Heartbeats Amidst Chaos, Part 2

9. Chapter 9

Chapter nine

E lio ducked into a small convenience grocery store and down the first aisle he came to, careful to keep his back to the wall so that no one would notice that his hands were tied. He forced himself to slow down and return his breathing to normal. Thankfully, there weren’t many people in the store, and the customers were in their own little worlds, puzzling over lists and brand names. No one even looked up as he headed for the most secluded part of the store.

He had circled and headed straight into the center of town, knowing he could lose himself among the crowds. With the police engaged in a gunfight with whomever had shown up after them, he didn’t think anyone had even been able to follow him.

What just happened?

His first thought upon seeing an entire line of cops materialize behind Rissa had been that she had betrayed him, given in to her cautious side and decided to flip back to the side of the law. But now that he was out of the chaos with time to think, he wasn’t at all sure that was right.

He saw her again in his mind’s eye, looking unbelievably beautiful in the short, blue dress, her legs long and smooth, her hair thick and shiny to her shoulders. And the smile she had given him—it had been full of invitation.

She hadn’t looked like someone showing up to be a Judas. She had looked like someone ready to take things to the next level.

Glancing at the signs announcing each aisle’s stock, Elio cautiously headed toward the section marked as office supplies.

There. A large pair of scissors hung on a clearance display rack. Turning around so that it was behind him, in reach of his hands, Elio managed to slip the plastic package off the rack and pry the scissors free. Wedging them around the zip ties securing his wrists, he pressed back against a nearby shelf, forcing the scissors closed a millimeter at a time. Finally, he felt one of the zip ties snap loose, followed a second later by the second. Dropping the scissors onto the shelf and brushing the severed plastic under it, he headed back toward the exit.

He hoped Rissa was all right. The last time he saw her had been when he paused at the corner of a building to glance back—against his better judgment, he simply couldn’t help it. She was taking off in the opposite direction from him. She appeared to be uninjured. The fact that she was running made him second guess whether she brought the police. He hadn’t seen her face when they’d barreled in, but maybe she had been as surprised as him.

The cop watching her house could have followed her and then called for backup, he thought.

Elio glanced both ways before exiting the store and turning down the street, keeping his pace measured and similar to those around him. Sirens wailed in the distance, but they seemed to be heading in the opposite direction.

I’ve got to find her, he thought. At the next street corner, he turned back toward the diner. If the gun battle was over, it would be crawling with cops, but he’d parked two blocks away. His car would still be there.

It was a risk to go cruising the back streets after such a close call, but he couldn’t leave Rissa to wander the web of alleys alone—and possibly be captured or hurt.

Who was it that had shown up and opened fire? Elio wondered, his mind rushing back to the shock of what had happened. Was it the mysterious new gang his grandfather was so worked up about?

Elio felt his anxiety rising as he considered it. Whoever they were, they were reckless and unpredictable. There was nothing to be gained by exchanging gunfire with the police. And how had they even come to be there in the first place? Were they also following Rissa—or him?

He made it to his car and slipped into the driver’s seat, glad for the heavily tinted windows. Checking his mental map of this part of the city, Elio tried to figure out where Rissa would have ended up based on the direction she had started. He had a feeling that she would have subconsciously continued to turn left, working her way back toward the part of the city she knew.

Within ten minutes of driving, he spotted a slender figure in a blue dress emerge from an alley and join the foot traffic on the sidewalk. His heart leaped as he caught sight of Rissa’s face, tense and drawn, her eyes flicking right and left and over her shoulder at frequent intervals.

He pulled to the side of the street, opened his door, and stood up.

“Rissa,” he said.

Her head whipped toward him, and she stopped. For a moment, she looked as if she was about to bolt in the other direction, which raised another twinge of doubt in Elio’s mind. But then she took two cautious steps toward him, stopping at the edge of the sidewalk.

“Where did you go?” she asked. Her lips trembled slightly, and she set them in a firm line as if to force her emotion away.

Elio lifted his hands. “To get the bracelets off.” He pointed a finger downward. “And to get my car. Need a ride?”

He watched as she had an internal wrestling match. Her dress looked slightly crumpled, but he could see no injuries. He wished she would get in the car. They were sitting ducks here in the open.

“Where are we going to go?” she asked, and he said, “A better place to have that talk. If that’s okay with you?”

After another brief hesitation, she nodded.

“All right.”

She opened the passenger side door and slipped into the seat as Elio ducked back into the driver’s seat. Closing his door, he looked over at her. Her hands fluttered to the hem of her skirt, tugging it down.

“What just happened?” she asked, looking back at him, her voice hollow and her eyes still wide. “Who was shooting from the building? Was it part of your family—the Accardi gang?”

“My entire family is not a gang,” Elio clarified, frowning. “And no, ambushing the police is not my grandfather’s style.”

“Then who was it?”

“I don’t know,” he said.

“And why were the police there?”

“I don’t know,” he said again, watching her face carefully. “Do you?”

“No!” Rissa’s face crinkled with confusion. Then realization dawned. “You think I called them.”

Elio shrugged. “I thought maybe you decided I was the bad guy after all.”

For just a moment, her eyes dodged away from his face, and his heart staggered. What did that mean?

“If you didn’t call them,” he said carefully, “They probably followed you. And then they saw you meet up with me. Which means…”

“I’m in trouble. Again.”

Elio started the car and merged into traffic, heading out of town.

Taking a deep breath, Rissa pulled out her cell phone. “I’m going to cancel my dinner with Reagan,” she said quietly.

“Then what?” Elio asked.

“What do you mean?”

“If you go back to your apartment, the police will be waiting for you.”

She shook her head, her brows low over her eyes. “I don’t know. I’ll have to think about it.”

Several minutes later, Elio pulled in behind a tall, gray building and went around to open Rissa’s door for her. She stepped out, once again tugging on her skirt. She wasn’t used to wearing revealing clothes, he realized.

His heart started to speed up. What if she had dressed up just for him? If he could ignore the fact that they’d just been surrounded by police, attacked and rescued by an unknown assailant, and were now pulling up at an unoccupied office building instead of a fancy restaurant, he could almost imagine this was one of the dates he started to let himself dream about having with Rissa. Once this was all over. If it ever was.

He unlocked the glass door of the building and let Rissa in ahead of him.

“What is it with you and abandoned buildings?” Rissa asked, glancing at the closed doors encircling the tiled lobby. “Do all crime families just keep a string of them vacant for a potential tryst?”

She turned to face him, her eyes daring him to once again react to her statement about his family. She was trying to get a rise from him.

Elio shook his head. “You seem determined not to believe it,” he said, “but I truly have nothing to do with any of the Accardi crime operations. I run a private contracting business, and these are buildings that we’re in the process of constructing or renovating.”

“Oh, a front business.”

Elio shrugged uncomfortably. She wasn’t entirely wrong. His grandfather was one of the contracting company’s biggest investors, and up until recently, the question of where all that money came from had been one of Elio’s concerns.

He pointed toward a door on the right, and Rissa opened it, stepping into the partially furnished office with its wide desk, single chair, and mahogany-colored leather couch.

Rissa plopped down on the couch and looked up at him with a challenging expression that intrigued him. Her knees and thighs were pressed together, but her ankles were akimbo, and with her hair tumbling around her face and over her shoulder, she looked both bold and innocent, a paradox.

“So,” she said lightly as if to brush aside everything that had just happened. “What did you want to meet about?”