The two men weigh in on the possible risk factors and outcomes, and by the end of it, it’s pretty clear that this is really our best bet of getting to the source of things. I’d be a fool not to be nervous, but I also can’t just keep being locked up like a caged bird. It’s time to uncover what’s going on.
“We could make sure to have men on her the whole time,” Pito suggests. “That way if things go south, we can still pull her out of a bad situation.”
“That won’t work,” Nick replies. “They’ll see that coming from a mile away. It’ll blow the whole thing and put her in even more danger if they think it’s a trap.”
“They won’t see it if it’s just one man,” Gabriel says. “Me.”
Nick shakes his head. “It’s a bad idea to send you both. You’d be basically handing whoever this is exactly what he wants on a silver platter.”
“I’m not letting her go alone,” Gabriel says as he locks eyes with me.
I know that arguing isn’t going to do any good. This is a non-negotiable for him. And to be honest, it does feel pretty good to have someone want to protect me. Leo’s always been there for me too, but that’s different. The way Gabriel looks at me and gets his heckles up when it comes to protecting me feels like something more than what I’ve expected from a guy before. It’s unsettling, but also kind of nice.
“Fine, then it’s settled,” I say to try and keep things moving along. We’ve already spent long enough on all of this. “I’ll go back to my apartment and get back to work. Hopefully that will lead me to whoever is behind all of this. Gabriel can watch from a distance, and then once we have it figured out, the rest of you can come in for the takedown.”
“That sounds like a very efficient plan,” Nick compliments me. “One with just the right amount of risk, one you’re willing to take on yourself. I gotta say, Camille, woman or not, you’d make a good leader.”
I smile because well-deserved compliments like that are hard to come by for females in the mafia. Being that Nick is aconsigliereto Gabriel makes the compliment even more meaningful.
I go back to my room to get ready, and Gabriel comes in after a few minutes to hand me my black leather jacket that Leo had brought from my apartment at my request. “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asks as he holds the sleeves for me to put my arms though. “It’s dangerous.”
“I’m sure,” I say as I turn around and smile at him. As much as I’ve admittedly liked being inside this apartment with him, the thought of being free to move about the city as I please is appealing.
“I’ll be right there with you the whole time, not too close but not too far either. I won’t let anything happen to you, Camille.”
I still don’t have an answer for why it is that he seems so fiercely overprotective of me. And the longer I don’t ask, the more I can pretend he feels the same way about me that I know I’m starting to feel about him.
When we get ready to head out, Gabriel is going to be keeping the closest proximity to me, while Nick and Leo trail me from a distance. Pito is staying behind to ensure that nothing else happens while the four of us are busy doing this. I jam my pocketknife back into my pocket just in case I need something sharp to keep the beasts at bay. And then we head out.
Leo and Nick drop away a block or two from my apartment building, but Gabriel stays on me. I can hear his muffled footsteps following behind me at a distance. And when my apartment building comes into sight, it feels both like a sigh of relief and a bit surreal. To think that I’ve been confined to a beautiful penthouse with a gorgeous man as we try and untangle a plot against both of our lives. I might want to write a book about this when it’s all over. Now that I’m here, standing alone in front of my apartment building, ready to take the next job and still thinking about counting all that money from the failed hit that’s upstairs in my apartment tucked under my pillow, I’m starting to worry that this might not have been the best idea after all.
12
GABRIEL
I can’t believe I’m letting Camille go back to her apartment alone amidst all of this—or at least it looks like she’s all alone. But I’ll be nearby watching from the shadows, and if anyone lays a hand on her, I’ll deal with it. It doesn’t take long before someone takes the bait.
For the first day Camille’s back in her apartment, things are quiet. I keep my distance out of sight so that no one can tell she’s being watched over. She goes about getting her life and apartment back in order, as if everything is as “normal” as her life usually is. Every so often she stands in front of her window and looks out as if she’s simply gazing at the sky or the weather in the city. I know she’s probably doing that to reassure me that she’s okay, and nothing has happened yet, and possibly also to reassure herself that I’m still here, tucked into my hidden corner looking out for her from afar.
But before the sun sets, she gets a hit. She stands in front of the window talking on her phone, showing me that she’s received a call, and then shortly after heading out toward one of those private companies that rent out mailboxes, down at the end of her block. I watch and wait. A man enters with his face too obscured by a scarf and sunglasses for me to see any recognizable features. He opens one side of the mailbox and slides a paper through—it’s a job. I want to jump up and run toward him, knock the wind out of him, pin him to the ground, demand answers about who he’s working for. But I learned from the last captured soldier I ended up shooting in the skull that these guys won’t talk. So, I wait some more.
I can see Camille on the other side of the mailboxes pull out her phone. Within a second or two, I receive her text:
Wants me to act as a runner transporting swag to someone in Noho.
Something’s wrong. The channels in Noho don’t hire out independents. This is a set-up. I can feel it in my gut.
Don’t do it.
I shoot the text back as quickly as I can, but I can see that it isn’t fast enough before Camille shoves her cell phone back into her pocket and reaches through the mailbox to take the cash. She’s taking the job, and I need to stop her and intervene. I don’t feel right about this. But just as I get up from my crouched position and get ready to go blow in there and grab the guy who’s just about to leave the mailbox, a hand grabs me instead. “Don’t do it,” Leo says from behind me.
“What the fuck, Leo?” I growl at him. He isn’t even supposed to be here. He’s supposed to be across the street with Nick. “What are you doing here? You’re going to expose us.”
“I was careful,” he says as he removes his hand from my shoulder. “I saw what’s going down and I just knew you’d try to launch in and stop her.”
“How do you know that? You didn’t even see the message she sent me,” I say with a raised brow as I still keep half an eye on Camille to make sure nothing happens.
“Because I know you, and I know your track record of reckless behavior and your need to control everything. I knew you wouldn’t be able to let her take another job.”
