I was in the backseat of a cab on my way to a safe house with my new dog.
Had you told me even a couple of hours earlier either of those things, I would have told you you were crazy.
But now both were a reality.
And I was… a little numb about it all.
Who could blame me? I’d just been in a room full of organized crime members who were furious about what had been found in my home thanks to my dead husband.
The only way I got through that was to just disconnect.
I knew it was all going to settle in eventually. But I was hoping it might happen behind a closed and locked door at the safe house.
“We will feed you as soon as we get there, buddy,” I told Goya, who was trying to chew on the bag of dog food I’d ordered.
“You can drop us here,” Nico said when the driver pulled down a street somewhere in the East Village.
Nico paid and tipped. And it must have been good because the driver eagerly helped us figure out how to stack and carry all our things before driving off.
“We have to walk a couple of blocks. Sorry,” he said, wincing. “But I didn’t want anyone to know exactly where to find us. The only people who do are my brothers. And you couldn’t torture that information out of them.”
He said that so casually.
But I was suddenly struck with how that could be a reality. Any one of those men I met today (or their wives or kids) could end up hurt because of what Matthew had done.
“Nico?” I asked as we walked.
“Yeah?”
“Are all the others okay? The women and kids?”
“Trust me, those women and kids are the most protected people in the city right now.”
“Good.”
“It’s going to be alright, sweetheart,” Nico told me. “Trust me, we’ve been through a lot of shit over the years. We always come out on top. I’m not gonna let Matt be what brings us down. This is us,” he said, nodding toward a convenience store. “We have to hoof it. There’s no elevator.”
It was only two floors up, but by the time we made it, dragging all our things and Goya’s new belongings, we were both huffing and sweaty.
There was only one apartment per level, and the hallway the safe house was located in was looking pretty shabby and abandoned. I made a mental note to give it a sweep if we had a broom as Nico unlocked the door.
“No cameras?” I asked.
“There is one over in the corner there,” he said, gesturing toward the staircase that went both up and down. “But I can always add some new ones in if we decide we need it.”
“Okay,” I agreed as he reached inward, flicking on the light to… a somewhat tragic apartment.
“Shit. This is worse than I remember,” Nico said, shooting me an apologetic look.
“It’s warm,” I said, waving the front of my shirt to try to cool myself down.
“That I can fix,” he said, dropping what he was holding to go over and fiddle with the ancient thermostat.
I walked over to the vent, letting out a groan as the cool air started to pour out.
The whole place had that stale, closed-up scent about it, and everything inside it was dark. Dark wood floors. Dark wood paneling. Dark kitchen cabinets.
Even as Nico walked around, flicking on every single light, all it did was brighten the foot or so around said light, like the apartment itself was swallowing up any brightness.
