Chapter 5
"Watch your tongue, Dante," Renzo said, turning around slowly.
The temperature in the loft plummeted.
Renzo wasn't shouting. He never shouted. But there was a dead, hollow weight in his eyes that made even a veteran enforcer like Dante flinch. Renzo stood a full head taller than his lieutenant, his broad shoulders squared, the raw lethality that had claimed three lives two hours ago rising to the surface like black oil.
"She is not a setup," Renzo said, each syllable carved from granite. "I saw her eyes when the steel went into Frankie’s neck. You can't fake terror like that. She’s an innocent kid who was five minutes from being thrown into the Chicago River in a concrete vest."
"We don't know who she is!" Dante persisted, though he took a prudent step back from Renzo’s reach. "Run her prints. Let me call Marco at the precinct and pull her father’s record. If she’s clean, we drop her at a motel in Rockford with five grand and let her disappear. She has no place in this house."
I seized the moment.
On the sofa, I drew a sharp, choked breath, letting out a small, terrified gasp. I scrambled backward against the leather cushions, knocking a decorative pillow onto the floor with a loud thump.
"P-please," I whimpered, my voice cracking with convincing hysteria. "I don't know anything! I swear! My dad... he just owes money to the dock company! Don't shoot me! Please don't hurt me!"
I buried my face in my hands, my shoulders racking with violent, ragged sobs. The tremor in my voice was pitched perfectly—the sound of an animal entirely broken by fear.
Renzo moved before Dante could utter another syllable.
In two long strides, he was back at the couch. He dropped to one knee on the rug, his large, scarred hand hovering over my trembling shoulder before resting gently against my back.
"Nobody is going to shoot you, Clara," Renzo murmured, his deep voice thick with an agonizing mix of guilt and fury. "Look at me. Nobody in this room is going to lay a finger on you."
He turned his head over his shoulder, fixing Dante with a look of pure, unadulterated venom.
"Get out," Renzo ordered, the command low and lethal.
Dante’s face darkened with frustration. "Renzo—"
"Take the perimeter crew and clear the block," Renzo cut him off, his voice dropping into the tone he used right before an execution. "You have two minutes to get out of this house, Dante. If I hear your voice raise at her again, we will settle this on the floor."
Dante stared at his capo for three long seconds. The air between the two men was choked with unresolved violence. Dante knew the rules of the family: you did not challenge a made capo in his sanctuary unless you were prepared to die for it.
With a bitter scowl, Dante reached for his leather jacket on the kitchen stool, snatched his keys, and stalked toward the elevator.
"Don Silvio wants you at eight o'clock sharp tomorrow, Renzo," Dante said, his hand hovering over the call button. "If you don't have an answer for why Sal died, the Don isn't going to care how pretty your little stray is."
The elevator doors slid shut with a heavy mechanical clunk, cutting Dante off.
The heavy thump of the descending lift echoed through the floorboards, leaving the loft wrapped in an intimate, crackling silence broken only by the hiss of the gas fireplace.
***
Renzo remained on his knee beside the sofa for a long moment, his head slightly bowed.
His broad chest rose and fell in heavy, measured strokes. The tension that had coiled through his frame during the confrontation with Dante was slowly draining away, replaced by an exhaustion that ran far deeper than physical fatigue.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, not looking up at me immediately. "Dante is... he’s a dog trained to smell blood. He doesn't know how to turn it off."
"Is he... is he right?" I asked softly, peeking at him through my fingers. "Did I get you into trouble, Renzo? Because you saved me?"
Renzo lifted his head. The amber sconce light from the wall reflected in his hazel eyes, casting golden highlights across his cheekbones and the dark stubble lining his jaw. The sight of him was striking—a man carved out of violence, kneeling at the feet of a woman he believed was entirely defenseless.
"You didn't do anything," he said firmly. "Sal Valenti was a cancer on this city. His time was up. You were just caught in the blast radius. If anyone in my family has a problem with the way I cleaned that room, they can bring it to my face."
He reached out and took my left hand in his.
His touch sent an unexpected ripple of electricity straight up my forearm. His skin was calloused, rough from years of handling weapons and heavy machinery, yet the way he held my fingers was agonizingly gentle. He turned my wrist over.
Around both of my wrists were the dark, purplish rings left by the zip-ties.
I had intentionally tightened the plastic against my own skin before the warehouse raid to ensure the contusions would look genuine. Now, in the warm light of the safehouse, the broken capillaries looked raw and angry against my pale skin.
Renzo’s jaw ticked as he stared at the bruises. A muscle in his temple jumped.
"Bastards," he breathed under his breath.
He rose to his feet in a smooth, continuous motion. "Wait here."
He disappeared down a wide hallway lined with dark walnut doors. A minute later, he returned carrying a small brass basin filled with steaming water, a clean linen hand towel, and a dark glass jar of antiseptic salve.
He set the basin on the low oak coffee table, dragging a leather footstool close to my side. He didn't ask for permission; he simply sat down, rolled up the sleeves of his black dress shirt to his forearms—revealing thick veins and the faded ink of an old Sicilian cross tattooed above his wrist—and dipped the linen into the warm water.
"This might sting," he warned, his voice remarkably soft.
"I can take it," I whispered.
He lifted my right wrist, cradling the back of my hand in his broad palm, and gently pressed the warm cloth against the inflamed skin.
A sharp breath caught in my throat—not from the heat of the water, but from the searing proximity of the man himself. He was leaning in so close that I could count the flecks of dark amber in his irises. I could see the tiny white scar slicing through the arch of his left eyebrow, the strong bridge of his crooked nose, and the tight, focused set of his mouth as he cleaned away the dried grit and sweat from my skin.
He worked with clinical precision, but his touch was reverent. It was the same economy of motion he had used to slit Sal Valenti's throat, inverted completely into an act of tender preservation.
"Your father," Renzo said quietly, his eyes focused entirely on my wrist as he dabbed the warm cloth along the bruise. "What kind of man lets his daughter walk into a warehouse controlled by Sal Valenti?"
