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“What?” I ask, my voice going low at the seriousness of his words.
“You see someone in the doorway you don’t want to see, you close it, deadbolt it, hit the panic button, and call Dante, yes?”
“Panic button?” I ask, confused.
“Here,” he says, stepping in and walking to the vanity to the right of the door. He pulls out the third tiny drawer, and there’s a small red button. A panic button. “It was added while you were away, after what happened backstage. You hit this, I get buzzed. Then you call Dante. He took you shooting, yes?” he asks. And I nod, my breath going more shallow. He opens the fourth drawer, and there’s a gun. “Don’t be stupid—this is loaded.”
“Isn’t that, like, dangerous or something?” I ask, my pulse pounding.
“Yes. So don’t be stupid,” Marco says, and he’s smiling.
It takes a moment to realize this is all normal to him.
What kind of life am I living now?
“This is not normal to me, Marco,” I say. “I did not live a life of panic buttons and guns in my vanity.”
It’s then that Marco looks at me, and I know that when Dante says he’s his right hand, his number two, he means it.
Marco knows.
Marco knows who I am, what I am, and why I’m here.
“If your life had gone another way, it would have,” he says, his voice low. “You would have been a princess, but a safe princess.” He clears his throat, lowering his voice. “I know your grandfather.”
The words ricochet through me like a ping-pong ball.
“He’s a good man. He would have made you safe, if you were raised with that family. Not safe because you were locked up, but safe because you knew how to act around dangerous men. You’ve got some of it in your blood, from your father or from your mother, I don’t know. But you’ve got the sense, can handle the soldiers who step out of line, handle Dante better than I’ve ever seen.” I force myself not to smile. “But in another life, you’d know how to protect yourself.”
I keep staring and wonder what this means. What it means for me, for Dante, for the plan, that Marco knows everything. I’m assuming he knows from his boss, but . . .
“Dante knew the day he saw you who you were. You’ve been my priority since then.” Again, the breath stops, answers to questions I’ve forgotten to ask Dante coming to light. “Never intrusive, just keeping an eye, princess. He worries. There’s danger out there, danger you couldn’t dream of. And the goals you have, the plans you both have . . . an extra set of eyes is good. Don’t hold that against him.”
I could argue.
I could yell.
Instead, I nod. Some of this is news to me, but some of it is things I’ve come to understand myself.
“But next time you need to deliver a fuckin’ piece of mail to someone trying to spill family secrets, please, for the love of fuckin’ God, don’t do it yourself. Jesus.” My eyes go wide, breath stopping. “It got to him, princess. But not because you did your job right. Because I found it and delivered it.”
I stare at the big man in front of me.
“Dante didn’t know about my note until this morning, Marco,” I say, my voice whisper soft.
“I don’t work for Dante, Lilah,” he says, and the world stops.
“What?”
“I don’t work for Dante. Love Dante like a brother, listen to him when I have to, do a lot of work on his behalf, even with him. But I do not work for Dante.”
“I don’t—"
“You do. If you think about, you understand. You really think that family would just ignore your existence all these years?” Before I can say anything else, his phone rings, and he glances at the screen.
“We have to go.”
And then Marco wraps his thick fingers around my elbow and leads me out to the dining room, where my entire world falls apart.
