Chapter 15: Massimo's POV

Massimo's POV

I had said it out loud in front of the Don, and I could not take it back.

I sat on the edge of the narrow bed in the top room.

I listened to the old man's cane go down the stairs.

By Saturday every family head in the state would hear Carmine call her an impostor, and I had no plan yet that kept her out of that room.

I had one night before I had to find one.

Then the door opened without a knock.

Fiora stood in it with her hair loose and her feet bare, in one of the plain shirts from the safe house closet.

"You told him you were in love with me," she said.

"I did."

"You never told me."

"You never asked."

"I'm asking."

I stood.

I had pictured this moment in a hundred versions for twenty years.

None of them had her looking at me like this, steady and a little furious.

"I am in love with you," I said. "I have been since you came down the steps of the club in green and didn't look back."

"That was a week ago."

"It was a long week."

She laughed, short and unsteady, and crossed the floor.

She put her palm flat on my chest, over the bruised ribs Carmine's men had left me, and I felt it all the way down.

"No rules tonight," she said.

"No."

"No terms."

"Fiora."

"Say it again."

"Fiora."

She pulled my face down.

This time I did not wait for her to ask twice.

I kissed her hard, with my hand in her hair, and walked her back until the edge of the bed caught the backs of her knees.

She sat, and looked up at me, and began to undo my belt herself.

"Slow," I said. "Let me."

"No. I've waited three weeks."

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