I frown. “I mean, I don’t, but why?”
He shrugs. “Just lookin’ out for you. I can put some of my guys or some of Vito’s men on your detail—”
“Hard pass,” I shake my head. “I don’t need bodyguards, and I definitely don’t need any big goons following me around. Not that Madame Kuzmina would even let them into the building during a rehearsal.”
Dante’s mouth turns up a little at the corners, but his demeanor stays scowly.
“What’s going on, Dante?”
His mouth twists. “I just want you to be safe.”
“Bullshit. You’re keeping something from me.” I frown. “You know if you hold out on me, I’ll just get Tempest to flip.”
My older brother exhales heavily. “Fine. There’s just been some reports of…” He lifts a shoulder, his eyes firmly on the road. “There might be a new player in town.”
I swallow uneasily. “Oh?”
Dante frowns. “Yeah. Someone took out two former enforcers for the Carveli family last night.”
My pulse skips. I usually stay out of most things “family”—by which I mean “criminal”. But it’s been impossible to ignore the political drama affecting the Italian mafia world over the last few months, after the Carveli family was basically wiped off the board.
“Took out?”
“Killed, Bianca. Viciously, too. Possibly a drug deal gone bad. But no one in our world typically slashes throats.”
My heart tightens for a second, my blood running cold as it all comes rushing back. The violence. The savagery. The raw power lurking behind the creepy neon smile and crossed-out eyes of that inky mask.
“You know what, it’s probably just some old beef with the Carveli family. I’m done trying to freak my baby sister out.”
I smile weakly. Dante grins at me.
“As if you’re not immune to being freaked out by anything anymore, after all that creepy horror shit you read.”
“True crime.”
Dante rolls his eyes as he pulls up outside of my building. “Whatever. Just be safe out there, okay?”
Once again, my mind flashes back to the events of last night. The blood and the violence. The raw power in his huge arms and shoulders. The sinister blackness behind his mask, like ink pooling in water.
…The sinful dreams that chased me all night afterward.
“Bianca—”
“Relax, Dante,” I grin as I open the Range Rover’s door. “I’ll keep my eyes peeled for murderous psychos.”
His jaw tightens. “Bianca—”
“I’ll be fine, Dante. Hi to Tempest for me. Bye.”
3
BIANCA
Tragically, no murderous psychos stop me between my apartment and practice.
The fact that I begin that thought with “tragically” is probably grounds for immediately checking myself into a psychiatric ward.
But I can’t help it. Mostly because as terrified as I was last night when I looked up into that bleak neon mask of malice, it was a different kind of fear. True fear is awful. I’ve felt that before. It’s what I felt when those two men slammed me to the ground with every indication that they were going to hurt me. It was a numb, eviscerating fear that felt like being stabbed.
But the “fear” I felt looking up into that neon mask was more like terror mixed with…excitement. It was the sort of anticipatory fear you get right before the rollercoaster gives in to gravity and gets yanked down that first drop. The fear that you get watching a great horror movie, waiting for the jump-scare.
That’s the sort of fear my masked defender injected into my veins last night. Terror, yes. But a thrilling, exciting, electrifying sort of terror. A…can I say it…good kind of terror?
“Quick quick, Bianca!”
I jolt out of my thoughts when I hear the cold, staccato sharpness of the Russian-accented voice.
My creepy masked stranger might be a thrilling sort of fear. But the wrath of Madame Kuzmina when you’re this close to being late for class or rehearsal is the true definition of scary.
“Izvini, Madame,” I blurt.
Her mouth turns up just a hint at the corners. I’ve also known her long enough to spot the amusement in her eyes.
“Using one of the, what, five words you know in Russian will not make you any less late to being in position at that barre in three minutes, Miss Sartorre.”
I flash a weak smile.
“But nice effort,” she smirks. “Now get moving. Alicia was an hour early today.”
