The sun was too bright for this kind of work. Rocco Moretti stood on the cracked sidewalk outside a laundromat on Delancey with his jacket pulled tight over a shoulder holster, watching a man named Gus Pellegrino sweat through his shirt and swear he was good for it. Four grand, three weeks late. Sal had been clear that this one should be quiet and quick, and clear about the new rule too: no more cash. Cash was messy, cash got counted wrong, and cash was apparently why Rocco's last three collections came back short. Digital only. Cash App, straight to the Family account, a receipt Sal could actually read. Gus nodded along the whole time, said of course, no problem, then pulled out a crumpled fistful of twenties and said he didn't have one of those apps. Never had. Cash was all he had.

Rocco stared at the money. He stared at Gus. He did the math the way he always did it, slowly and with his whole face, and landed on the same answer he always landed on. This was a problem with no clean solution. If he took the cash, Sal would lose his mind. If he left empty handed, Don Carmine would hear about it by dinner. So he did what felt natural and grabbed Gus by the collar, and Gus did what frightened men do in broad daylight and started screaming. A woman across the street raised her phone. A guy in the laundromat window went for his. Rocco let go, scooped up the twenties out of pure stubbornness, and heard the first siren somewhere south of the bridge, close enough to matter.

He ran. Not gracefully, because nothing about a man his size running was graceful, but fast, with his shoes slapping the pavement and his lungs burning from too many protein shakes and not enough cardio. Nico was supposed to be waiting with the car on the corner. Nico was not on the corner. Nico, he would learn later, had gone for a sandwich. Rocco hit the end of the block with the sirens stacking up behind him and no way out, and then he saw it: a car idling at the red light, engine humming, somebody alone at the wheel. It was not a good plan. It was just the only one he had.

He drew the pistol low and fast, the way Sal had drilled into him, and put the barrel against the driver's window. "Unlock it," he said, flat and steady, the voice he saved for work. "Don't scream, don't be a hero, and nobody gets hurt. I just need a ride." The locks clicked. He yanked the passenger door open and folded himself into the seat, knees jammed against the dash, the gun resting on his thigh and pointed somewhere safe. Out of habit he said, "Drive. Just go straight, I'll tell you where to turn." Sweat ran down his neck. His heart was hammering. The sirens swelled behind them, and he finally looked over to see who he had just dragged into the worst day of his week.

Then everything inside him went quiet. The adrenaline, the panic, even the sirens seemed to drop away for a second. He sat there with a loaded gun in his lap, a stolen wad of someone else's cash in his pocket, and the cops two blocks back, and the only thing in his head was that he had just carjacked the best looking person he had seen all year. He’d been expecting a victim. What he got was a face that made him forget the gun in his hand, the eleven grand, and the fact that a man with a camera phone was probably uploading his entire face to the internet right now. His jaw went slack. Then it clamped shut again, and he cleared his throat and sat up straighter, checking his reflection in the side mirror out of pure reflex. Hair: still good. Chin: still a weapon.

“Okay, so, change of plans,” Rocco said, lowering the gun until it rested on his knee, pointed at nothing. The adrenaline was still singing in his arms, but his voice came out smooth, almost conversational, and he gave the grin that had gotten him out of parking tickets and one very awkward baptism. “Drive. Just keepit under the speed limit, nice and normal, like we’re two people who do this kind of thing all the time. Left at the light.” He glanced sideways, and then stared a second longer than a professional should. “Real talk, though. You’re gorgeous. I wasn’t gonna say anything, but it’d be a crime not to.”

The sedan rolled forward and the neighborhood slid past the windows, quiet and bright and completely unaware. Rocco leaned back, set the Glock on his thigh with the safety on, and let the silence hang for exactly three seconds before he lost the fight with himself. “Here’s what I’m thinking. I just had a real rough afternoon, and I’m about to disappear for a little while, and I figure a guy in my position oughta eat something before that happens. So you’re gonna take me to dinner. Somewhere with tablecloths. I’ll pay, I got a whole wad right here.” He patted his pocket, then winced, remembering that it was technically not his money, and covered it with a shrug. “Okay, I’ll pay after. If you're good. Deal?”

Six months. Rocco Moretti had counted them on his fingers in the gym mirror that morning, and for once the math came out right, which he took as a sign. The ring box had been living in his sock drawer for three weeks, bought from Sal's cousin on Arthur Avenue with money he had skimmed off nothing, saved from everything. He had planned the whole thing, too. Candles, the good table at his ma's restaurant, a speech he had practiced until the words wore smooth. He had gotten through the appetizer before his throat locked up and he asked the waiter for a second basket of bread instead.

Now he stood in the hallway of their place with the box in his left fist and his phone in his right, the red record dot already blinking, and sweat rolling down the back of his neck into his collar. He was not stupid. He knew the plan had fallen apart. He knew that if he waited for the perfect moment, he would still be waiting when they were both sixty, and the perfect moment would just be a different excuse wearing a nicer suit. His pulse hammered in his ears like somebody was working him over from the inside. Behind the bathroom door, the fan hummed and the faucet dripped.

He leaned his forehead against the wood and breathed through his nose, slow, the way the trainer at the gym taught him before a heavy deadlift. "Okay," he muttered, low and rough. "You've taken a bullet in the shoulder. You've dragged a guy up four flights of stairs. You can do this. Now or never, Moretti." His reflection stared back at him from the hallway mirror, jaw tight, one stubborn curl hanging over his forehead, brown eyes wide and a little wet. He looked like a man walking into a collection he did not know how to win. He looked terrified. He looked, God help him, happy.

He did not knock. Knocking would have given him a chance to talk himself out of it, and he knew himself too well for that. He shouldered the door open, harder than he meant to, and it banged against the wall hard enough to rattle the towel rack. The phone went up in his right hand, framing the shot with the steadiness of a man who had once held a steady aim through a firefight. The ring box went up in his left, lid already flipped open, the little stone catching the bathroom light and throwing a scrap of rainbow across the tile. "Don't say nothing yet," he blurted. "I know. I KNOW. Timing's terrible, you're takin' a dump. Just let me get through it."

He dropped to one knee on the cold tile, and the whole room seemed to tilt around him. The linoleum bit through his slacks, and his heart was kicking so hard he could feel it in his teeth. Every line of the speech he had rehearsed had burned off like fog, and what was left was the truth, raw and ugly and his. "I'm not a smart guy about a lot of things," he said, and his voice cracked in the middle, and he let it. "I'm good with my hands and I'm good at showing up. But you make me want to be better at the rest of it. I don't wanna do one more day of this life without you in it."

He swallowed hard and held the ring higher, the phone trembling just a little now, his thumb white against the screen. His eyes burned and he did not look away. "So I'm asking, and I'm recording it because my ma is gonna want proof, and because I wanna watch this back when we're old and complain about how bad my hair looked. Marry me, babe. Please. I'll make you a good life. I'll make it loud, and I'll make it safe, and I'll never once make you wait for me to come home. Please?"