Page 65 of Handsome Devil
The map showed a far-off elevator leading to the morgue in the bowels of the hospital. I followed two transport staff wheeling out a gurney with a hidden compartment used to transport corpses to the far end of the floor. Once I stepped into the elevator with them, they shot me confused looks.
“You can’t—” one of them started.
I held my palm up. “I’m on my way down to identify my gram.”
“Oh.” They both grimaced. “Sorry,” one of them said.
Once in the morgue, I slipped out the emergency exit, slinking down and rushing to the underground parking.
My heart hammered in my chest all the way to my bulletproof Cadillac. A wedding gift from Tate. The keys were casually placed on a cushion Saturday morning, under an engraved note with my parking spot number.
The underground car park was dark and empty, but I could still feel eyes on me. Whose, I wasn’t sure.
I broke into a jog.
My entire body was sleek with sweat by the time I got into my car and locked the doors. I spent another full minute glancing around and turning on the flashlight on my phone to ensure I was alone in the car. Then I started driving.
I knew Tate’s address in the Hamptons. Been there dozens of times before.
I couldn’t wait to show up and ruin his week in the same way mine was destroyed.
Yes, he was a good kisser.
Yes, he was suspiciously good at inflicting pain on his opponents.
But we were still enemies.
As I floored it away from the hospital, I caught the sight of Enzo in my rearview mirror. He jogged out of the main entrance, long tan fingers tangling his whiskey hair. He spotted my Cadillac racing through the street. Meeting his gaze through the rearview mirror, I flashed him the middle finger and smiled.
Before I took a sharp right and lost him, I could see him stomping and yelling at his soldiers to get their cars.
1–0 to the underdog team.
“What do you mean she ran away?” I roared at Enzo through my phone. Beneath me was quite the ungrateful guest, thrusting and thrashing hysterically. Then again, I did have my foot pressed against his windpipe, slowly crushing his airway, suffocating him in the same manner in which he’d murdered my father in prison.
The only sad thing about killing Nolan Duffy was that I could only do it once.
“By the time I got there, she’d slipped away,” Enzo muttered in disbelief and more than a little fury. “What the fuck did you expect me to do? Teleport her back to the building?”
Enzo was Vello’s enforcer. He was good with a gun, even better with a knife, and had a talent for making dissident camorristi and foes either bend the knee or disappear. Iknew taking this babysitter job wasn’t something he wanted or expected.
He thought it beneath him to babysit a hot piece of ass who happened to be married to a billionaire who worked with them. But he wasn’t going to make a big stink about it. Unlike his brothers, he wasn’t a complete shit.
“She didn’t use the elevators or the stairs,” Enzo lamented. “Filippo had our soldiers manning every corner of the hospital. I thought she was a dumb civilian?”
“Civilian, yes. Dumb, no. She took the morgue elevator, probably.” I massaged the bridge of my nose, pressing my foot harder against Duffy’s throat. My gorgeous, intelligent wife. Always one step ahead. “Find her for me. After you do, you become her personal detail until further notice. Our business is contingent on you keeping her safe.”
“Filippo—”
“Is just a soldier,” I finished for him. “I want the best.”
“You think my brothers will let you waste my time shadowing a secretary when I have an empire to help run?”
I could envision him sticking his fingers in his floppy, heartthrob hair.
“Dude, no offense, but you’re just one person.”
“One person is all it takes to destroy an empire.”
