Ten minutes into the drive home, I felt her starting to slip away from me. Her eyes were locked on the window, and I could feel the wheels turning in her head. Our secrets suffocated the quiet moments we shared unless we were tangled in one other. I brushed my fingers down her arm and watched as she blinked away another memory.
“What are you thinking?”
“Nothing.” She smiled through her lie.
“Sienna.” I fingered a piece of her hair as I drank in her beauty. “I want you to know—” Suddenly, the partition dropped, and Vinni’s worried eyes told me something was up.
“Sorry, boss, but…ah.” His eyes shifted to the mirror, and I spotted a car behind us.
“Shit.” I shifted to pull a gun out from under the side bar and twisted on a silencer.
“What’s happening?” She looked around.
“We have company.”
“Shall I call it in, boss?” Vinni waited for me to answer as I assessed the situation.
“No, but let’s visit the festival tonight. Get the plate,” I ordered so we could see who the vehicle was registered to.
“Yup.” He took the next exit, and I reached for Sienna’s seatbelt and unclipped it.
I glanced down at her shoes.
“Any chance you can run in heels?”
“Most likely, I could outrun you,” she shot back, and I grinned at her quick wit and appreciated her lack of questions.
“All right, Vinni?”
“Next turn, boss.”
I checked the clip and loaded one in the chamber. “No matter what happens tonight, if we get separated, you head to any restaurant and tell them my name. They will know how to reach me. Got it?”
“Yes.” She looked out the back window at the headlights that were disappearing quickly.
The car came to a screeching halt in front of a massive parade as I swung open the door and pulled Sienna out of the car behind me.
“Stay close.” I linked my fingers through hers and dove into the madness of the crowd. Careful to hide my gun, I wove through the sea of bodies, gently asking people to move without making too much of a scene.
“Shit.” I realized as we started to move out of the spectators and into the actual entertainers who were dressed in Medieval cloaks, we stuck out like beacons.
Sienna caught on to what was happening and started to whirl around looking for something to help us.
“Elio, wait!” She unlocked her hand from mine and approached a younger couple and whispered something to the girl. Her face dropped as she listened then turned into a small smile as she removed her cloak and nodded at her friend to do the same. I scanned the crowd, hating that we had slowed. “Here.” She handed me a cloak and quickly tied hers around her neck, covering her dress.
“Flip up your hood.” Once she did, I took her hand again, and we started moving more in sync with the rest of the crowd.
Every so often, I would glance up to see if I could spot them. I couldn’t, but I knew they were there by the way the hairs on the back of my neck stood at attention. My sixth sense had never let me down so far, so I knew they were close.
Just as we approached an opening to an alleyway, I spotted him, Stefano’s right-hand man, sniffing along the sidelines of the parade. Three other men joined him, and they whispered together.
“I see them,” I said, answering my vibrating phone.
“If you can duck under the display and head down the alleyway, it drops you off at the cemetery.” Vinni, who was watching our backs from somewhere, huffed like he was running.
“Have you been spotted?”
“No, but I did have to ditch the car.”