Even with him standing there, arms outstretched before them, Luciana couldn't bring herself to believe that Nick was really there. Weeks of worry, of waking up in cold sweats and not knowing whether he would ever return to her, mutated what should have been ecstatic joy into an unbridled anger tamed only by the sheer shock of finding him here, alive and seemingly well.

Nick was clearly waiting for her to come running towards him, the scared little girl he'd always known, but she stood rooted to the spot, gripping Richard's hand as if she might otherwise go flying from the surface of the earth. There was something strange and off-putting about the sight of him, and it had little to do with her burgeoning intimacy with the masked man at her side.

"Lulu," Nick began, taking a step towards her, "aren't you gonna say hello?"

His handsome face was clean-shaven and free of scratches or bruises, and he had the healthy, relaxed glow of a man with few worries to haunt him. As she took note of this, a fire ignited within her, and she broke free of Richard's protective grasp to lunge toward him.

"Baby—" Nick began, but was stopped cold as she slapped him across the face.

"Where the hell have you been? I've been worried sick for weeks—weeks, Niccolo! Mio dio, I thought you were dead!"

"It's okay, baby! I'm home now! I'm safe!"

She cried out in anger, turning her back on him and moving to the grimy window. "Richard," she said quietly, rubbing her temple, "Nick and I need a moment alone."

She could hear the familiar click of his throat, a sign that he hadn't budged. She knew the men were sizing each other up, but this was neither the time nor the place for machismo. "Please, Richard."

He grunted, "I'll. Be in the hall."

She waited for the door to close before addressing Nick again, cool and calmly but without looking away from the window. "You need to tell me exactly what's been going on."

He came up behind her, wrapping his arms seductively around her, but she shrugged him off. "What?" he asked incredulously. "I've missed you so much."

"I'm waiting for an explanation."

"All right, all right." He moved to the couch and plopped down jovially, propping his feet on the rickety coffee table. "Will you at least sit down first?"

"I'd rather not."

He patted the cushion next to him with a flirtatious smile. Finally, she threw her arms up and relented, taking a seat beside him. He leaned back and threw an arm around the back of the couch, dangerously close to her shoulder, then pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He lit the paper tube slowly and took his time inhaling, savoring the nicotine.

"Well? This better be good."

"Look, Lulu." He exhaled a thin stream of smoke. "I did owe Capone money—a lot of it. He threatened to break my legs if I didn't pay up."

"So he told me."

"Right, well, what was I supposed to do? I was already working for him—for free, I might add—so he came to you. But I tried to stop him! I told him to leave you outta this."

"Whole lot of good that did me."

"I swear, baby! You know I'd never hurt you!" She shot him a skeptical look. "Well, not on purpose."

She refused to look at him, fuming at his reticence to paint himself in a bad light.

"He was hopping mad when he found out you was working for O'Banion."

"I wasn't working for O'Banion. I just picked a whorehouse across town—to bail you out, in case you've forgotten."

"I know, and I'm grateful, believe me. But you know who runs the North Side, Lulu!" He took another drag, blowing the smoke from his nostrils like an angry bull. "Hell, you should be thanking me: I talked him outta killing you for that!"

"Oh, thank you so much." Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

"Honest, Lu!" He scooted towards her, twisting a strand of hair around his finger and leaning in to kiss her neck. "Don't you believe me?"

"Get off of me." She pushed him away with contempt.

"What? You never could resist me before."

"Well," she said coldly, "people change."

"Nah, there's something different about you. Is it that creepy guy you came in with? Wait, are you—" His voice broke with stifled laughter. "Are you fucking that freak?"

"That is none of your concern."

"Like hell, it ain't my concern." He had become suddenly irate. "You're my girl, god dammit!"

"But not your wife. You made damn sure of that."

A look of understanding splashed across his face. "Wait a minute—I know who that guy is! Heard the boys talking about him at the Four Deuces. He's fucking crazy! Killed something like thirty guys at some whorehouse in Atlantic City!"

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yeah, yeah—Harrow! That's his name. Man, the boys were quakin' in their boots when we heard Capone was bringing him on. Holy shit, Lulu, that guy's a monster!"

"Nick, I'm serious—"

"I'd be scared, if I were you. There's only one thing Frankenstein out there is good for, and it ain't wining and dining you."

"That's it, I've heard enough." She tried to stand, but Nick pulled her down.

"Come on, baby. You can't stay mad at me forever. Don't you miss me?" He began caressing her over her dress, letting his hand work its way down to lift her skirt.

"Nick, stop—"

"Shh, it's all right. I know how you like it." Suddenly he was kissing her passionately, his tongue velvety and strong against hers as she felt his hand slip between her legs. In spite of her better judgment, she could feel herself succumbing to the pleasure of his touch.

"Nick—"

"If you just come with me to the Four Deuces," he breathed between kisses, "I'll make sure they take real good care of you. You can make a good living there, a girl pretty as you."

Her disgust at his words was enough to snap her back to reality, and she pushed and kicked him off of her as she sprang up from the couch. Trembling with anger and betrayal, she hurried to the door.

"You can't run from me forever, Lulu!"

"Watch me." She reached for the doorknob.

"I know things about you, Luciana. Things nobody else knows. Things you wouldn't want your little loverboy to know."

She stood at the door, frozen in fear. He didn't have to go into detail; she knew exactly to what he was referring, and she had spent half her life trying to scrub her memory of that day, of the sounds of struggle and the weight of the gun in her hand. She shook her head and turned the knob.

"Oh, and Lulu?" His tone made her pause. "Don't trust that freak out there. I'm telling you, you don't know what he's capable of."

She took a deep breath and opened the door.

Richard wanted to give Lucia her privacy, but something about the sight of her boyfriend had proven disconcerted. The man's presence had thrown Richard's understanding of the situation into chaos; he knew from experience that a threatened man never looked so carefree, and he had more than a lingering suspicion that Nick hadn't meant for Lucia to find him there.

A tugging on his coat ushered him from his well of paranoia. It was a little girl, no more than Tommy's age, with a heart-shaped face framed by dark ringlets. Her clothes were tattered, and she clutched a dirty rag doll in one arm.

"Can I. Help you?" he said, hoping not to frighten her.

"Why are you wearing a mask?" Her voice was high and clear, full of curiosity and without a trace of fear.

"To scare. The monsters away."

"I don't think you're scary."

Richard blushed. "Thank you."

"Are you a soldier?"

He nodded. "I was."

"My daddy was a soldier. He left his leg in France."

"I'm sure. He's very brave."

"Wanna meet my dolly?" She held her doll up to him for inspection. "Her name is Emma."

A pang of guilt pierced his heart. "That's. A nice name."

"Emma's a princess, but she got kidnapped from her castle so I'm keeping her safe until her prince can come get her."

"You're a good friend. To keep her safe." He glanced at Lucia's door, concerned for the girl within.

"Why you looking at that door?"

"My friend. Is in there."

"That's a bad place."

"Why. Do you say that?"

"I hear bad things happening in there. Sometimes I hear loud bangs and then I hear a lady crying."

"Do you. Know the lady?"

The little girl shook her head. "I only see men go in there. Lots of men yesterday. They were real noisy. It woke up my baby brother."

"Did it. Sound like a fight?"

She shook her head. "They were laughing and saying bad words. Mama told me not to listen to them, but I did anyway." She giggled, amused by her own brashness.

"You should listen. To your mother."

"I know." She pulled the doll to her chest, embarrassed.

Suddenly, Lucia's door flew open and she emerged, her face darkened with the weight of her troubles. "We're leaving," she said definitively, hurrying towards the stairwell.

Richard dutifully followed, but paused and looked back at the little girl. "It's okay," he said softly. "I'll keep the monsters away."

"Thank you," she whispered, waving a tiny, dimpled hand as he made his way down the stairs in Lucia's wake.

She needed time to clear her head. A thick layer of clouds had begun to creep across the sky, but the air was balmy. She set off from the tenement hall, Richard keeping just a few paces behind, without a care as to where she was headed. Walking would calm her, she hoped.

Nick's words rang in her head, the part of her that longed to believe him at war with the part of her that knew he was holding something back. It made her crazy to think that he still refused to accept responsibility for his role in all of this, for the fact that it was his debt she had gone to the North Side to try to repay and, worst of all, that prostituting herself had been his idea in the first place. She fought the urge to scream.

He had always gone out of his way to act tough—it was what had attracted her to him at such a young age. She thought wistfully of her youthful rebelliousness, of the carefree girl who failed to acknowledge that her actions might have consequences. She remembered it like it was yesterday: standing outside of the sweatshop, smoking cigarettes with the other girls, and being approached by the most handsome man she had ever seen. He was older than her, but had a boyish charm that drew her in. He took her to carnivals and vaudeville performances, and would give her sips of bourbon from a small glass bottle; she would run her fingers through his soft blond hair as his hands worked their way up her skirt. He had told her he loved her after barely a week, and she had never felt more alive. This, of course, was all before seven years of drunken fights and miscarriages and bruises that no amount of makeup could entirely cover up.

Her brother Dario had hated Nick from the start. Called him a bad seed and begged her to focus on working hard for their family. He had been saving extra money to send her to school, for the first time in her life, but that was before the accident. Though she still missed her brother terribly after all this time, it was a memory too painful to dwell on now, with so many troubles already weighing on her mind.

Instead, she continued to go over and over her conversation with Nick. He still treated her like his property, in spite of his continuous refusal to make an honest woman out of her. He had needled her into letting him deflower her, and she had relented without realizing that he would turn it around on her, using her lost virginity against her. Ever the good Catholic, he refused to marry a woman who had already been "soiled," as he put it (despite the fact that it was he who had soiled her—the only man, until recently, with whom she had ever been). The thought of his rejection used to fill her with self-loathing; now, it served as ammunition for the revenge she so desperately craved.

She glanced back at Richard, still a few paces behind her, and realized that they had been walking for hours and he had yet approach her. She appreciated his respect for her privacy, and his willingness to give her as much time as she needed, however she needed it. How was it possible that such a wonderful man had lost the woman he loved? Julia must have been crazy to let him go.

And yet…Luciana knew enough about female intuition to know that there must be more to it than what Richard had chosen to divulge. Perhaps there was some truth to Nick's accusations, the rumors that he was some sort of monster ducking town after a murderous rampage. Why else would Capone hire him, other than to do what he did best? She realized with horror that she may have been playing into his hands this whole time, falling for a façade of selflessness while he whittled her guard down in preparation for—for what? For killing her, or for turning her over to Capone? This new image of him stood at odds with the man she had gotten so close to over the last four days, and as much as she could believe the stories, she could just as easily find them to be absolutely ludicrous.

The sky continued to darken, and she knew that the only way to know the truth was to ask. Surely, Richard would tell her the truth. He of all people would never lie to her.

Richard couldn't be certain how long they had been walking, though it felt like several hours. He enjoyed walking, and didn't mind ambling around Chicago this way, reacquainting himself with the city he had so briefly called home. And he didn't mind giving Lucia her space, watching from two paces behind her as she traversed the city streets, lost in her own thoughts.

He wondered what Nick had told her, but not enough to ask just yet. The man had given the distinct impression that he was not to be trusted, though that was true of most gangsters (and a large part of why Richard detested socializing with them). Then again, it also appeared to be true of most people, in general, and Richard wondered guiltily what secrets, if any, Lucia might be keeping from him.

From what the little girl in the hallway had said, Richard was sure Nick had been back to the apartment in Lucia's absence, and with guests to boot. Which meant that he had known Lucia wouldn't find him there—the look of surprise on his face when they had walked through the door had attested to that—and must have been aware that she had been staying elsewhere. But she had told him, in one of a long line of intimate conversations over the past several days, that she had few friends and nowhere else to go. Where else could Nick have expected her to be, if not with him?

Nick had to have had a bigger role than he let on. There was no logical reason for Capone to be so concerned about this particular girl; no, Nick had to have been involved. Richard's mind raced with possibilities, but the most plausible involved Nick having a stake in Lucia's future as a prostitute. Though the idea of her selling her body did not bother him—he had spent enough time in whorehouses to know that the girls were far from the harlots they were thought by polite society to be—it sickened him that this lovely, innocent girl might be forced into such a life purely for another man's gain.

He had to get her out of Nick's reach. It occurred to him that taking such an action would only cause more trouble than it was worth, but what did that matter when her well being was on the line? His love for her was not as all-encompassing as it had been for Julia, but he loved her all the same and wanted the best for her. So what if he had been hired to do a job for Capone? Capone was a sick bastard, and didn't scare Richard in the slightest.

Suddenly, Lucia stopped midway across a stone bridge, the Chicago River flowing steadily beneath their feet. A light rain had begun to fall, and he worried dully that his tin mask might rust if they did not take shelter soon.

"I need to ask you something," she began, "and I need you to answer honestly. I just need one person in my life to be honest with me."

"You. Can trust me."

"Can I?" She turned to him, raindrops beading in her hair.

He took a careful step towards her, bringing his hand gently to her cheek. "Of course."

"Then tell me," she said, pulling his hand from her face and holding it intently in her own as she looked him dead in the eye. "Was it true, what Nick said? About you being a…a hitman?"

He looked down, unsure of how best to phrase his answer.

"Look at me and tell me the truth."

He lifted his gaze to meet hers. "I do. What I have to do."

"Should I take that as a yes?"

Wracked with guilt, he dropped her hand and turned towards the water, watching as it bisected the city with its powerful, constant flow. He could feel Lucia at his side, leaning against the carved railing and staring down at the same water, but he couldn't bring himself to look at her. He had enjoyed playing her knight in shining armor, but worried that the truth might tarnish his armor in her estimation. It was this fear that had forced him to renounce his love for Julia, and his chance at a happy life.

"When you came out here," she began, slowly and deliberately, "what did you think Capone had hired you to do?"

"I thought he. Needed me. To kill someone."

"Is that something you do often?"

A long pause. "Yes."

The rain fell heavy and thick around them, glowing jewel-like beneath the streetlights. She had placed her hand on the railing, and he longed to take it in his own and tell her whatever she needed to hear in order to draw them back to the bliss of that morning, before a river of truths had come between them. He hated himself for keeping this part of himself from her, but not enough to abandon it completely—the stonehearted killer was as much a part of him as the gentle farm boy, and there was a strong possibility that the two would never fully diverge. More than anything, he hated that he'd let himself fall for her in the first place, when he had known from the start that love was an unattainable dream for the likes of him.

"Richard," she said finally, "I think I need to be alone for a while."

It was all he could do to watch her walk away into the mounting twilight, and to stop himself from following.