“And if she doesn’t?”
He blinks slowly. Looks away for a moment, then back at me. “I can’t protect her then.”
I take him by the lapels and swing him to the edge of the platform. He grabs my forearms to keep from falling onto the tracks.
“What good are you?” I ask through my teeth. “I might as well kill you first. Move up the line until you surrender.”
Light shines against the tiles. The train’s coming around the corner. The driver won’t see in time to stop. A coward or a child would concede Sarah.
Massimo surprises me by being neither.
“No deal without her. No peace.”
He strains against my hold. I do not react. Reacting too quickly is death, even with a train barreling down the tunnel. Massimo follows the same rulebook, meeting my gaze as the train hoots and the light shines brighter on his face.
I could let the train cut him in two and disappear into the tunnel.
Sarah would never forgive me, and that’s why I lose my nerve and pull him onto the platform.
Movement in the corner of my eye. Sounds at the edges of perception. The flick of a newspaper. The jerk of an open coat. Massimo’s wide eyes. The way his mouth makes an O. The roar of the train drowning out his voice.
There’s no pain.
Only the blur of the world.
And falling so far.
Farther than the floor.
Flying, almost, into a certain hell.
The ringing in my ears and the rumble of the train against my chest.
My face pressed against filth.
Dario.
She’s calling. Urgently.
The train is coming.
I am on the tracks.
Dario. It’s me. I’m over here.
Is she? There’s only darkness.
Here. Here. Here. Come to me here.
I turn my head toward her voice.
The light on the tracks turns to shadow.
The train is here.
CHAPTER 2
DARIO
TWELVE DAYS BEFORE
Nico didn’t show for his meeting, which is either a disaster or nothing. Oria’s still in the small conference room, losing her mind over it, and I’m with Oliver and Tamara, watching a bank of security monitors. It all looks normal. Calm. Boring. The precursor to everything happening at once.
Oliver just reported an uptick in SWAT team calls. Sheriff, not the police. All the buildings have a greenhouse on the roof.
“Audio doesn’t match the feed.” Tamara’s looking into the middle distance, one fingertip touching her headphone to push it tighter to her ear. “It’s got a code added.”
She scribbles in a notebook. I lean over her to read the scanner. Oliver stands with his thick arms crossed, boyish face set into mature concern.
I’d thought I was hiring him, and she was gravy. When did I realize that, between them, she’s the one in charge?
Just now. That’s when I realized.
“How would they know there’s a greenhouse on our roof?” I ask. “Do we have a mole?”
My mind runs through a list of names. Santino’s guys? Oria? We planted one with them. They could have done the same.
Why did Nico miss his meeting?
“A mole would have given up our address,” Oliver says.
“Google Maps,” Tamara adds, switching to satellite view, revealing the tightly packed roofs of Manhattan. Water towers. HVAC units. The occasional greenhouse, legal and otherwise, built by residents desperate for a bit of outdoor space. “They’re playing darts with a blindfold.”
I may be the target, but Sarah’s the bull’s-eye. If they get me, they get her, and she’s mine. They can’t have her.
We’re going to have to postpone Sarah’s freedom. No more jaunts out to buy soup until I destroy her family.
“They know too damn much.” I jab my finger at the scanner feed as robberies and car accidents scroll past.
“We’re cloaked,” Tamara says. “No breaches. I checked.”
“The only time the two spaces were directly connected was the wedding and the video call. Which one was it?”
Tamara’s as unflappable as any man. “Let me pull up the video.”
I know exactly which video she means.
Where I made her strip naked.
And kneel.
And beg for water.
And take off the one bit of clothing she begged to keep.
The greenhouse comes up. I lean over the keyboard, fast forwarding so I don’t have to confirm what a monster I am with an unwilling woman kneeling into my crotch.
Did I leave her there, sobbing, then fuck my hand the next day with the memory of it?
You bet I did.
The camera had been carefully set to keep the frame generic. No windows. Just the wall. No detritus, no furniture, no gardening supplies were inside it. But at one point, the clouds move, and in the corner of the frame, for one second, the moonlight leaves a grid-shaped shadow. I freeze it there.
“Shit,” Tamara says. “She threw her shoe at the camera. We couldn’t recalibrate until after.” She looks back at me. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t need an apology. I need a solution. “If they come here and find Sarah, they’re going to deliver her back to them.”
“We’ll move her,” Oliver says. “Get her somewhere secure.”
Easily done, but it’s not enough. I can’t send her away and stay behind to wait to defend my territory. If she goes, I go, and if I go, everyone goes.
“How much time do we have?” I ask.
“I’m checking dispatch now.” Tamara presses a button on her headphones. The dispatcher’s mechanical voice comes over the speakers. Some of it is code. Some plain English. She scribbles shorthand on a spiral pad. She’s going so fast I can’t catch any of it—then she stops. “I think I got it. The code.”
“And?”
“Packing up from 42 Crosby. Waiting for next hit.”
There’s no defense against the authorities. Not if I want to stay under the radar. When they get here, they have to find nothing but an empty greenhouse and an abandoned office.
No team. No high-level security. No guns, and especially no Sarah Colonia.
They’ll think it’s another missed shot and move on. We’ll return after they’ve turned their backs, more anonymous for being inspected and discarded.
Now that I have a plan for Sarah’s safety, I’m relieved. “Everyone needs to be ready to get out of here. Go bags. Hard drives. Burners. Everything.”
“Should we set up the car for you?” Oliver asks.
“I’ll take Sarah in the ghost. Call Benny. Tell him to prep for us.”
As I leave the office to get her, the job is done in my mind. I have a safe house an hour out of town. Nice grounds. Excellent security. Plenty of places to fuck.
I don’t find her in the suite, making me noodles. She’s in the hallway between with a rolling suitcase. As if she’s going somewhere, and Willa’s a thousand miles away from where she’s supposed to be, when all I need is a minute or less to talk to Sarah.
I need Willa to go away.
I need Oria to back me up.
I need it all to happen before someone says something stupid.
Then Willa calls me baby, and herself my wife, and I’m stuck between the truth of the moment and the lies of the past.