Chapter Fifteen
Luca
They put the box on my kitchen island.
White plastic, a strip of LEDs, a folded quick-start sheet. Two techs in vendor polos, one doing the talking, one doing the work. Roberto stands at the end of the island with his reading glasses low on his nose, flipping through the consent I already signed, staring down at the paper.
“Base needs mains power,” the talker says. “Cell backup if your internet goes down. We set a nightly window. If the strap leaves range during that window, it throws an event. If it stays, it anchors location as ‘home.’”
“Range?” Roberto asks without looking up.
“Thirty to fifty feet, depending on walls.”
“Make it fifty,” Roberto says, dry. “You can note my client’s bedroom is not a studio apartment.”
The tech smiles like he’s not paid enough for this shit. “We don’t ‘make’ it, sir. Materials do.”
They want the base in my bedroom. I don’t. I point to the hall credenza that sits almost at the dead center of the house, outlets on either side. “There.”
The quiet one lifts the unit, runs the cord. A soft chime when it hits power. The LEDs flicker once, then steady. He takes my ankle in his hands the same way the last guy did—careful, like he doesn’t want to get bit—and holds a little black gadget close to the strap.
“Pairing,” he mutters. The base answers with two short beeps. “Paired.”
“It will lower the chance of… what did he call it yesterday?” Roberto says, still reading. “A clean hop outside the polygon.”
“Yeah,” the talker says. “GPS can bounce. The base gives priority to a known place during the window. Less drift.”
Roberto finally looks up. “Less drift should have been the design from day one.”
He’s performing for them a little. He doesn’t have to. The annoyance is real. He hates sloppy systems.
I take an espresso to the window and watch the men cross my lawn to the service panel, then back, then down the hall.
I didn’t sleep much. When I did, it wasn’t the kind that sticks. I close my eyes and see a dark room and a woman who let me tie her wrists with silk while the city slept. I hear breath against my ear, the broken little sound that hitches in her chest. I taste her skin every time I swallow.
I wonder if she drank the coffee.
It makes me smile, the thought that she’d throw it straight down the drain just to spite me. Or maybe she drank it hot, standing barefoot in that small kitchen, cheeks pink, remembering all that we did in the dark.
Or maybe she dumped it and cursed my name.
Either way, I want to know if she’s all right. We were not gentle. I know she woke up sore.
But more than that, I want to know how she’s doing. Does she regret what we did? Does she feel shame?
If I didn’t have to, I never would’ve left a woman in her state. The intensity of the night likely very new to her. I should’ve been there, holding her, reassuring her that she’s perfect and amazing.
But instead, I’m here, being put under a tighter lock and key.
I want to pick up the phone. I don’t. Not yet, anyway.
“Windows?” the talker asks. He’s holding a tablet, stylus poised.
“What do you need?” Roberto says.
“Start and end. When the base tells the system to treat ‘home’ as authoritative.”
I do the math against habit and the installation report from this morning in that glass room. “Twenty-three hundred to oh-six hundred.”
The tech taps. “Done.”
“Make sure your notes say we agreed under protest,” Roberto says.
“Under protest?” the quiet one repeats, like they’re foreign words.
“You made a mess yesterday and now you’re hanging a new box in my client’s house to clean it up,” Roberto says evenly. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t clap.”
The talker nods like he’s been told worse. “We’ll run a walk-off. Mr. Conti, if you could stand by the base.”
I move into the hall. The island feels big behind me, the kitchen bigger. The quiet one stands next to the unit, watching the LEDs. The talker steps down the hall, watching his tablet. “Signal strength… good. Step toward the study, please.”
I do. The ankle buzzes once, no sound, just a small vibration like a phone in a pocket. “We’re connected,” the quiet one says.
“Far side of the kitchen?” the talker asks.
I go as far as the pantry and stop. He nods to himself. “We’re good. Fifty feet with walls.”
“Lucky materials,” Roberto says.
The quiet one checks the strap again, not meeting my eyes. I don’t blame him. Men like them live behind screens or in labs. To them, I’ll always be a reason to keep on guard.
The talker walks back to the island and sets the tablet down.
“Nightly, if you leave range, it will call out. If you return within ninety seconds, it logs as a proximity breach, not a violation. If you stay out, it escalates. If you’re leaving for emergency medical during the window, call the number on the sticker and your officer. ”
Roberto taps the table with two fingers. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“We weren’t anywhere two nights ago, either,” I add, because I can’t resist drawing the line where it belongs.
The talker nods. “This will make sure nothing like that happens again.”
Which means no more late night visits to Elena. Not yet, anyway.
Last night would be impossible now.
Good, a small voice in the back of my mind whispers. You don’t need any more distractions. You have a mission to complete. You can’t afford to stray.
Wanting and needing are not the same. I built a life on the difference.
I want Elena. I need to avenge my family.
I wonder if she ate.
The techs and Roberto are talking, but my mind is somewhere else completely.
Finally, the talker clears his throat. “We’ll do one more test at eleven tonight remotely,” he says. “If we don’t get the anchor, we’ll call. You don’t need to do anything.”
Roberto slips the signed forms back into his case and snaps it shut. “You’ll email a copy to me and Pretrial.”
“Yes, sir.”
He walks them to the back door, and they shake hands they don’t want to shake. They walk down the service path, and the house closes around us again.
Roberto turns from the back door and gives me the look I know he’s been saving for me all morning.
Disapproval.
“You done?” he asks.
“I haven’t decided yet,” I say, not bothering to play dumb.
He doesn’t bother answering that. He taps the new white box on the credenza with two knuckles, like he’s knocking on a coffin lid. “You’re playing with fire, Luca. That’s not where you were supposed to be last night. We agreed you would stay away from her.”
There’s silence in the room for a beat. The first time I went out of bounds was a test. To see the response time and identify the gaps in the system.
Which we did.
Which is why last night happened.
Last night was supposed to be another quick run to see if we’d mastered the system and cheating it.
Going to Elena’s was never the plan. It wasn’t supposed to happen at all.
But after sitting with her in that room yesterday, hearing her speak about her mother—the grief in her eyes.
I didn’t even plan it. I just found myself at her apartment, breaking in, waiting for the marshals to finish their sweep.
“It worked,” I say simply.
“Yes, and now we have another obstacle.” He runs his hand through his hair. “We weren’t expecting this beacon. Now we’re starting from scratch.”
I sip what’s left of my espresso. “We’re not starting from scratch. We got around the original system. Now, we have to take it one more step.”
He exhales. “And then what? You have more late night visits with the federal prosecutor? She wants to put you back in prison, remember?”
“I remember,” I say mildly, starting to get irritated.
“Obvious,” he says, huffing out a breath. “If you get caught, you get thrown back in for violating your terms. And do you know who else gets burned?”
I do. I just don’t like the picture. “She won’t get burned.”
“She will,” he says, flat. “She’s not yours to protect, and you’re the last man on earth who can do it without ruining her. You climb one more fence, she loses a career. You get remanded. Everybody pays.”
I let silence answer. It’s better than the thing in me that wants to argue, knowing damn well I’m not on the winning side.
He rolls his neck like he’s trying to work a knot out. “Tell me I don’t have to say it again.”
“You don’t,” I say.
“Good.”
He leans an elbow on the island, studies me like I’m on the stand. “What are you doing, Luca?”
“Drinking coffee,” I say. It’s cheap. He deserves better.
“Luca, don’t play with me,” he says, exasperated. “Do you care about her?”
The question stops me in my tracks. I think of her voice, whispering in my ear. I think of her touch along my skin. The look in her eyes when she said she thought she’d have another chance with her mamma.
How she felt curled up in my arms.
I want to lie. I want to tell Roberto I don’t give a damn. It’s a lie. I know it. He knows it.
So I settle for not answering at all.
“Luca. By showing up at her place last night, you all but confirmed that the blip on the beacon the other night wasn’t false. You gave a prosecutor everything she needed to put you away.”
“But she didn’t,” I say. “I’m still here.”
“Yeah, for now,” he says. “What happens next time? What happens when you finally go after Dixon, and she has everything she needs to prove it was you? She’ll have to set you on fire in open court to save herself, and it’ll still be over for her. Don’t hand her that choice.”
“I heard you the first time,” I say, irritated.
“Did you?”
Truth is, nothing he’s saying is wrong.
He’s right. Last night might’ve ruined all my plans. I’ve worked toward this for years.
Ever since that smug asshole Nick Dixon showed up and told me that he bought the prison, that he was providing for my daughter, that he was her family now.
I think, before that moment, I might’ve even forgiven Lucia. But to hear that she had a new family, that she didn’t need her old one… It lit a new fire in me.
And now, all that might be gone.
The line of heat in my chest is anger at myself, not at Roberto. I set my cup down before I crack it.
“Yes, I did.” I give him a cold look.
He studies me like he isn’t sure whether to believe me or not. That irritates me, too.
“Good,” he finally says.
My jaw tightens. He sees it and softens a degree. “Luca, I’m not trying to cut you off at the knees. I’m trying to keep you standing. You’ve got work to do that isn’t… this.”
He’s right, and I know it.
“And if I need to reach her for something case-related?” I ask, because I can’t help myself.
“You don’t,” he says. “I do. You touch nothing.”
“Fine,” I say.
He exhales. “Thank you.”
He straightens and gets back to official business.