Page 16 of Wicked Mafia Mistake
I take several more steps, but Chicago's main drag is busy and even at this hour several cars cut my line of sight.
But that face. My eyes narrow. I know that face. Not from tonight. From before. The recognition hits fast and then slips away before I can pin it down. I've seen her before. I'm sure of it. But where? Those blue eyes. That jaw. The way her hair falls across her cheek like she's been doing it her whole life to hide behind. I've seen that before. Across a room somewhere. A table. A conversation I wasn't paying enough attention to because I was buried in someone else's contract.
The connection is right there, hovering at the edge of my thoughts like a name on the tip of my tongue, and it won't land.
The dome light clicks off. The taxi pulls from the curb and taillights shrink down Michigan Avenue. I'm standing on a Chicago sidewalk in the predawn dark, shirtless, shoeless, scraped palm bleeding, holding a cherry-red vintage heel and watching her disappear.
My lungs burn. My feet throb against cold concrete. The sweat from the sprint cools on my chest and turns to a chill that makes my jaw shake. And that face keeps flickering behind my eyes. I know her. I've seen her before. But the taxi is gone and I was so distracted by that face that I forgot to get the damn number.
"Fuck." I grip the back of my neck and squeeze until the tendons protest.
The red heel dangles from my other hand, cherry leather dark against the gray light.
Shuffling of feet draws my attention to the entrance of the building. The front desk kid hovers just outside the doors. His wide eyes tell me I'm every bit the feral beast I feel like right now. I drop my attention to his name tag. THEO.
He's staring at my ink, the shoe in my hand and my bleeding palm with an expression that says he's reconsidering his career choices.
Or maybe it's the pissed-off scowl on my face that is putting the fear of hell into him.
"Mister...uh...Mr. Santoro. I, uh, sorry I missed your call. It was you, right?"
"Go back inside," I bark, not looking back. My eyes are still fixed on the empty stretch of road where the taillights were. The spot where she vanished. Theo's footsteps retreat across the lobby floor behind me.
I stand on the sidewalk until the cold turns my skin to concrete. Until the adrenaline bleeds out and leaves behind a shaking in my hands that has nothing to do with the temperature. Until the only thing left is the shoe in my grip and the ache behind my ribs that gets worse with every breath.
I go back inside. The marble floor feels warm after the sidewalk and the blood from my scraped palm leaves a faint smear on the elevator wall when I lean against it. My phone is in my hand. I call the security level.
One ring. "Security, Redthorne Holdings."
"It's Santoro. I'm on my way up." My voice is flat. Controlled. I sound like myself again. The rest of me will catch up eventually. "Pull the last fifteen minutes of footage from every elevator camera and every ground-floor entrance. Have it queued when I get there."
There's a two-second pause before I get an answer.
"Yes sir. What are we looking for?"
"A woman. Blonde. Baby blue dress. She left through the main entrance and got into a taxi on Michigan. I need that taxi's ID number."
A pause. "Filing an incident report?"
"No. This is personal."
The words hang in the elevator. Personal. When was the last time anything in my life was personal? Everything I do is for the Syndicate, for Harrison, for the brothers. Every call I make, every problem I solve, every three AM contract review is for someone else's marriage, someone else's trust, someone else's future. And now I'm pulling security footage at four in the morning because a woman I can't name made me feel alive and I can't file away.
The elevator rises. I press the red heel against my chest and the leather is cool now, all traces of her warmth gone. My reflection stares at me from the polished doors. Barefoot. Shirtless. Viper tattoo stark against skin prickled with goosebumps. A scrape bleeding across my right palm. A woman's vintage shoe pressed over my heart.
I look like I've lost my goddamn mind.
I huff out a dry laugh. Maybe I have. A bit stalkerish, tracking a woman through security footage and taxi records. Any client who described this behavior to me would get a firm lecture about boundaries and restraining order exposure. I would sit them down in my office and use my measured, reasonable voice and explain that pursuing a woman who left of her own free will is not the behavior of a well-adjusted adult.
And then I'd go home to my empty penthouse and pour a whiskey and sit in the silence and wish I'd had the guts to do exactly what I'm doing right now.
Fuck that. Fuck boundaries. Fuck the measured, controlled existence that got me nothing but an empty penthouse and whiskey for company.
She chose me tonight. Walked through my door with nothing but her honesty and her trembling hands and gave me the one night I didn't know I was dying for.
I'm finding her.
The elevator opens on the security level. I step out barefoot and half-dressed, carrying a red heel and looking every inch the unhinged man I apparently am.
