Chapter 4 #2
The word comes out before I can measure the truth of it. I shouldn’t promise what I do not fully control. I know that. I know better than that. But there are moments when caution becomes cowardice, and this is one of them. I look at both of them.
“You aren’t going back to him.”
Heath studies me for a long time.
Then he asks, “What if Mr. Stefano says we have to?”
From behind me, Omar says, “Mr. Stefano does not enjoy being called Mr. Stefano.”
Erin turns toward him. “Then what should we call him?”
“Don Savarese.”
“That sounds like a cheese.”
For one perfect second, Omar looks as if he has been shot.
I bite the inside of my cheek hard enough to behave. Heath’s mouth twitches. Not a smile, but close enough to hurt.
Omar looks at me. “This is your influence. I’ll blame you personally if they tell him that.”
“I’ve been here for ten minutes,” I object.
“Obviously, it’s been long enough to be a bad influence.”
Erin looks pleased with herself and takes another bite of toast. Jam gets on her cheek, and I reach for a napkin, then stop halfway, placing it on the table within her reach instead. She takes it without flinching.
Breakfast becomes something that resembles normal if I squint hard enough. Erin asks questions in bursts: Where do I live? Do I have a dog? Am I married? Why not? Do I like pancakes better than waffles?
Heath says almost nothing, but he listens to every answer. I tell the truth where I can and step around what I must. No dog. No husband. Pancakes, but only if they have crispy edges.
I don’t tell them I live wherever an undercover assignment needs me to live. I don’t tell them my apartment in Chicago has more weapons than furniture. I don’t tell them the FBI is probably tearing Miami apart looking for me.
After a while, Erin asks if she can do my hair later.
The question knocks something loose in my chest. Alice used to braid my hair when we were children, badly at first, then in more complicated braids with the kind of detail that required patience I’d never had.
I haven’t let anyone play with my hair in years.
“Yes,” I agree. “Later.”
Erin smiles.
Heath watches my face when she does. I think I pass whatever test he gives me, because he finally picks up his fork and takes a second bite of eggs.
After breakfast, Omar takes us to a sitting room off the interior courtyard.
Not the formal one I passed earlier. This one has softer furniture, shelves with books that look chosen by someone who had to guess what eight-year-olds liked, and a basket of toys faintly smelling of packaging.
Stefano had someone prepare this. Not well, exactly.
No child chooses beige throw pillows. But quickly, and with enough attention that the effort feels worse than indifference.
Erin finds colored pencils and takes over the low table within thirty seconds. Heath chooses the chair with the best view of the door, the windows, and his sister. I sit on the floor again because apparently that is who I am now.
“You don’t have to sit there,” Heath says.
“I know.”
“There’s a couch.”
“I don’t trust rich couches.”
Erin looks up from her drawing. “Why?”
“They look comfortable, then they try to eat you,” I say with a smile.
She studies the couch with immediate suspicion.
Omar, from the doorway, protests, “The furniture is not hostile. Don’t fill their heads with useless ideas.”
“You don’t know that,” Erin says.
Heath’s mouth twitches again. And I decide Omar may be useful after all, even if only as a target.
The morning quickly drifts into early afternoon in small, fragile pieces.
Erin draws a horse with too many legs, then tells me it is a dog.
Heath corrects her anatomy with the seriousness of a surgeon.
She ignores him. I learn that Erin likes strawberry jam, hates peas, and believes all houses should have cats.
Heath claims not to care about animals, then asks whether dogs can tell when someone is bad.
I tell him some can, but people should not put all their faith in dogs because dogs also eat socks.
Erin laughs easily. Heath doesn’t, but he looks at me longer than before.
Progress with him isn’t going to be warm and immediate, I realize quickly.
It comes in inches, so small that most people would miss them.
He stops angling his body quite as sharply between Erin and me.
He lets me hand him a glass of water instead of making Erin get it.
When one of Stefano’s men passes too close to the doorway, Heath’s shoulders stiffen, and he looks at me before he looks at Omar.
Around two, Erin decides my hair needs help.
“It does not,” I tell in mock offense.
“It does.”
“It’s been a hard twenty-four hours,” I say.
“That’s why it needs help.”
Omar looks away, but I catch the smirk on his face before he can hide it.
“I saw you smile,” I tell him.
“I would never,” he protests, reclaiming his normal stern look.
“That's a lie.”
Erin climbs onto the couch behind me with a brush someone must have found in one of the upstairs bathrooms. She works with the confidence of someone who has no idea what she is doing and the determination of someone who will not be advised.
The brush catches twice. She apologizes both times with a soft, worried little sound that makes my throat tighten.
“It’s fine,” I tell her.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
Heath watches from his chair, suspicious. “Mom used to braid her hair.”
I don’t say anything to that; there’s really nothing I can say. So, I keep still while Erin pulls my hair into something that is probably meant to be a braid and may legally qualify as a knot. “She used to braid mine too.”
Heath looks down at his hands.
Erin’s fingers still in my hair. “Was she always good at it?”
“Eventually,” I laugh. “She pulled too hard at first.”
“Like me?”
“Worse,” I admit.
That pleases her enough that she keeps going. By the time she finishes, my scalp hurts, Omar looks as if he has been forced to witness a ritual beyond his understanding, and Heath has moved from the chair to the floor near the table. Not beside me. Not close enough to count as trust. But closer.
I will take it.
The house changes sometime after three. Men begin moving in the hall with more purpose. Omar steps out twice for short conversations and returns with his expression flatter each time. The staff grows quieter. The children notice, and so do I.
Heath stops coloring at one point, looking to Omar for reassurance. “Is something bad happening?”
“No,” Omar says.
I glance at him. He looks at me as if daring me to contradict him. I don’t, because whatever is happening is not a weight for the children to carry. “The grown-ups in this house walk like that when they think too hard.”
Erin considers this. “Mr. Omar walks like that all the time.”
“He must think a lot.”
“He looks like thinking hurts sometimes.”
This time, Heath smiles, and I laugh. Omar closes his eyes briefly, shaking his head at the impertinence.
The moment passes, but the tension stays under the floorboards.
Leon, probably. Or the FBI. Or Stefano’s men realizing a federal agent with a personal vendetta is spending the next few days in their boss's house.
All valid concerns.
Late afternoon light stretches across the sitting room when Omar finally ruins the fragile peace by clearing his throat. “The Don expects you at dinner.”
I glance back at him. “The Don can expect whatever he wants.”
“He had clothes sent for you.”
“Of course he did.”
Ignoring my comment, he continues, “And asked that you make yourself presentable.”
I look down at the robe, my bruised knees, my bandaged wrist, and the disaster Erin created with my hair. Omar’s expression does not change.
Erin giggles into her juice.
That alone is enough to make me stand when Omar indicates the door. Not because Stefano summoned me. Not because I have accepted his authority. Because if I refuse the next step, I lose access to the children before I have earned enough of their trust to matter.
Erin’s smile fades. “Are you leaving?”
“I won’t be far,” I tell her.
“Are you coming back?”
I should not promise things in a house I don’t control, but I do anyway. “Yes.”
Heath watches me over the edge of his glass, quietly measuring the word.
I look at him too. “Both of you are staying here for now. You eat what you can. You sleep if you can. You do what Omar says if there’s an emergency, even if his face makes it seem like fun is all but illegal.”
Erin nods.
Omar looks offended. “Fun is not illegal.”
“Strongly discouraged, then.”
Heath finally speaks. “What counts as an emergency?”
Smart question.
“If people start running,” I say. “If Omar tells you to move without explaining why. If you hear shouting close to this room. If anything feels — wrong. You stay with Erin. You listen to Omar. And then you wait for me.”
The last part leaves my mouth before I can soften it.
Heath’s face doesn’t change, but something in his stare shifts. Not trust. Not yet. A note taken. Just like Omar, I realize. Kindred spirits, perhaps.
“Okay,” he says with a nod.
I follow Omar into the hall before I can make the moment worse by reacting to it. The door remains open behind us. Erin says something to Heath about the dog-horse drawing. Heath mutters that it still has too many legs.
Omar walks beside me toward the stairs. “You should not make promises you cannot guarantee.”
“I know.”
“You did anyway.” He glances at me. “Why?”
I look straight ahead. “Because sometimes children need someone willing to lie to fate, even if they won’t lie to them.”