I whisper, tipping my head into the glass and pressing a palm to the window. “Please come back to me.”
When I finally push away from the window, I look at the clock and find nearly an hour has passed. I don’t want to leave without him, but I’m so confused.
I move to the door, pull it open, not sure what I mean to do—leave, or try to find Rob.
The last thing I expect is to be shoved back into the room. I stagger a step, my arms flailing as I try to stay on my feet.
A firm hand grasps my shoulder to keep me from toppling, and for a second, I’m sure it’s Rob. But the voice is off when he says, “Hello, my sweet. Did you miss me?”
When I look up, it’s the middle-aged man from the counter downstairs. A younger man steps in behind him and closes the door. My confusion turns to terror when he pulls out a gun and aims it at my forehead.
“We didn’t really have a chance to get acquainted downstairs,” he purrs. “Let’s talk.”
Chapter 25
Rob
When I step off the elevator into the lobby, there is a pair of guys that I don’t like the looks of with their heads together near the front doors. As I slip back into the elevator, I think again that choosing the hotel my family owns wasn’t the best strategy. There are eyes everywhere.
But this is where is started when they killed my mother, so it feels right that this is where it should end.
I take the elevator down one level to the parking garage, then skirt back around to street level at the back of the hotel, where I wave down a taxi. But my head still isn’t in the game when the cab rolls up to my apartment building in Lincoln Park. All I can think about is Adri, back at the hotel. I scan the grounds warily, knowing there’s every likelihood the Savocas have had guys here since the botched hit. I’m certain they’re watching the house, which is why I couldn’t go there for my Maserati. If I’m alive at the end of this, the Ducati will provide a cleaner getaway anyway.
There’s low cloud cover tonight. The streetlight in front of the building is out, so once the cab pulls away, I’m plunged into darkness. I case my windows on the eighth floor and find them dark. That doesn’t mean it’s safe. I haven’t lived in this apartment full-time since everything went down with Pop’s arrest two years ago, but I kept it. I guess I hoped when the smoke cleared, I’d be able to have my privacy again. I never did business here to keep it off the radar, but I never did anything to hide it either. It wouldn’t have been too hard for Savoca to track it down.
As I reach the glass doors, the doorman is holding one open for a couple, arm-in-arm on their way out. The man is laughing at something his woman said. I ignore the burn in my chest when Adri’s face flashes into my head, but the prickle under my skin confirms everything I’m trying to deny. I love her. If anything happens to her, they might as well kill me too.
“Mr. Delgado,” the doorman says once the couple has passed. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Thank you, William.” I draw a breath, move past him into the lobby, my hand wrapped around the butt of the Glock under my jacket. I step into the elevator. When it stops on the eighth floor, I wait before stepping out. When there’s no barrage of gunfire, I move quickly up the hall to my apartment. I give one last look around, turn the key, slip through the door.
I take a quick inventory of the room. Everything is just where I left it. It doesn’t look like the FBI or anyone else has tossed it. The shades are drawn over the two large windows that look toward the lake. To the left, the kitchen is stainless steel and black granite. The counters are bare except for a roll of paper towels next to the sink and a knife block by the stove in the island. On the wall over the stone fireplace is an enormous flat-screen TV. A brown leather sofa sits in the middle of the room, facing it.
I stride to the office, open the safe, pull out a stack of cash and the Italian passport that will