He barely knocked when he entered. Maybe the whickCLAP of the lock should have been as good as a knock. Or the mumbles of him and the guy outside, with his voice an interlocking puzzle piece to something in my brain. Something with needs. Something desperate. But every time he came to the apartment, I was surprised and relieved and hungry, like a woman who was so starved she hadn’t even entertained the thought of food until someone slipped a bowl of stew through a flap in the door.


I paused when he closed the door behind him. I never knew which Antonio I was getting when he walked in. It didn’t matter if he was in jeans and a polo shirt or, as was the case that day, a jacket and sky-blue turtleneck. He could be any one of ten incarnations.


“Contessa.” He tossed his keys on the end table.


I said nothing. Not yet. I was afraid speaking would break the spell, and like that, he’d disappear in a flare.


He shrugged out of his jacket, revealing the brown-leather shoulder holster that creased his sweater. He wore it in my presence. He trusted me. He wasn’t afraid, and as he walked toward me, the straps cutting his frame didn’t scare me either. The gun made me bold. The scruff on his face and the circles under his eyes made me compassionate, and the line shadows bleeding from his feet to the side of the room in the late sun made me angry.