Chapter Eight
LUCIA
I do as Marco instructs.
I breathe. I eat. I call Grace and ask for clothes.
An embarrassing number of bags arrive within the hour, containing everything from underwear and pajamas to shoes in three different styles. Someone has included a winter coat despite the warm weather and an umbrella even though the forecast calls for sun.
I sleep for almost twelve hours.
The next morning, I meet Marco for breakfast in the hotel restaurant.
I expect questions about Viktor, my mother, and the man who may have fathered me.
They never come.
Instead, we talk about Boston, books, the weather, and coffee Marco considers “criminally overpriced,” despite owning the restaurant charging him for it.
Somehow, a week passes.
Every morning, Marco waits at the same table beside the windows. Every evening, I return to the suite and close the door behind me.
The room begins to acquire signs that I’ve lived in it. A book lies open beside the sofa. Shoes gather near the bedroom door. Half-empty cups of tea appear on tables before the staff quietly remove them.
I begin to relax.
The doors open when I want them to and lock when I choose. I decide what to eat, what to wear, and where to walk.
No one asks where I’m going when I leave the hotel. No one searches my room while I’m gone. No one comments if I sleep late or order cake for dinner.
Freedom is quieter than I imagined.
It isn’t a single exhilarating moment. It’s a hundred small decisions no one else notices.
It’s intoxicating.
On my eighth morning at the hotel, something changes.
Someone else is sitting at our table.
From a distance, I think it’s Marco.
The same dark hair. The same broad shoulders beneath an expensive suit. The same profile turned toward the windows.
But as I approach, the differences become impossible to miss.
This man sits with one arm draped over the back of his chair, entirely at ease. He is slightly taller than Marco, though I can tell only when he shifts and stretches his legs beneath the table. His jaw is broader, and his eyes are a warmer, darker brown.
His smile comes quickly, where Marco’s always seems considered first.
A hint of black ink shows above his open collar.
I stop several feet from the table.
His gaze lifts to mine.
“Have a seat.”
I take a step back.
“I’m waiting for someone.”
“So am I.”
I search the restaurant.
Marco isn’t at the entrance. He isn’t near the bar or speaking to one of the servers.
The nearest exit is behind me. Another sits beyond the kitchen.
The stranger notices where I’m looking.
“Marco will be here in a few minutes.”
My attention returns to him.
“How do you know Marco?”
He laughs.
“We shared a room for nine months.”
Wariness slides down my spine.
I know his type.
Viktor surrounded himself with men like this. Expensive suits hiding shoulder holsters. Easy smiles hiding violence.
It seems Marco does too.
“I’m Gio, by the way.”
A hand briefly touches the small of my back.
I nearly jump.
“Good morning,” Marco says.
He pulls out the chair beside the stranger and sits.
“You’re introducing yourself now?”
“You were late,” Gio says.
“By three minutes.”
“Four.”
Marco sighs.
“You’re impossible.”
“And yet, here we are.”
Gio looks at me.
“Tell your girl to sit down.”
Marco pins him with a glare.
“She has a name.”
Gio raises his hands.
“Lucia, then. Please sit.”
I cautiously take the chair beside Marco.
The difference between the brothers becomes even clearer when they sit together.
Marco’s gray-green eyes are cooler than Gio’s, and the lines of his face are slightly narrower.
They aren’t identical, but the resemblance is close enough that I understand why someone might mistake one for the other at a glance.
“Coffee?” Marco asks.
I nod.
He pulls the carafe closer and fills my cup before pouring his own.
The familiar action steadies me.
“Have you ordered?”
When I don’t answer, he studies my face more carefully.
“What’s wrong?”
His attention moves to the man across from us.
“What did you do, Gio?”
“Literally all I said was ‘have a seat.’”
“I’m sure you did something.”
Marco turns back to me.
“You’ll have to forgive my brother. He can be insufferable, as I’m sure you’ve already learned.”
Understanding dawns.
“You’re twins.”
“Fraternal,” Marco confirms.
Gio snorts.
“He loves pointing that out, as though it isn’t obvious.”
He slides a menu toward me.
“I already know what I want.”
“Is it the French toast?” Gio asks.
“No.”
He looks personally offended.
“He keeps bringing you here and hasn’t told you the French toast is the only reason this restaurant remains in business?”
Marco lifts his coffee.
“It isn’t.”
“See?” Gio says. “He lies.”
“She always orders the pancakes.”
Gio’s eyebrows rise.
“You’ve memorized her order?”
Marco looks genuinely confused by the question.
“She orders the same thing every morning.”
“For a week.”
“Eight mornings.”
Gio grins at me.
“He notices everything. Don’t let him pretend otherwise.”
I study the brothers with new curiosity.
Until now, I thought Marco was simply quiet.
Sitting beside Gio, I realize that isn’t quite true. Marco doesn’t waste words because he has spent his entire life with someone who already knows the rest of his sentence.
The two men communicate through glances and small movements. Marco pushes the sugar packets toward Gio before he asks. Gio moves the bread plate out of Marco’s way without interrupting whatever he’s saying.
Neither seems aware of it.
When the food comes, the French toast is as good as Gio promised.
The bread is crisp at the edges and soft in the center, dusted with powdered sugar and served with berries. I’m not sorry I abandoned my usual pancakes.
In fact, I may never order them again.
Marco pours himself another cup of coffee.
Gio looks between us.
“So this is what you do every morning? You just eat?”
“And talk,” Marco says.
“About what?”
“Things.”
Gio gives him a bland look.
“Riveting.”
I lift one shoulder.
“It’s not as though I have other friends here.”
“Wait.” Gio leans forward. “You consider my brother a friend?”
I glance at Marco.
“Shouldn’t I?”
“Marco doesn’t have friends. He has people who do his bidding.”
Marco closes his eyes briefly.
“Shut up, Gio.”
The restaurant is quiet at this hour. The early breakfast crowd has gone, while the people who sleep late haven’t arrived. Sunlight stretches across the empty tables, catching on glassware and polished silver.
Beyond the windows, the city is already moving. Delivery trucks stop beneath hotel awnings. People cross the broad sidewalks with phones pressed to their ears. From twelve floors above, they look small and distant. Down here, they are ordinary people beginning ordinary days.
Gio reaches for the coffee carafe.
“Have you decided what you want to do?” Marco asks me.
He takes a sugar packet from the tray and slides it across the table to Gio without looking.
Over the last week, Marco and I have discussed what comes next.
I’ve narrowed my options to staying or running.
Running would be easier.
Marco says he can get me new identification quickly. A different name. A passport. Enough money to disappear somewhere Viktor has no influence.
But running means leaving my half-sister behind.
Staying means fighting.
It means choosing the unknown over safety. It requires a kind of courage I’m not sure I possess.
I wrap my hands around my coffee cup, letting the warmth settle into my palms.
“I’m not running.”
The words come out more steadily than I expect.
Marco holds my gaze.
“All right.”
Gio lifts one eyebrow as he empties the sugar packet into his coffee. He stirs it slowly.
“Are you sure you want to go to war with the Mikhailovs, brother?”
Marco glances at him.
“No.”
His honesty surprises me.
“But I’m also unwilling to let them control something that isn’t theirs.”
The three of us fall silent.
Grace Marino—my namesake—approaches the table, her expression uneasy. She maintains her professional smile, but her hands are clasped too tightly in front of her.
“Mr. Catenzio?”
Marco looks up.
“Yes?”
“A moment, please.”
He sets down his napkin and follows her several steps away.
I take a sip of coffee while Gio watches them.
“Something’s wrong,” he says.
I turn toward Marco and Grace.
It looks like a manager speaking privately with the owner. The conversation could be about anything. A staffing problem. A guest complaint. An unpaid bill.
“How do you know?”
Gio lifts one shoulder.
“I know my brother, and that isn’t his ‘everything is fine’ face.”
I study Marco.
His expression hasn’t changed. He listens while Grace speaks, asks her one question, then looks toward the restaurant entrance.
I can’t see anything alarming.
Gio’s posture has changed, though.
The lazy ease is gone. His shoulders have squared, and his attention moves through the dining room, pausing on every guest, employee, entrance, and exit.
The humor hasn’t disappeared from his face.
It has simply stopped reaching his eyes.
I suddenly understand how closely the brothers resemble each other. Beneath Gio’s charm is the same watchfulness Marco carries openly.
Marco returns to the table.
His expression is tight.
“We have to leave.”
My stomach drops.
“Why?”
“The hotel has been compromised.”
I stare at him.
“What does that mean?”
“Mikhailov’s men have been here asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?” Gio asks.
“The kind that tell me we’ll have trouble if we don’t move her.”
The restaurant suddenly feels too open. The windows that made the room bright now leave us visible from the street. Every man in a dark jacket becomes someone I need to watch.
I glance toward the front doors.
“Are they here now?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Grace recognized the men asking about a dark-haired woman staying alone under an assumed name. They showed photographs to at least two members of staff.”
“Did anyone tell them about me?”
“No.”
“Can you be sure?”
Marco doesn’t soften the answer.
“No.”
Gio and Marco exchange a look.
“Where are we moving her?” Gio asks.
Marco turns to me.
“That’s up to her.”
My mouth goes dry.
“What are my options?”
“Another hotel.”
If Viktor’s men found me here, in a small boutique hotel under an assumed name, they can find me anywhere similar.
I shake my head.
“No.”
“A furnished apartment.”
Where I’ll be alone when they come through the door.
“No.”
“A safe house.”
“How many people know where your safe houses are?”
He hesitates.
“Enough.”
“All Viktor needs is one person to say something.”
Marco says nothing.
“No,” I repeat.
The three of us look at one another.
Every option is another unfamiliar room. Another door I’ll have to watch. Another place Viktor can take away from me.
Gio speaks.
“She can stay with us.”
Marco turns toward him.
“Gio.”
“What? She’s right. It won’t take Mikhailov long to find her.”
“Then the house becomes a target.”
Gio gives him a bland look.
“The house is already a target.”
Marco exhales slowly.
“If she comes to Belmont, she becomes my responsibility.”
“She’s already your responsibility. You’re simply pretending otherwise.”
The look between them contains an entire conversation.
I don’t understand all of it, but I know Gio has won.
“At least there, she’ll have fifty armed men between her and Mikhailov,” he says.
Fifty armed men.
The number should make the house sound like another prison.
Instead, all I can think about is not being alone when Yevgeny comes.
The brothers stop arguing.
They wait.
Not for each other.
For me.
I swallow.
“I’ll do it.”
Marco doesn’t ask whether I’m certain.
The moment I decide, we move.
He speaks briefly to Grace while Gio makes a call. A kitchen door opens, and I’m escorted through the working part of the hotel before I can finish my coffee. Employees move aside as we pass, watching without asking questions.
Armando waits outside with the black SUV.
This time, I get in without asking for a cab.
Gio takes the front passenger seat. He pushes the seat back before settling in. Marco sits behind him with me, leaving the middle seat empty between us.
Neither man tries to close the distance.
“How many?” Armando asks.
“Two men,” Marco says. “Use the side streets until we’re out of the neighborhood.”
Armando pulls away from the curb.
I watch through the rear window, expecting a dark vehicle to follow us.
No one does.
He turns twice, doubles back once, and waits through a light he could have cleared. Only when no vehicle repeats the route does he head toward the main road.
The tension in the SUV eases by degrees.
“I’ll have Grace pack your things,” Marco tells me.
“My things.”
Everything I own now fills several shopping bags in a hotel room that was never really mine.
“I’ll make sure they all arrive,” he says.
I nod.
“Thank you.”
Marco looks through the window.
Gio glances back at us from the front seat.
No one says what all three of us know.
I escaped one house filled with armed men.
Now I’m going willingly to another.
The difference is that this time, I’m choosing to go.