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His hands firmly grasped her hips as he pulled her close. Celia wrapped her arms around his neck, clutching the rose along his back. They swayed to the music, staring into each other’s eyes.
“So Carmine and Haven ran out of here awfully fast,” she mused.
“Did they?”
“Yes. Carmine looked like he was injured. I asked what happened, but he told me not to worry about it. He looked happy, though. Ecstatic, even.”
“Huh.”
“Do you know anything about that?”
“Maybe.”
She continued to stare at him, questions clouding her confused eyes. She wouldn’t ask, and he knew it. He appreciated her restraint. But this time, he felt she deserved an answer. This time, he felt she needed to know.
Leaning down, he softly kissed her mouth, a bit of her red lipstick smudging on his dry lips. She laughed, wiping it away with her free hand as he whispered, “I didn’t do anything except help him.”
48
Later that night, a call for a three-alarm fire went out through the emergency wire. Firefighters raced to the scene and filled the parking lot, trying to combat the vicious blaze in the darkness but to no avail. Fire ravished Luna Rossa, completely gutting the building and obliterating the landmark social club.
The massive pillar of smoke could still be seen across town come daybreak, but Corrado was none the wiser. He remained snuggled up in his bed at home, his strong arms wrapped around his wife as the two of them slept late for the first time in years.
It wasn’t until the police knocked on the front door of the Moretti residence that Corrado learned the news: his life’s work had gone up in flames, stolen from him by arsonists. They promised a full investigation, but Corrado didn’t need one. He knew right away who had done the job.
Finally, after all that time, the Irish had exacted their revenge.
Had anyone else been in charge, a full-scale war would have broken out in Chicago then, demolishing the Windy City as the factions hunted one another, determined to take each other out, but Corrado was smarter than that.
After a few botched jobs and a failed assassination attempt on Corrado’s life, the feud ended swiftly with a massacre at an underground gambling game run by O’Bannon. Men swarmed the place in the middle of the afternoon, disarming and slaughtering the gamblers one by one. The Irish never knew what hit them.
For good measure, and maybe a laugh or two, Corrado’s men set the building on fire before they walked away.
The media called it the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre Part II even though it happened in the late fall. The headline on the front page of the newspaper the next day read REPUTED MAFIA BOSS TAKEN IN FOR QUESTIONING, but was followed up shortly by THE KEVLAR KILLER WALKS FREE AGAIN. Everyone knew he had ordered it, but Corrado had a solid alibi, one nobody could dispute: He and his wife had been meeting with contractors, finalizing plans to build Luna Rossa once again.
Those weren’t the only plans in the making. While all this was happening, Haven and Carmine were across the country, safe and sound in the tiny ghost town of Blackburn. On the ground where the Antonelli ranch once stood—the ranch Corrado had purposely destroyed—the shell of a new building had already appeared. The three-story structure, designed from scratch, would someday house the first official Safe Haven.
“I want to build thirty-three of them in all,” Haven had said. “A place for people like me to go to start their new lives. When they run, I want them to have somewhere to go. I want them to know they’re not alone.”
TEN YEARS LATER . . .
Epilogue
Leaves crunched and twigs snapped as the little girl tramped through the shadowy forest, her dirty bare feet sinking into the cool ground. The plush grass tickled as it slipped between her toes but she kept a straight face, not daring to laugh.
No, laughing wouldn’t be good. Not here. Definitely not now.
Keeping her head down, eyes fixed on the ground, she followed the small trail that wove through the trees. She could hear the single set of footsteps stomping along behind her, could feel the pair of narrowed eyes burning holes into the back of her head. It made her muscles tense and she clenched her small hands into fists, wincing. Cuts and scrapes routinely adorned her body, the newest ones covering her palms. They burned, the skin rubbed away as drops of blood oozed from the filthy surface.
Ouch.
She stepped out of the trees and into the large clearing, the last remnants of bright North Carolina sunshine streaming on her as the sun started to set. Her feet suddenly moved faster then, carrying her away from the protection of the trees, but she wasn’t fast enough.
A strong hand clamped down on her shoulder from behind, instantly stalling her movements. “Oh no, where do you think you’re going, girl?”
Uh-oh.
She shrugged her shoulders the best she could. Where was she going? She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she could escape him.
