“You’ll have normal again, soon, little thief. I promise.” His words are spoken with such sincerity that my throat tightens.
I nod to give myself a moment. “I know.” And I do. I’m confident Tommy will get rid of this awful Reaper character, and Biba can go back to ruling his corner of the jungle and forget I ever existed. Again.
So we wait.
And we wait.
And we wait some more.
We don’t leave the apartment, and we jump to attention every time Tommy’s phone chimes.
My new clothes arrive. I have a small panic attack at the enormous mound of packages, then put on a fashion show that ends in both of us naked.
Two endlessly long days pass before we finally get word.
Biba has agreed to the plan, and the meeting is in three hours.
Chaos erupts.
Tommy paces while going from one phone call to the next. Every clipped word has me more on edge than the next. Keeping myself from asking questions has never been such a challenge. I want to know what’s happening, but he’s on an impossibly short timeline. From what I can gather, they’ve been given the time and location of the meeting, and now they have to figure out how Tommy can position himself safely for the shot. I pray he can get this done safely.
What a wild fall from grace that I considered myself to be so law-abiding a mere two weeks ago, and now I’m desperately hoping my husband will come back alive from his mission tokill a man. I’m so worried about him that I have to look out the window at the city below to keep myself from throwing up.
Ten minutes of calls, fifteen minutes to gear up, and Tommy is ready to go.
This could be it. This could be the last time I ever see him alive. His work is dangerous on any given day, but this is exponentially worse, and I’m terrified.
I throw my arms around him and squeeze. “I love you, Tommy Donati,” I force past the storm of emotions clogging my throat. I’d been feeling those three words dancing in the back of my mind for days and can’t let him go without making sure he knows. “Please, come back to me.”
Tommy kisses me with such intensity that it feels as though he’s trying to pack a lifetime of devotion into his goodbye. Tears pour down my cheeks.
“I love you more than you could ever comprehend, little thief. You’re my everything.” He gives me one last kiss on my forehead, and then he’s gone, leaving me to battle my fears in a war zone of silence.
He has two men outside the apartment rather than one. I kind of wish they were in here with me so that I’d have someone to distract me. Instead, I pace and check my phone every few minutes to see if by some merciful miracle time has leaped ahead of itself. All I achieve is a slow descent into madness because with each minute that passes, every minute thereafter stretches that much longer. As if time itself is reluctant to arrive at that dreaded hour when Biba and Reaper are scheduled to meet.
I manage to survive until the half-hour mark—a mere thirty minutes left—when my phone rings. It’s Gran. I was instructed not to tell a soul what was happening, so I’ve kept myself from calling anyone because I could never hide my current level of distress. But the time has almost arrived, and I could desperately use this distraction, so I decide to answer.
“Hey, Gran. How’s it going?” I figure best not to devolve into tears before I even say hello. They’d panic.
“Hey, sweet girl. It’s me and your mom. I’ve got you on speaker,” she says in the most Gran way ever.
My eyes well with tears. “Hey, you two.” The words fade as my throat seizes shut, but in a strange twist of events, they don’t seem to notice.
“Listen, we called because we got word that something’s going on. We were worried and wanted to check on you and Tommy.”
“What do you mean, something’s going on?” Adrenaline dries up my tears and focuses my mind with an eerie precision.
“My cousin called to check on us. He said there’s some big meeting about to happen with Biba and some other guy. He wanted to make sure we weren’t in trouble again. You know anything about that?”
“This is your Slovak cousin? The cousin who got you the gun and isn’t part of Biba’s crew?”
“Of course he’s not. None of my family runs with that lunatic. Sorry, Petra,” she adds the last part for my mother’s sake.
“It’s fine, you’re right,” Mom mutters.
I’m not paying one bit of attention because I’m stuck on wondering how on earth Gran’s cousin found out about the meeting. Did Biba intentionally leak the info? No that doesn’t make any sense. Why would he put himself in danger like that? Regardless of how the information got out, there’s a solid chance The Reaper could have gotten wind that Biba plans to double cross him. If that’s the case, he might not show up, or … he might want to make a statement and take down the shooter before the meeting takes place.
Oh, God.
