Sempre: Redemption (Forever Series #2)(41)

She said she could do it, that she was sure, but doubt crept in further the longer she stood there. The noise, the lights, the smells . . . her senses were on overload as she tried to take it all in.

Corrado stepped out of the building in front of her, a folder of papers tucked under his arm. He forced his way through the crowd and stopped in front of her, his presence drawing her attention. “You’re enrolled for the fall.”

Her eyes widened. “I am?”

“Yes,” he said. “That gives you about four months to settle in.”

Four months . . . it seemed so long, but it was no time at all. She had already survived that long since Carmine had left her.

The thought of him made her chest ache. She glanced back at the banner with a frown, wishing she could hear his voice. She wondered what he would think, what he would say if he were there with her.

Don’t you f**king be scared, tesoro, was the likely culprit.

She got lost in that moment, sinking deep into her thoughts, but Corrado’s next words pulled her right back to the surface. “I enrolled you under the name Hayden Antoinette.”

Haven blinked rapidly. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s close enough to your real name for you to recognize it, but further enough from it that hopefully nobody else will.”

She started to argue, but Corrado silenced her with a pointed look. The ache in her chest grew. He had taken away her identity.

* * *

Time moved swiftly, days passing in an unyielding blur. Corrado rented a place for her on Eighth Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, a one-bedroom apartment on the first floor of a newly renovated brownstone. The other residence in the building, an identical apartment on the second floor, stood vacant.

“This is for you,” Corrado said one afternoon about a week after arriving in New York, handing her a small package. Haven opened it, dumping it out onto her new kitchen table. He had furnished the place with the necessities, nothing fancy, but better than she imagined she would have. The couch, the tables, the lamps, the chair—every bit of it belonged to her, even though Corrado told her not to get attached.

“Don’t keep anything you wouldn’t be willing to walk away from,“ he had said. “When people are looking for you, you might have to run.”

Run. If Haven was tired of anything, it was running.

She focused her attention on the contents of the package: a credit card, some identification, and a small black cell phone.

“My number’s the only one programed into the phone,” Corrado said as she picked it up and eyed it warily. “Call me directly if you need anything. I’ll handle your bills, but you can use the card for any other expenses. It’ll come straight out of your inheritance.”

“My inheritance,” she whispered, picking up the credit card and the driver’s license, both adorned with her fake name.

“Yes, I finally settled the estate,” he explained. “There was an unfortunate accident with the house, though.”

She peered up at him suspiciously. “Accident?”

“It burned to the ground. Quite sad.”

“I bet,” she mumbled, shaking her head.

A small smile tugged his lips. “You don’t need it, though. You have a nice place here. I’m sure you’ll settle in fine.”

The apartment was equally spaced between the two buildings that would hold her classes, a few minutes walk in either direction for her to get where she needed to go. Everything surrounded her, so she didn’t need to venture far from her apartment, and there was no reason for her to drive anywhere.

She did venture outside, though, after Corrado departed for Chicago again. She spent the afternoons wandering the area, memorizing streets, getting to know the neighborhood. It was monotonous and predictable, the same routine again and again, but to her every day sort of felt like a new adventure. There were different people, different street vendors, and different activities going on all around. And she infiltrated the chaos, mingling amongst it all, completely unnoticed and out of the limelight.

It admittedly wasn’t what she had expected. Even standing in the center, she still felt as if she were on the outside of it all, looking in. It was a familiar sensation that oddly put her at ease, numbing her anxiety as she faded once more into anonymity.

At least, when invisible, she remained safe.

15

The docks, Third and Wilson

Carmine stared at the message, heaviness in the pit of his stomach. He wanted nothing more than to delete it, pretend it never arrived, but he knew Sal would never accept that excuse.

And neither would Corrado, for that matter.

“There’s a big shipment coming in by boat in a few days,” Sal had said about a week ago. “They’ll load it onto trucks then leave. The trucks will stay parked there, just sitting there all night, begging to be stolen. A crew comes in and takes their pick. Easiest job there is.”

Carmine had blown it off at the time, figuring it had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t been integrated into their hierarchy, hadn’t been put into a street crew or assigned a Capo. Since the moment he had arrived, Sal had just used him for odd jobs, taking him wherever he went and involving him in his personal schemes, but this was different. This simple message—The docks, Third and Wilson—changed everything.

This wasn’t just Carmine being dragged into other people’s messes—this was him creating the mess. He was no longer the accessory after the fact. He was about to be the goddamn perpetrator.