're going to take him to the hospital. Can you follow behind us?"

At that moment Romeo appeared in the door, strong, cold and calm. "Yeah," he said, "we'll be right behind you."

The paramedics loaded Gino up on a stretcher and he couldn't speak when I squeezed his hand as they carried him past us, because of the ventilator mask covering his mouth. Romeo placed his hand on my shoulder.

"He's going to be ok," he said. "Come on, my car's outside. We'll be there practically before they will."

I turned to face him. "Thank you," I said, really meaning it. His face was expressionless when he nodded slightly in return.

Romeo's car was double-parked outside (an excusable transgression in this situation, although something told me he probably flaunted the basic rules of the road everywhere he went and, indeed, he didn't even put on his seatbelt when we jumped in the car to follow the ambulance—a fact which only dawned on me later). The car was a sleek, silver Lexus and exceptionally clean and spotless on the inside. I would have been impressed if I hadn't been so shaken up. He squeezed my arm softly as I settled down into the luxurious leather passenger seat beside him, a comforting gesture that was at odds with the still-stony, almost frozen, expression on his face. He turned the ignition and pulled out into the street without even waiting to see if anyone else was coming behind us. From there to the hospital he stayed close behind the ambulance, bobbing in and around the traffic as it did, and looking at him, I had to wonder if he'd had a lot of experience chasing ambulances in moments of disaster and tragedy.

At the hospital, they wouldn't let us in to see Gino (even though Romeo lied and said I was family—and ok, it was an _almost_ truth, Gino kind of was family) until after the doctors and nurses had operated and we sat down to wait on the uncomfortable seats outside the room, two refuges stranded in a world of uneasy yet vibrant activity.

Romeo went to get us some coffees from the machine at the end of the corridor and I sat and waited for him, stuck to my chair like I was tied down by an impossible weight, completely lost and helpless in the bustling and unfamiliar hospital hallway. Doctors and nurses rushed past me from either side, talking as fast as they walked and disappearing almost as soon as they appeared. I felt dizzy, faint, and was almost certain I was about to have a full blown panic attack when Romeo returned to my side and softly touched my arm.

"Hey," he said. He was holding a cardboard tray with two Styrofoam cups in his other hand, effortlessly balancing the uneven weight of the thing in his casual thumb and finger grip.

"Hi," I said, looking up at him. I wanted to say more, like how grateful I was that he'd been there for us in our hour of need, but I was too shocked and exhausted from the experience to even know where to begin.

But Romeo nodded like I'd gone ahead and said it anyway and then he slid down with a sigh into the chair beside me. "Here," he said, passing me the coffee.

"Thanks," I said and gratefully sipped.

Halfway through the cup I started to get my strength back and felt confident that I could talk like a halfway's normal human being again and maybe thank him at last for saving both me and Gino from who knows what kind of tragedy.

Instead though, for some reason all I said was: "So what were you doing reading my brother's texts?"

For the first time since I'd met him I noticed a slight flush go into his cheeks, even though his face remained completely rigid and unreadable. Then to my surprise he smiled a little, a kind of wry grin that could have meant anything in the world and would, over the coming days and weeks, grow to cause me many moments of frustrated curiosity and personal conjecture each time it appeared.

"I think he's with Lisa," Romeo said, "he left his phone at my place."

I narrowed my eyes slightly. I knew I had no right to press him after all he'd done for me but the words were already out before I had a chance to stop them, propelled forward by the growing caffeine rush and the still-surging anxiety of the circumstances. "You didn't answer my question."

Romeo considered me levelly with those big deep bottomless pools that he somehow got away with calling his "eyes" and then he said: "You don't approve of Lou's work much, do you?"

"No," I answered, "as a matter of fact I don't. And like _you_ said, it's your work too, right?"

"Right," Romeo nodded, "that's right. So you shouldn't ask about it or even want to get mixed up in it at all. Stick to your studies and make something proper of your life and just forget about whatever else goes on. But I will say this: the kind of work we do doesn't wait around until we're ready—when it calls, it calls and you just got to get up and answer that call. And so Lou might get reckless when he's off out with his sweetheart but somebody has to be there to pick up the phone."

I didn't know what to say so I said nothing, except, finally: "well I'm just glad that you _were_ there to pick it up. I don't know what we would have done otherwise."

Romeo shrugged but didn't say anything back. His restless eyes were already prowling down the hallway and I wondered what could be going on behind them, what angle or job he was thinking about that he would have to move on to after this. I followed his gaze down the corridor where it settled on the well-toned rump of a quite-frankly beautiful looking young African American nurse and then, as I looked back to him, our eyes met and his eyebrow went up with that teasingly vague little smile of his and my own gaze shot to the floor, caught out, embarrassed and more than a little ashamed to have been found out for prying on him. Thankfully, He didn't press the issue.

Sometime later, what felt like hours but was probably only forty minutes or so, Gino's doctor stepped out of the room and came towards us, holding his clipboard in his pink, perfectly-manicured hand.

"Now, Sandy is it?" he asked, "the patient's daughter?"

"Niece," I said, reasoning that it was close enough to be almost true and so not feeling _too_ bad about lying to an authority figure of such importance.

"Well the good news is your uncle's going to be fine," he said and I breathed a sigh of relief—a little too soon as it transpired. "He'll even walk again, though it may take some time."

My heart dropped again. Like how long? What about the café? I wouldn't be able to run the place all by myself, no matter how much I would want to. I had my studies to think of and there was no way I could put them off without jeopardizing the scholarship that had afforded me to be there at CCU in the first place.

The doctor cleared his throat. "And now, unfortunately, for the bad news. I'm afraid your uncle has no health insurance and his bills are going to be, how can I put this, quite steep indeed."

Romeo stood up, apparently all of a sudden interested again. "What about workplace insurance," he cut in, "wouldn't that usually cover an accident like this?"

"Usually, yes," the doctor nodded, "unfortunately Mr. Morelli doesn't have that either."

I felt like I'd been hit in the stomach with a ton of bricks. Oh Gino, you foolish old man. What have you done?

"So what are you saying here?" Romeo asked.

"That either you or Mr. Morelli will need to inform us how you wish to proceed. The patient is under sedation right now, so you still have a few hours to reach your decision."

The doctor nodded politely and then set off down the corridor to let us think it over. I looked to Romeo for support but this obviously wasn't the kind of support he was used to giving, because he just stared blankly back. Luckily at that moment someone far more skilled at the supportive arts of love and nurture arrived behind me and threw her arms around my back, like a big loved-up teddy bear.

"Oh God, Sandy, I'm so sorry we didn't get here sooner," Lisa said.

"It's ok," I laughed, turning to return the hug, "but seriously, you should check your phone more often. You too Lou." I turned to face my decidedly sheepish-looking brother, standing slightly behind his girlfriend. At least he appeared to understand the gravity of the situation anyway.

"We're here now sis," he said, then looked to Romeo and nodded respectfully. "Thanks man."

Romeo shrugged. "She's right Lou," he said, "what if that had been Sal on the phone?"

I spun towards them angrily, not able to help myself, "yeah!" I spat, "what if it had been Sal... like, something _really_ important."

I didn't even know who Sal was and was well aware that I had no right to take the higher ground with Romeo at this point but I couldn't help myself. The experience had shaken me to the core and I still felt almost hysterical after it. Luckily everybody, even Lou, seemed to understand and the worst that followed was an uncomfortable silence. I sighed and began filling them in on what the doctor had told us about Gino's bills.

"Hey, it's fine Sandy," Lou said, "I can take care of it. No problem."

Lisa looked hopefully from him to me, while beside them Romeo's face had suddenly gone cold.

"What do you mean?" I asked, "Do you actually realize how much this is going to cost?"

Lou held up his hand with a self-assuredness that unnerved me, considering the amount of money we were talking about here. (Just what was he into these days, I wondered?)

"I think we can cover it," he said, "right Romeo?"

Romeo merely shrugged, but his eyes seemed piercing as they stared into mine. What, I thought—taking immediate offense at his obvious distaste—are you angry because I think I'm too good to accept your money, your illegally-gained proceeds of crime? Give me a break, I had enough on my plate to be dealing with that self-righteous tough guy crap.

"No," I said, firmly and for certain.

"Sandy..." Lisa began.

"No," I said. "Just no. We'll figure something out when Gino wakes up. Maybe he has some money put aside for emergencies."

"And what?" Lou asked, "You want to wipe him out over this! I already told you me and Romeo can cover it."

"Gino made his choice when he broke the law about workplace insurance," I said, "he'll know what he has to do."

"Unbelievable," Lou muttered but Lisa put her hand on his arm to still him.

"Leave it Lou," she said.

At that moment Romeo straightened up. "Lou, take your sister home. The old man's going to be out all night and I've got things to do," he turned to go and I called after him, stung and determined to have the last say on the arrogant jerk.

"Um, excuse me," I said, "I don't know who you think you are, but I'm going nowhere. The doctor said Gino would be awake in a few hours and I'll need to be here when he is."

That little wry smile appeared on his lips again as Romeo turned back to face me. "Trust me," he said, "he'll be out all night no matter what the doctor said, now let your brother take you home. You want to be there for Gino? Then get a good night's sleep so you can think clearly when you're back here to see him wake up in the morning."

Despite myself, I knew he was right... so no matter how much I might have wanted to, I couldn't think of any other way to argue the point.

Lou placed his hand on my shoulder, "come on Sandy," he said, "let me take you home."

I turned to look back, but Romeo was already gone.

At night every street was the same—it didn't matter if it was New York or Chicago—it all meant the same thing. It all looked the same. Sometimes he felt like the whole world was just one big labyrinth of twisting alleyways and crowded streets, bars and nightclubs and seedy back offices full of thugs and tyrants and killers that he had to do something, _somehow_ , to stop—before they cursed the whole world to the hell they created around them. Yeah, he knew there was beauty out there, there were mountains and forests and nature and love in the world, hell, he'd even seen it, but sometimes... Sometimes that all seemed like just a dream he'd woken up from one foggy twilight morning. And now the twisting streets, bathed in the dim orange light of the streetlamps of midnight, well maybe this was all there really was—the whole unholy universe.

He shook his head, smiling slightly at himself at how he'd been letting his mind wander. They'd warned him that it would get to him—that it would start to press on his emotional resolve and even affect his thinking—but he hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected this _coldness_ that had enveloped him. What happened when you told a lie for so long that it started to feel like the truth, even to you? What happened to your soul, did it just lock itself away deep inside you until the job was done? And what if he couldn't let it out again when and if that happened? What then?

Somehow the thought filled him with a dread that was just strong enough to penetrate the all-pervasive chill that seemed now to be simply one more part of who he was as a person.

A light rain smattered on his windscreen and he flicked on the wipers. On the radio Credence were blasting out their version of " _I Heard it Through the Grapevine_ " and he began to tap his hands on the wheel with vigor when they got to the solo that was, in his opinion, nothing short of virtuoso. Ok, so at least enough of him was still sufficiently vibrant and alive to enjoy the music, but then again with a solo this good, who wouldn't? Even a dead man would rock out to this.

He drove on through the night on his way to make the meet, feeling grateful that the city seemed so quite tonight, even unusually so. Lana had arranged for the catch-up to take place at an overpass out near the St. Vincent Turnpike, a reconnaissance point that was, on paper at least, not half bad. But in reality—and Lana should have known this, and for the life of him he wasn't certain that she _didn't_ actually know it—it was liable to be problematic. The turnpike was right near the Reichmann rubber processing plant, a factory with strong ownership ties to the Falcone Mafia Family, and the late-shift workers would be getting off work right around now, just as the night-shift guys would be coming on to replace them. Sure, none of them were likely to recognize him, flying under the radar at the moment as he was, but if any of the Falcone crew happened to be checking in that night then there was a good chance he would be recognized as the man known as Romeo Mancini. His face was already starting to be known in the necessary circles and, as planned, his reputation as a rising gangster was already growing fast.

But despite all this, it was something else entirely that preoccupied his mind as he drove the final ten minutes or so towards the overpass. He could still smell her—even though she'd only been in his car for five minutes at most that day—and this fact both confused and excited him, for reasons that he couldn't quite consciously understand. Who she was, what she'd come from and what she represented—her brother— _her father for Christ' sake_ —every logical synapse in his brain impelled him to forget about her, but he couldn't. He knew that even for all that she'd been through, all the tragedy and hardship and basic injustice that had formed the lives around her as she grew, she was, just like him, a genuinely moral and caring person. And even though that was so rare (or perhaps because it was), he'd still seemed to recognize and resonate with her true personality on a level that was almost soul-deep, instantaneously. Even after only meeting her a couple of times, he _knew_ exactly who she was. Because, just like her, he too had grown from an environment that had been tarnished and corrupted irreparably by the predatory tentacles of organized crime. Together, hundreds of miles apart, and not meeting until early adulthood, they had both somehow survived that darkness with their morals and their souls intact. They had never embraced the seedy promise of criminality that was everywhere around them in their separate worlds apart and in that sense they were the same. He had never met anybody else who could even begin to understand what that meant and felt like so deeply.

He thought of her pretty, sensible face, the soft brown hair and intelligent, hurried eyes hidden behind her glasses, of how curt she was with him, how deliberately cold she could be (something that he wasn't much used to from a _ny_ member of the fairer sex, no matter who they were), and even that coldness just made him want her more. After all, the kind of girl he would desire most above them all would never want anything to do with a man like "Romeo Mancini". She would never want to get involved with a soldier of the Mafia, like he was supposed to be.

But worse than this aching desire to just reach out and caress her, to make her his own and show her who he truly was beneath all the lies and subterfuge, there was the burning and perilous compulsion to _warn_ her, to call her up and just tell her to get away from all this, even to leave her brother behind (who was, in Romeo's opinion, not a bad guy, even despite his bad choices). He longed to impel her to run from this world, before it sucked her in and blackened her pure soul with its disease, because in this tale there were no happy endings for the innocents caught in the sidelines. In this story, even the good guys had to pack heat and look over their shoulder at every turn and even then they still might end up at the bottom of the ocean with cement for shoes.

But now, even if he survived the perilous mission ahead, there would likely be no happy ending for him either. Not for as long as he couldn't get the name of Sandra Guilianno off his lips.

He pulled off from the turnpike, down the slipway into the discreet darkness below. His face was grim and he could only hope that none of the Falcone goombas were on the scene tonight, but as he pulled his car out towards Lana's gleaming white Cadillac (a car which, he noted with a disdainful shake of the head, just about screamed upper-echelon Law Enforcement) he couldn't help but smile at the thought that if the Falcone guys actually _were_ in the area tonight, then this of all places would probably have made a perfect place for them to do their own business too. Imagine that particular coincidence? Don't mind us guys, just an FBI agent and an undercover New York cop shooting the shit. Oh, I look like Romeo Mancini? Never heard of him, sorry pal...

If something like that actually happened he hoped Lana would take a bullet in the ass. She deserved it for picking such a sketchy location.

He dimmed his lights as he slowed his car to a halt and the door of the Cadillac opened immediately as Lana stepped out. She was tall, thin and blonde, wearing a smart grey business suit above shiny, bright red heels that definitely weren't company issue (who was she trying to impress out here anyway?) and a smug, self-satisfied smile on her smartass Barbie's face that said: yes, I know I'm hot, educated, rich and beautiful, thank you very much, now why don't you kiss my ass?

He turned the ignition and then got out of the car. "Lana," he nodded.

"Hi Romeo," Lana smiled, fluttering her eyelashes with an affectedly smitten girlishness.

He winced. "Don't call me that."

"Why not?" Lana asked, "It's your name now isn't it? I think it suits you."

Smiling slightly, he shook his head in mild disbelief at her attitude.

Lana's face turned serious and she looked him up and down with a cold, business-like appraisal. "Good, you're smiling. That means the job's not getting to you _too_ much..."

That thing she did irritated him. Changing gears the moment someone got on the same page with her. It was like she wanted to be chased just so she could have someone to shoot down. He could care less. From the moment they'd met, there had always been something about the FBI agent that rubbed him the wrong way and when he'd been informed that she was going to be his handler in this job, his heart had sunk. He'd even considered asking for someone else, but had eventually decided against it—a decision that he now feared would be one he would soon come to regret.

" _...aaand_ it's gone!" Lana said, scrutinizing his face and the smile that had slowly disappeared from it. "You know Romeo, I had my doubts about you the minute you walked into HQ. I mean sure, you had balls—and hell maybe I'd even like to see em someday—but I could tell right away that you were just too moody for this game. You're so fricking _sensitive_."

The smile reappeared in an instant. "Sensitive?" he said, "You think I'm sensitive... that's cute Lana, real cute. I knew you had a soft side." He'd already let her get under his skin once tonight and he was going to make certain it was only once. The sexually-suggestive comment—the one he knew she would _really_ want to see him react to—he ignored completely. It wasn't even worth his consideration.

"You can call me whatever you want Lana," he said. "I don't care either way."

"I know I can," Lana smiled, "and I did. Who do you think it was assigned you that code-name in the first place?"

The wry grin on his lips faltered, but only slightly, before restoring itself to its full casual superciliousness.

"You read a lot of Shakespeare?" he asked.

"No, but I rent the movies."

He laughed, for real this time. "Yeah, I bet you do. Ok, let's do this."

He told her about the meeting with Salvatore Falcone and his two rat-faced goons at the Eden nightclub, about their plan to move in hard on the CCU campus, using himself and Louis Guilianno as their on-ground representatives.

"Wow, I'm impressed, Romeo," Lana said. "Really, you move fast. Maybe even _too_ fast... you ever get that complaint from a gal before?"

He looked at her coolly, wry smile, and shook his head once. She'd have to do better than that.

"Um, ok," Lana continued, "so talk to me about the Guiliannos, Louis and Sandra. I'll tell you something, the guys at HQ were surprised to hear those names come up again."

"Yeah, I bet they were," he said. "Well there's not really much to say. Lou's little more than a two-bit hood, an alright kid who thinks he's got something to prove. I think I could probably even get him to turn eventually, if it comes to it. His heart's in the right place."

"Yeah, well his prick's not, is it?" Lana muttered. "Remember Romeo, these guys are the enemy."

"He's just a kid, Lana."

Lana glanced at him, a slow smile spreading across her face. "He's the same age as you are, Don."

At the mention of his real name, his face softened. It had been a long time since anybody had addressed him that way and when he saw Lana's expression, he sensed that that was probably the only reason she'd done so in the first place. She loved to get a reaction out of him, no matter how she did it.

"What about the sister?" she asked, moving on from the moment.

"What about her? She's a student, works part-time in a café for an elderly neighbor to support herself and her mom. She's straight Lana, straight as they come, never mind who her father was."

"She's a _Guilianno_ ," Lana said, "of course she's not straight. What about university—where's she getting the money for that?"

"Scholarship," he answered, "I hear she's a gifted student."

"Yeah," Lana scoffed, "I bet. And what, is she going to become an _accountant_ like her father was, too? Who's she going to work for then?"

"I said she's clean. Trust me on this one."

Lana Smith shrugged her perfect shoulders and flipped through her notepad. "Ok, just one more thing. Tell me about this accident today, this Gino Morelli guy?"

Romeo swallowed. How had she heard about that? This was bad. Once the FBI got involved it was out of his hands and if Sandy accepted Lou's offer of financial assistance then she would be making herself an accessory to criminal activity. Just another cog in the case they were building, and in fact she'd probably look like the perfect candidate for his FBI superiors to bully into turning informant. He couldn't let that happen. Despite her background—despite everything that had happened to her—Sandy was an honest person and to him that was a miracle that he wouldn't let anyone destroy.

"Not much to tell," Romeo said, "the old guy fell down some stairs, he's in hospital now."

Lana cocked her head, looking him up and down with a predatory grin on her shiny apple-red lips. "And you were the knight in shining armor, come to the rescue, were you? Romeo, Romeo—wherefore art thou Romeo?"

"Give me a break."

"Keep it together Romeo, remember who she is. If you want to blow off some steam with a woman I'm sure something could be arranged... Not this one though, Sandra Guilianno's off limits."

Romeo stared at her coolly. Yeah, he thought, I bet you'd like to "arrange" something like that Lana and guess what? It's never going to happen.

In the distance the shift bell at the rubber factory screeched icily into the night and Romeo looked at the gold-plated gangster-style watch on his wrist. "I have to go," he said, "Keep it real Lana, I'll see you around."

"Yeah, you too cutie," Lana called after him as he climbed back into his vehicle.

He started it up and drove away across the concrete wasteland, well aware that Lana was leaning against her own car in the background, watching him thoughtfully as he left.
~End of sample~

Hi, Taylor Hill here. Hope you enjoyed the first four free chapters of my novel "ROMEO OF THE STREETS". If you'd like to request the rest of the book in .epub format just drop me a line at Taylorhill@Choco-Lune-Imprint.com. I'm always happy to hear from you!

Taylorhill@Choco-Lune-Imprint.com

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