The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 13

The Don Called Me Nobody Chapter 13: What He Wanted, Part Two

Gianna Vitale walked out of her brother’s house fourteen days after the bridge, on her own feet, flipping off the

security cameras.

She posted a selfie with me at the gate and captioned it my rescuer is hotter than yours and it got four hundred thousand views before Dominic’s people took it down, which is how the old families found out the Peacemaker’s daughter was alive, which is how, six weeks later, I stood on a rooftop in Atlantic City being asked the same question

for the ninth time that night.

“Miss Costa. The whole table thought you were dead. Where have you been?”

“Cleaning floors,” I said.

They laughed. They thought it was a joke.

Dominic, three feet away, did not laugh, because he knew it wasn’t.

Later, on the terrace, when everyone else had gone in:

“I want to build something,” he said.

“That’s a terrifying sentence from a man with your money.”

“A peace desk. Every family on the coast. Nobody goes to war without sitting down in front of you first. Every kid taken, every truce, every exchange through you. Nobody dies who doesn’t have to.” He turned his glass. “I want you

to run it.”

“Dominic-”

“Name your price.”

“You keep saying that.”

“You keep not answering.”

I looked out at the boardwalk. Ten thousand lights, all of them somebody.

“Why?” I said. “And don’t say because I’m good. There are ten good negotiators on this coast and nine of them are

easier to be in a room with.”

He set down the glass.

“Because the first time I saw you, you were holding a coffee tray and you’d gone white reading a ransom note you

weren’t allowed to read,” he said. “I’ve spent my whole life around people who perform being dangerous. You were the first person I ever met who was and was trying to hide it. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I still can’t.”

“That’s a business reason.”

“It’s a completely dishonest business reason,” he agreed. “The real one is that I’ve been in love with you since about nine minutes into that hug on the bridge, and I’ve been managing it very badly ever since.”

I stared at him.

“You are,” I said, “so direct.”

“I’m told it’s a flaw.”

“It’s not a flaw.”

“Then say something, Serafina, because I’m standing on a roof with my whole chest open, and you of all people know what that costs.”

I laughed. Then I stepped forward and put my hand flat on that expensive shirt, right over his sternum, right where a rifle would have found him if I’d let him walk that bridge.

“One dollar,” I said.

“What?”

“That’s my price. One dollar a year. The rest goes into the fund. And one rule. No bodies. Ever. Not on my desk.”

“Yes to which part?”

“Both parts,” I said. “And yes.”

He kissed me on a rooftop in November with the ocean loud under us, and somewhere four states away a nineteen–year–old with a fading split lip was probably posting about it.

Two months later I got an email from an address I didn’t recognize.

Working private security in Reno. Nobody fixes my rosters anymore. Turns out I’m about a 6 out of 10, which is survivable information at 35.

I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m telling you because you’re the only person who’d understand what it cost me to type it.

The girl looked good in the photo.

I read it three times.

Then I wrote back four words: A 6 can improve.