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***
Kace convinces me to eat what turns out to be an excellent bowl of macaroni and cheese, brought in by a catering service. Afterward, Kace and Adrian end up in a meeting in the lounge and judging from Kace’s intensity, I’m pretty sure it’s about keeping me safe when we arrive in Rome. When I would join them, Savage intervenes and points to a chair. “Sit. I need to check your vitals.”
My gut tells me he’s trying to keep me out of Kace and Adrian’s conversation, but I cave to the demand and plant myself in the chair. “Thank you, Savage,” I say as he slides a blood pressure cuff around my arm.
“Thank me with food,” he says. “Pizza in Rome.”
“Pizza it is. And I still can’t believe you’re a surgeon.”
“When you know how to save a life, you know how to take a life.” My eyes go wide and he meets my stare. “That should be comforting considering I’m protecting you. And you’re checked out and approved. All is well.”
“We just need that bloodwork, right?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry much about that.”
I hesitate and then lower my voice. “Would any of the drugs I’ve taken affect me or my baby if I’m pregnant?”
He leans back on his haunches. “You think you’re pregnant?”
“There’s a small chance, very small, but it’s worrying me. And the fact that I’m hyper-focusing on it feels like some gut instinct.”
“One of the two drugs is completely safe. The other, there’s a slight risk of complications to the fetus, but it wouldn’t have been withheld in the ER. You were in a life-threatening situation. I’ll see if I can get a blood pregnancy test done with the sample we’ve already drawn.”
“Thank you. How early would that show results?”
“Have you missed your period?”
“No, but I started on the pill and we didn’t wait the time we were supposed to wait.”
“Then I’m going to tell you it’s too soon for the blood test and you’re probably overreacting.”
“Oh. Okay.” I study him a moment, taken aback by this serious side to Savage. “You’re not the same person when you talk about medical issues.”
“I’m a man of many faces,” he says, “but don’t be fooled. Not all of them are good.”
“Now you sound like Kace.”
“Yes,” he says. “I do. I volunteer for anything he needs for a reason. I get him. I understand him. We are more alike than we appear.”
I tilt my head, reading between the lines. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you are worried about everyone around you, even an unborn child that might not even exist, and I know what headspace that puts you in. You’ve lost people. You’re afraid of losing someone else. So has he. I get it. I fucking get it on every level. My wife could kill a bottle of wine with you just talking about how much, but this isn’t about me. It’s about you and it’s about Kace. So, when you ask yourself if he’s better off without you, the answer is no. No, he is not. Not even a little bit.”
My mind goes to my nights with Kace and how certain I was I should walk away to protect him. Then to the night Alexander showed up in San Francisco when Kace was ready to push me away then. I thought we were beyond that place, but Savage didn’t just say those things to me for no reason. He knows something I don’t know, I think. I just don’t know and that’s the problem.
It’s with that thought that Kace appears in front of me. “I need some shuteye. You in?”
“Believe it or not, after all that sleep I had, I need more.”
He helps me to my feet and finally, I feel steady, as steady as you can be on a plane.
A few minutes later we’re in bed, the light above us turned out, and I’m snuggled under his arm, his heart thundering a bit too loudly beneath my palm. He’s not relaxed at all and I can’t help but connect that to his talk with Adrian that Savage kept me from joining. “What were you and Adrian talking about?”
He’s silent a long moment before he says, “Nancy.”
I sit up and turn on the light. “What about Nancy?”
He inches up on his elbow. “I got a weird vibe from her at the apartment.”
“I did, too,” I admit, “but Gio called and I forgot about it. I trust her, though. I do. I love her.”
“I asked Blake to make sure she hasn’t been corrupted in any way.”
“And?”
“And she deposited ten thousand dollars in her account last week.”
I feel those words like yet another sharp blade cutting me. If this keeps up, I’m going to bleed out, but I just have no energy to react. I don’t say anything. I don’t try to reason away the money. I just can’t. I simply turn off the light and lay back down on Kace’s shoulder.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
After a nap, Kace and I join Adrian and Savage in the lounge, and soon a bottle of expensive wine is broken out. Savage fills my glass. “Is this okay for me right now?”
“You didn’t react to the booze. You reacted to the drugs, but,” he takes my glass, “I’ll drink yours. You wait a few days.”
Which is fine by me, I think. I’d rather start my period before I drink again.
Kace whips out his practice violin, and I forget wine and pregnancy as he delivers a prelude to home with a little taste of home: his brilliant version of Paganini’s “Caprice No. 5.” Because to me, home is where my love of the violin began. I’m in heaven on a plane when Adrian challenges him to play, Maluma’s “11pm” a hit song on the Latin charts, and to my surprise, Kace knows it.
“Big fan,” he says, giving me a wink, and then he’s playing while Adrian begins to sing in Spanish and well. Really well. Savage is up dancing when he hits his head and we are all in stitches laughing. When the song concludes, Savage is refilling glasses.
“You’re a great singer, Adrian,” I say. “Wow.”
Savage lifts his glass in Adrian’s direction. “This mofo’s brother is Rafael, as in the famous Mexican singer. And yet, here Adrian is, a badass with a gun, chasing bad guys instead of becoming a pop star.”
“Your brother?” I ask, casting Adrian a keen eye, and thinking of the brother he said he’d killed.
“The other brother,” Adrian says. “Rafael’s the good one. I stay away so he stays that way.”
He stays away so his brother stays that way, I repeat in my mind, and even as I do, it rings true for Gio. He is guilty of living a double life, but I know he never intended for me to be hurt. I know he didn’t plan to hand me over to Sofia last night. He thought he could keep his life and mine divided and therefore keep me safe and that backfired. Now it’s my turn to keep us both safe.
An hour later, Kace and I are strapped into two leather seats and we land in Rome in the early afternoon at a private airport. We’re still taxiing when I reach for my phone in my purse to find it missing. “Do you know where my phone is?”
“Dismantled along with mine, until after we go public,” he says. “We both have burner phones in the suitcase, including a few extras to toss after any high-risk call.”
“But how will I call Gio or he me?”
“You can check your messages,” he replies, “and then use a burner phone to call him, but it has to be trashed after the call. Your number isn’t gone. We just can’t use our phones right now or we risk being traced.”
