Chapter 38
BEA
Time crawls.
I don’t know how long it’s been. Twenty minutes. An hour.
There’s water running somewhere overhead. Probably Victor taking a shower, trying to get my spit off his face.
Hopefully it’s taking him forever. The stupid bastard. He doesn’t know that Raffaele is coming. And by the time he does, hopefully it will be too late.
I shift in the chair. The rope tightens. It doesn’t budge.
“Hey.”
The guard doesn’t look up.
“If you helped me out of this chair, Raffaele would owe you. Personally. Whatever you want.”
He looks up at the ceiling and sighs. Drama queen.
“Don’t you think I’ve done enough?”
“I’m not—“
“Even if D’Amico’s alive. Even if he shows up. What do you think happens to me if I walk you out of here? The guys downstairs aren’t loyal, but they aren’t stupid. They see me leaving with the package, I’m in pieces by morning. No questions asked.”
“But—“
“There’s no brotherhood here,” he mumbles. “There’s contracts and cash. Every man in this building’s looking out for himself. Me included.”
I want to argue. But I can see it on his face. He helped me send the text. That was the exception. The exception used up his courage budget for the night. He’s back to being the kind of man who sits in a chair and waits for the next instruction.
That’s all I’m getting from him.
I let my head fall back against the wood and stare at the ceiling.
The guard’s still talking.
Something about contracts. Something about why he stays in his lane. I’m not listening.
Because suddenly the lights go out.
One second the room is lit, the next it isn’t.
The only light left is what comes through the gap in the curtains. A thin stripe of it, pale and cold, cutting across the floor at an angle. Enough to see shapes. Not enough to see faces.
“What the—“ The guard is on his feet. I hear him cross to the wall. His hand finds the switch. He clicks it. Nothing. He clicks it again. Still nothing.
“Son of a bitch.”
I don’t move.
In the thin moonlight, in the corner near the door, there’s a shape that wasn’t there a second ago.
The shape moves.
It crosses the room in four steps, silent as a ghost. The guard is still at the light switch, still clicking, still swearing under his breath.
The shape stops behind him.
I see, in the thin dark, the silhouette of an arm coming up. The short, hard geometry of a gun barrel pressing against the back of the guard’s skull.
The guard goes still.
“Drop it, asshole.”
The lights come on.
Standing behind the guard, gun pressed to the base of his skull, jacket dark with someone else’s blood, grinning the grin of a man who has been enjoying his evening against all reasonable expectation—
Lorenzo.
The guard freezes mid-sentence. He looks at me, briefly, almost accusingly. Then he lowers his pistol to the carpet.
“Kick it.”
He does as he’s told.
“Miss Mendez.” Lorenzo inclines his head, almost courtly. “You look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“That’s a compliment. Considering.”
He looks down at the guard and taps his gun gently against the back of the man’s skull.
“So. This asshole.” He’s looking at me. “Brains or balls?”
The guard doesn’t move. I think he’s holding his breath. I would be holding my breath.
“Spare him.”
Lorenzo raises an eyebrow.
“You sure? He doesn’t look like a good guy.”
“He isn’t. But he helped me. The text came from his phone.”
Lorenzo considers this for a moment. He looks almost disappointed, like he was really hoping for another kill on his counter.
“Well, well. Your lucky night, my friend.”
He doesn’t lower the gun much. Just enough.
“Hands behind your head. On the floor. Face down. You move, I kill you anyway. Are we clear?”
The guard nods. Carefully. He lowers himself to the carpet face down with his hands laced behind his head.
Lorenzo crosses to me. He pulls a knife from his belt. The blade’s dark.
“Sorry about the ropes. This is gonna sting.”
He cuts. The first cut frees my left wrist. The second cut frees the right. Then the ankles.
I bring my hands around to the front. My wrists are raw with twin red bands around them, and the bands are bleeding in two places where my struggling broke skin. It doesn’t matter.
What’s a little more pressing is my inability to stand. I try to, but my legs shake so badly I nearly collapse back into the chair.
Lorenzo catches me.
“Take it slow. Pins and needles in about thirty seconds. It gets worse before it gets better.”
But, really, that hardly matters either at the moment.
“Where’s Raffaele?” I ask. My mouth is dry. Part of me is still filled with the fear I was wrong.
“Upstairs.”
Relief washes through every inch of my body.
He’s here. He’s alive.
“So, he’s okay?”
“A little pissed off, but otherwise fine.”
I give Lorenzo a gentle push and try to stand on my own. It takes a moment, but I manage.
“And he’s upstairs right now?”
“Should be.”
“Then that’s where I’m going.”
Lorenzo hesitates. “Ma’am. I really do think you should—“
“Where is he, Lorenzo?”
He sighs and looks at the door, then back at me, then down at my legs, which are still trembling.
“Are you sure you’re—”
“I’m fine. Please, Lorenzo.”
“Okay. Okay. Top floor. Bathroom. There’s a—there’s a bedroom you go through first. He’s in there.”
“Take me.”
“Maybe close your eyes when we get to it. What he’s doing up there—“ He stops. He picks a different sentence. “It’s not gonna be pretty.”
“I don’t care.”
“You will. Trust me. Twenty years of these kinds of scenes, you start to know what—“
“I don’t care, Lorenzo. I need to see him.”
He takes one last look down at my legs. They’re trembling a little less now.
“Alright.”
He glances at the guard on the floor.
“You. Stay on your face till the count of a thousand. Don’t come up. Don’t get curious. The lady spared you. I don’t have to.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good answer.”
Lorenzo offers his arm.
I take it.
“After you, milady.”