Page 34 of Capo Dei Capi's Daughter

She is unharmed.

SAL

Bless you. All good?

DANTE

Going off grid for a few days

No phone. No GPS.

That has to be how they found us

SAL

Keep her safe.

Venecia whispers, “Tell him I want all of them to be safe.”

DANTE

Keep yourselves safe for her.

He presses the power button and pulls the battery from the back of the flip phone. As he’s shoving them into his back pocket, the waitress brings our breakfast to the table. The pancakes she places in front of me on the table have five little plastic tubs of syrup wedged up against them.

“Is that going to be enough syrup dear?” she questions.

This poor woman watches me, with no idea why my face is suddenly turning bright red again, “Yes. This will be more than enough.”

“I’m never going to be able to eat pancakes without blushing ever again,” I mumble as she walks away from the table.

“Good,” Dante’s fingers wrap underneath my chin and he pulls me in for a soft, gentle kiss.

His lips just parted from mine, he whispers, “I like seeing what thinking of my tongue on your body does to you.”

Chapter Twenty-One

DANTE

After finishing up breakfast, we get back in the car and on the highway, talking openly about what is likely going to happen next back home. The only reassurance I really have that her family will be okay is that they are a bunch of tough motherfuckers.

Knowing that we need to go somewhere we can blend in and hide away, I drive us into the city of Binghamton. We drive aimlessly around the city until I find what it is that I am looking for.

The area of the city we are in is the opposite of the glamorous surroundings Venecia grew up in. Homes here are small, run down, and vastly outnumbered by less than luxurious apartment buildings. There are more boarded up businesses than there are ones with open doors.

Flipping on the blinker, I pull into a rundown two-story motel. While some of the people staying here might be travelers on a very tight budget, this is the type of place that many people down on their luck call home.

The similarities this place has to my home as a child are uncanny.

“Here,” Venecia looks out the window, “We have plenty of cash to stay somewhere just a little bit nicer.”

“We do,” I pull into a parking spot, “but those kinds of places require credit cards and IDs. Wait here. Lock the doors. I’m going to go get us a room for the week.”

Walking into the office, I find a portly man watching television behind the counter. He barely looks up to acknowledge me, “Sixty per night or two fifty for the week. Long term also require a fifty dollar deposit.”

“I’ll take the week,” I pull three hundred dollars from my pocket and place it on the counter, “I’ll let you know in a few days if I need longer.”

The disheveled man stands and grabs a key from the board behind him before swiping my money off the counter. Dropping the key on the counter in front of me, “No drugs. No whores. I don’t tolerate any trouble around here. The dumpster is around back and housekeeping is on Monday.

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