“My family!” I shout as said reality comes plummeting to the front of my brain. “I need to call them.” I look down at his phone and see there’s no service. A heavy weight sits in my belly. “What if my mother and sister arrived when they …” My voice trails off, as I can’t finish the thought. My stomach drops, leaving a hollow pit.
Jesse walks toward me. His hands are on my arms, rubbing affectionately, as his gaze lowers to meet mine. “They’re okay. Knowing them, they’re still home. Your sister always arrives an hour late to any of your family dinners.”
I relax slightly at his correct assessment. “My father?”
He shakes his head with a shrug. “I have no idea, but I do know that Raphael Sorrentino is a smart man. As are your uncles. They’re armed, and they have security.”
“Who were those men? Why would they want to kill anyone?”
“They came for your uncle Frankie.” He takes a pause before adding, “And your father.”
“What makes you think that?”
The way his eyes look up toward the cavernous ceiling as he takes a deep breath lets me know he’s privy to information I’m not.
“Amelia,” he starts and then stops, as if he heard something.
We still and wait in silence. I don’t hear anything, but I stand stiff and listen.
He places his hand in mine. “We need to keep going.”
The tunnel is long and dark, but after the small space we just crawled through, I’m not as nervous. Plus, there’s something about Jesse—his voice, his touch, his commanding presence—that puts me at ease.
The tunnel splits, and we take the path on the right.
“How did you know this was here?” I ask when we’re a good distance away from the grate and the noises that seemed to plague Jesse.
“Would you believe me if I said I was interested in underground topography?”
I shake my head. “No.”
His hand tightens on mine. It’s callused in a way that surprises me. For a bartender, I expected his hands to be smooth, and yet the rough edges make me feel protected.
“These tunnels were built in the ’20s, back when bootleggers had parties and needed to escape the police raids. The mob expanded on them in the ’60s when they built their mansions on top as a way to avoid arrests. These tunnels are secret passages to homes, which is how I knew there was one at Villa Russo. They also use them to smuggle drugs and weapons.”
“Used to,” I correct him.
He gives me a side-eye. “Right.”
“And how might one find these mysterious tunnels? Is there a map I don’t know about?”
“If you know the right people,” he states matter-of-factly and then stops. He looks up and starts counting beams on the ceiling. I open my mouth to speak, but he holds his palm up. “Wait. I lost count.”
“You’ve been counting this entire time?”
“Three hundred and four,” he says to himself and then appears to continue to count in his head. “Okay, this way.”
We walk to another grate in the wall, and I hold my hands up in refusal. “I’m not going into another dark tunnel.”
“This one should be different. You’ve trusted me this far, right?” His eyes shine bright as he pleads with me not to give up on him.
“Seeing as I have nowhere else to go …”
“That’s the spirit.” He removes the grate on the wall with ease, which seems to surprise him. “At least one thing is going our way tonight.”
I know the drill, so I go first and wait for him to get behind me. We only have to crawl for a short time before we’re below a metal door in the ceiling. He unhooks the long handle, unlatching the lock.
“Now, we pray,” he says.
“After everything that has transpired tonight, now, you want to pray?” I nearly choke on my words. “For what?”
“That the latch on the other side is open.”
“Jesse, why would the latch on the other side be closed?” I think back to what he said before about these tunnels. “Are we about to magically appear inside someone’s home?”
“Yep.” With a push and a shove, he opens the door. “Hope they like unexpected company. Let’s go.”
I want to fight him. Normally, I would. But under the circumstances, I have no options.
“Ladies first.”
Chapter Three
“Listen, I have followed you through this little Shawshank escape, but breaking and entering is where I draw the line,” I say.
“You do realize, we’re running from gun-slinging criminals who want to kill your family?”
The convoluted essence of that sentence has my head reeling. “My family?”
“For a smart girl, you’re slow to pick up on this.”
He doesn’t wait for me to say anything as he lifts himself up through the hole. He’s lucky he’s no longer in front of me because his insult did not go unnoticed.
“It’s clear,” he calls from above.
His hand appears, and I hesitate for a moment before grabbing it and allowing him to help me up. He easily lifts me and sits me on the ground with my feet dangling in the tunnel. I stand, dust off my hands, and adjust my dress.
“We can wait it out upstairs.” He closes the metal tunnel door and secures the latch.
I look around the room. We’re in an old basement. An oil tank has cobwebs on it, and the water heater doesn’t sound like it’s running.
He moves to a staircase and doesn’t seem to care how loud his footsteps are. I, on the other hand, walk on tiptoe.
The main floor of the home is dark, and there’s no furniture inside. He walks to a bookcase built into the side of the fireplace and puts his gun on the shelf before grabbing two candlesticks. He places them on the mantel and lights the candles with a matchbook.
With the room lit by the two wicks, he takes the phone from my hand. “While I like traveling by iPhone light,
