“You could say that,” I reply, as I grab the ball and start squeezing with renewed enthusiasm.

“Are you going to tell me, or are you going to make me guess?” He’s clearly intrigued, and I can’t blame him. I have been moping around this house since I arrived, and today, I am acting like it is Christmas morning.

He clicks his gun back together and loads it. Standing, he walks it to the back of the kitchen, leaving it on the bench near the back hallway, behind a vase, out of sight. He has another one at the front of the house, close to the front door, and I am sure many others are hidden where he can access them a moment's notice, if needed.

“Well, I am sure you know that Dante was here,” I singsong, and he stops suddenly, looking at me in slight panic.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t realize until he was gone, so he doesn’t know that I know, but if he was here, then that means he still cares for me, right?” I ask, hopeful that he gives me the response I need to hear.

He simply nods. “He does. But he has a lot on his mind, Annie. Give him time,” Nico says honestly, and I calm my excitement just a little. Of course he has a lot on his mind. His ex-wife tried to kill his son, and he is still trying to find the man behind it all. Thinking about me must be his furthest concern.

“I know,” I say quietly, taking another sip of my coffee as the flame inside me dims again.

Nico goes to say something, but before he can, a loud bang interrupts us, followed in quick succession by another, then another.

Startled, my cup falls to the floor, the porcelain breaking into pieces at my feet, the hot coffee making me hiss.

“Fuck. Get down!” Nico yells, and I drop to the floor, scratching my hands and knees on the broken pieces, before Nico launches himself at me.

“Quick, come with me.” He pulls me hard by the arm. It nearly comes out of the socket as we run down the back hallway.

His cell phone is in his other hand. “Fucking get here! Now!” he yells to whomever is on the line, and I begin to panic.

“What’s happening?!”

“Somebody is shooting at the front windows. We have bulletproof glass, but it will only hold them for so long,” he says, his demeanor now changed from the friendly laughable Italian to the fearful mob soldier that he is hired to be.

He yells into his cell phone again, just as gunfire starts, and I can hear the glass cracking. I scream, dropping to the hallway floor, covering my head with my hands.