Chapter Fifteen
MARCO
Gio owns twelve suits.
This morning, he tries on four of them.
I know because he leaves the rejected options draped over the furniture in his room, and Angela carries each one into the hallway while expressing increasingly violent opinions about what she plans to do with them.
“This is not a hotel,” she tells him.
Gio adjusts his cuffs in the mirror.
“Exactly. A hotel wouldn’t yell at me.”
Angela throws a jacket at his head.
He catches it without turning around.
I lean against the doorway.
“It’s lunch, not a wedding.”
“It’s also a bookstore.”
“I wasn’t aware bookstores had dress codes.”
He looks at my reflection in the mirror.
“Why are you here?”
“You’re late.”
“We aren’t leaving for twenty minutes.”
“Armando wants to review the route.”
“Armando has reviewed the route three times.”
“And he wants to do it again.”
Gio turns from the mirror.
He has settled on a dark-blue suit without a tie. Casual by his standards. The color suits his eyes, although I have no intention of telling him that and encouraging a fifth change of clothes.
“You’re making this into a larger production than necessary,” he says.
“I’m not the one who tried on four suits.”
“I tried on two.”
“Angela carried out four.”
“Angela exaggerates.”
I glance at my watch.
“Five minutes.”
“You said twenty.”
“Armando is waiting.”
I leave before he can argue.
Lucia is at the bottom of the stairs when I reach the foyer.
I stop.
She wears a cream-colored dress beneath a pale-blue sweater. The dress falls just below her knees, simple enough for lunch but fitted closely enough that I have to remind myself to look at her face.
Her dark hair is loose, falling over one shoulder in soft waves. A small purse hangs from the other.
She looks happy.
Not merely less frightened. Happy.
The difference changes her entire face. Her dark eyes are bright, and anticipation has softened the careful line of her mouth.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Good morning.”
Her gaze travels over my suit.
“Are you coming?”
“No.”
Disappointment flickers across her expression.
It would be an unreasonable interpretation.
I make it anyway.
“Oh.”
“This is Gio’s expedition.”
“It’s lunch and a bookstore.”
“That’s what he claims.”
She smiles.
“I thought you might want to come.”
The disappointment wasn’t imagined.
Before I can respond, Gio appears at the top of the stairs.
“Absolutely not.”
Lucia looks up.
“What?”
“He’s not coming.”
“I didn’t say I was,” I say.
“You were thinking about it.”
“I have to work.”
“Good. Do that.”
Gio comes down the stairs and offers Lucia his arm.
She looks at it, then at him.
“I know how to walk.”
“I’m aware.”
She takes his arm anyway.
The sight produces a reaction I don’t care to examine.
Gio is taller than she is by more than half a foot, but Lucia doesn’t look small beside him. The cream dress emphasizes the length of her frame, and she carries herself more confidently than she did when she first entered the house.
Armando comes in from the front drive.
“Car’s ready.”
His eyes move over Gio.
“New suit?”
Gio points at him.
“See? Someone appreciates the effort.”
“You wore it to the Callahan son’s wedding.”
“That was with a different shirt.”
Armando turns to me.
“We have two vehicles. Dario and Bruno are in the second. I spoke to the restaurant and the bookstore. Both know we’re coming.”
“No unnecessary stops.”
Gio sighs.
“We know.”
“Keep her away from the windows at lunch.”
“I get it.”
“If anything feels wrong—“
“We come straight home.”
Lucia watches the exchange.
A month ago, this level of preparation would have frightened her. Today, she listens without wrapping her arms around herself or checking the driveway for Mikhailov’s men.
She has begun to trust our precautions.
She has begun to trust us.
“Have fun,” I tell her.
She smiles.
“We will.”
Gio leads her outside.
I watch through the open doors as he helps her into the car. He says something that makes her laugh before the door closes.
Armando lingers beside me.
“They’ll be all right.”
“I know.”
“It’s been quiet for weeks.”
“I’m aware.”
“We checked the route.”
“Three times, according to Gio.”
“Four.”
I look at him.
Armando shrugs.
“He doesn’t know about the first one.”
I watch as he heads for the lead vehicle.
The two SUVs pull away a few moments later. Sunlight flashes across their dark windows before they disappear beyond the trees.
I wait until the gates close behind them.
Then I return to my office.
I make it through one telephone call and half of a contract before my phone rings.
Armando.
They’ve only been gone an hour and twenty-three minutes.
I answer immediately.
“What happened?”
“We have a problem.”
My hand tightens around the phone.
“Is she safe?”
“Yes. They’re both inside the bookstore.”
“Then what?”
Armando lowers his voice.
“Yevgeny Petrov saw them at the restaurant.”
The office goes still around me.
Beyond the windows, groundskeepers move along the western lawn. The contract remains open on my desk, one page half-turned beneath my hand.
“You’re certain?”
“Dario recognized him. Petrov was across the street when they came out.”
“Did he approach?”
“No.”
“Did Gio see him?”
“No.”
“Lucia?”
“I don’t think so.”
I stand.
“Where is Petrov now?”
“We lost him in traffic.”
“How the hell did you lose him?”
“He had three vehicles waiting.”
Deliberate.
Yevgeny hadn’t wandered across them by chance. He had either followed the convoy or known where Gio was taking her.
Both possibilities mean someone made a mistake.
“Get them home.”
A pause follows.
“Yes, boss.”
I end the call.
For several seconds, I stare at the contract on my desk without seeing it.
Then I sweep it aside and reach for the phone.
The calm is over.
By the time Gio and Lucia return, there are two additional men at the gates and another vehicle posted beyond the eastern boundary. I resist the impulse to turn the estate into a fortress before I know whether Yevgeny followed them or merely saw them.
I watch their arrival on the security feed.
Lucia steps from the SUV holding a brown paper bag against her chest. Gio comes around the car carrying three more. The top of an old green book protrudes from one of them.
She says something to him.
He laughs.
Neither of them knows.
Armando enters my office without knocking.
“We checked all the way back. No one followed.”
“Petrov?”
“No sign of him.”
“Dario is certain?”
He nods.
“He’s seen Yevgeny often enough.”
I look toward the foyer below.
Lucia lifts one of the bags to show Angela. Her face is animated, and her free hand moves as she explains something. Angela reaches inside and examines the book while Gio leans over her shoulder.
“She had a good time,” Armando says.
I look at him.
He lowers his gaze.
“I thought you’d want to know.”
I do.
I also know that her having a good time resulted in Mikhailov’s men finding her.
“Review everyone who knew where they were going,” I say. “The restaurant, the bookstore, the drivers. Everyone.”
“You think somebody gave them the route?”
“I think Yevgeny had three vehicles waiting.”
Armando’s mouth tightens.
“I’ll take care of it.”
“Quietly. I don’t want Lucia frightened until we know what this is.”
He nods and leaves.
Gio appears in the doorway a few minutes later.
“What happened?”
I close the office door behind him.
“Yevgeny saw you.”
All traces of amusement leave his face.
“At the restaurant?”
“Across the street when you came out.”
His jaw tightens.
“I didn’t see him.”
“That’s generally the point of surveillance.”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t turn into an asshole because you’re frightened.”
“I’m not frightened.”
“Then you’re just an asshole by nature.”
I let him take the point.
He drags one hand through his hair.
“Does Mikhailov know she’s here?”
“He knows she was seen with you.”
“That’s the same thing.”
“Not necessarily. Yevgeny may have followed you from somewhere in the city.”
“You don’t believe that.”
No. I don’t.
Gio looks toward the closed door.
“Are you going to tell her?”
“Not yet.”
“Marco.”
“She’ll spend every hour waiting for Mikhailov to come through the gates.”
“Maybe she deserves to know she was seen.”
“She deserves facts. Right now, all we have is Yevgeny standing across the street.”
“With three cars waiting.”
“I’m looking into it.”
Gio studies me.
“We knew this could happen.”
“Yes.”
“We said we’d fight.”
“I remember.”
“Do you?”
I hold his gaze.
“Yes.”
The question is what the fight is going to cost us.
#
The first day passes without a call.
That unsettles me more than an immediate demand would have.
Viktor Mikhailov is not a patient man when he believes something belongs to him. If Petrov reported seeing Lucia, I expected threats, accusations, or men outside the gates before nightfall.
Instead, there is nothing.
At breakfast the next morning, Lucia tells Angela about a first edition she found at the bookstore. Gio interrupts twice to correct details that do not require correcting. Angela threatens him with the coffee pot.
I sit at the head of the table and pretend to read a message while I watch Lucia smile.
My phone remains silent.
By noon, Armando has found no leak at the restaurant or bookstore. No one outside our security detail knew the exact route. The vehicles Petrov used were registered through three separate companies, none directly connected to Mikhailov’s businesses.
At three, Dario reports a dark sedan parked near his sister’s house.
It leaves before our men can reach it.
That evening, one of Bruno’s sons notices a man with a camera across from his daughter’s school. He disappears into the pedestrian traffic when confronted.
Neither incident proves anything.
Together, they tell me exactly what Mikhailov is doing.
He isn’t coming for Lucia.
Not yet.
He is building a map.
I move men onto the families without telling them why.
Armando’s mother suddenly has a driver. Dario’s sister receives an alarm-system upgrade she never requested.
Bruno’s granddaughter is collected from her art class by two armed men who are instructed to remain far enough away that she won’t notice them.
It isn’t enough.