Chapter Sixteen
LUCIA
“Where are we going?”
Marco doesn’t answer.
He stands beside the open rear door of the SUV, one hand resting against its frame. The dark vehicle waits at the foot of the front steps with its engine running.
“Just get in the car, Lucia.”
Something in his voice makes me hesitate.
The house is unusually quiet behind me. The front doors stand open, but no one has come to see us leave.
Gio is nowhere in sight.
Neither is Angela.
Armando waits behind the wheel, staring through the windshield. He hasn’t looked at me once.
“What’s going on?”
“I need you to come with me.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“No.”
Marco’s expression is composed.
Too composed.
He’s wearing a dark suit despite having spent most of the day inside. His tie is perfectly straight, his jacket buttoned. The only sign that something might be wrong is the way his fingers curl against the top of the car door.
For two days, men have moved through the house at all hours. The gates have remained closed. Armando has missed breakfast. Marco has barely left his office.
Every time I asked what was happening, he told me they were reviewing security.
I knew it wasn’t the whole truth.
I didn’t believe he would lie to me.
“Is this about my father?”
“No.”
“Viktor?”
His silence answers.
I glance back at the house.
The windows reflect the pale evening sky, hiding the rooms behind them. From here, I can see the conservatory roof rising beyond the east wing. Sunlight catches on its glass panes and the surface of the pool beside it.
My book is still open near the chair inside.
A half-finished cup of tea waits in the kitchen.
Angela said we would make biscotti tomorrow.
The ordinary details frighten me more than Marco’s silence.
“Where’s Gio?”
“Inside.”
“Why isn’t he coming?”
Marco’s jaw shifts.
“Because this is my responsibility.”
The unease inside me sharpens.
I look at Armando.
He lowers his gaze.
“Lucia,” Marco says.
I turn back to him.
“Please get in the car.”
Please.
Marco rarely says please.
I should refuse.
He told me I could. He promised the gate would open if I chose to leave, but that also meant I could choose to stay.
The decision was supposed to be mine.
But this is Marco.
He gave me a room with a door that opened. He showed me the truth about my mother. He placed every document he had in front of me and promised there would be no more secrets.
I trust him.
Against the warning tightening around my ribs, I slide into the back seat.
Marco closes the door and walks around the SUV.
He takes the seat beside me.
Armando pulls away from the house.
The leather seat is cool beneath my hands. The interior smells faintly of coffee and the clean citrus polish Bruno uses on the dashboard.
Everything is familiar.
That should help.
It doesn’t.
I turn to look through the rear window.
The front doors remain open. No one steps outside.
The gates close behind us with a slow sweep of iron.
No second vehicle follows.
“Where are Dario and Bruno?”
“Working.”
“Where?”
Marco looks straight ahead.
I turn toward him.
“You’re frightening me.”
His eyes close briefly.
“I know.”
“Then tell me what’s happening.”
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
He doesn’t answer.
The privacy divider between the front and rear seats is down, but Armando might as well be behind a wall. His attention remains fixed on the road, his shoulders rigid beneath his jacket.
We leave Belmont and travel east toward Boston.
I try to follow the route.
At first, the roads are familiar. Trees and stone walls give way to larger intersections, gas stations, and shopping centers. Then traffic thickens around us, and buildings rise where the evening sky had been.
Every mile pulls the knot in my stomach tighter.
Marco’s hands rest on his knees. There’s no phone in one of them. No file. No device demanding his attention.
He simply sits beside me.
That may be the most frightening thing of all.
“What happened while Gio and I were out?”
His head turns.
I see the answer before he speaks.
“Yevgeny saw you.”
The air leaves my lungs.
“At the bookstore?”
“Outside the restaurant.”
The restaurant.
I remember stepping onto the sidewalk with Gio. He had offered me his arm just before we’d stepped through the doors and I had taken it.
He’d just predicted how much longer the couple at the next table might remain married. Given the couple’s obvious disdain for one another, it had been a blessedly short sentence.
I had been laughing.
Yevgeny was watching.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
“There was nothing you could do.”
“That wasn’t your decision.”
“No.”
“But you made it anyway.”
His gaze returns to the window.
I pull my sweater more tightly around myself.
“Does Viktor know where I am?”
“He knows you’re under our protection.”
“And?”
“And he requested a meeting.”
“When?”
“Two nights ago.”
Two nights.
While I sat at the dinner table with Gio and Angela, Marco met with Viktor.
While I slept, men moved through the house.
While I asked questions, Marco lied.
“What did he want?”
“You.”
The single word settles between us.
“What did you tell him?”
“That you left voluntarily. That you were entitled to make your own decisions.”
“And what did he say?”
“He gave me forty-eight hours to return you.”
The passing buildings blur beyond the window.
“You said no.”
It isn’t a question.
Marco says nothing.
“Tell me you said no.”
“I did.”
Some of the pressure in my chest eases.
Then I look at his face.
The relief vanishes.
“What happened?”
“I tried to find another solution.”
“What solution?”
“He wants control of the Rossi trust.”
“It isn’t his.”
“I know.”
“You said it would be mine.”
“It is.”
“Then why are you talking as though he gets to decide?”
“He made it clear what refusing him would cost.”
“And you believed him?”
“Yes.”
The SUV turns.
I look outside.
The streets have changed.
Brick buildings rise close to narrow sidewalks. Black iron fences border shallow front gardens. The roads climb and dip between rows of townhouses with polished brass knockers and dark windows.
I know this neighborhood.
My body recognizes it before I’m willing to name it.
“No.”
The word escapes on a breath.
Marco doesn’t look at me.
“No.”
My voice is louder this time.
I reach for the door handle.
It doesn’t open.
The child lock is engaged, or maybe the doors lock automatically while the car is moving. The reason doesn’t matter. The handle gives beneath my hand without releasing anything.
“Unlock it.”
“Lucia.”
“Unlock the door.”
“We’re moving.”
“I don’t care.”
I pull the handle again.
Nothing.
“Armando, stop the car.”
My voice sounds panicked now.
His eyes meet mine in the mirror.
The shame in them tells me everything.
“Stop the car!”
He keeps driving.
I turn on Marco.
“Where are you taking me?”
He finally looks at me.
Grief lives behind the calm expression.
I hate him for it.
I don’t want his grief.
I want the door unlocked.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“No.”
The SUV slows.
Through the window, Viktor’s townhouse rises across the street.
The sight of it strikes me with the force of a blow.
The same red brick, darkened near the foundation by years of weather.
The same black iron railing around the front steps.
The same tall windows that never opened far enough for me to climb through.
A brass lamp burns beside the door, casting warm light over the polished knocker and the two stone planters Galina has changed with the seasons.
The house looks elegant.
It always did.
That was part of the trap.
“No.”
My voice is an odd mixture of disbelief and terror.
Armando pulls to the curb.
The locks release with a heavy click.
I stare at Marco.
“There was no other way.”
A tear slips down my cheek without permission.
I wipe it away angrily.
“You promised to keep me safe.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“I know.”
“You lied.”
The word comes out as a whisper.
My voice cracks around it.
“This is the only way I know how to keep everyone safe.”
I look across the street.
The townhouse doors open.
Yevgeny steps outside.
Even at this distance, I recognize his broad shape inside the black suit. The viper’s head turns with his face as he surveys the street, its open jaws framing his left eye.
My body reacts before my mind does.
I sink back against the seat, trying to make myself smaller.
“Please don’t do this.”
Marco looks at me.
“I don’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice.”
My hands curl into fists.
“You just didn’t choose me.”
Something breaks through his expression.
Pain.
Real and deep.
For one terrible second, I want to take the words back.
Then Yevgeny starts down the steps.
I remember where Marco has brought me.
I reach for the opposite door.
Marco catches my wrist.
I recoil as though he burned me.
He releases me immediately.
“Don’t touch me.”
“Lucia—“
“Don’t.”
Yevgeny crosses the street.
Armando gets out first.
Warm, humid evening air enters through the open front door, carrying traffic noise and the faint smell of rain on pavement.
Marco opens his door and steps onto the sidewalk.
For a moment, no one moves.
Then Marco bends and looks into the SUV.
“You need to get out.”
I shake my head.
“No.”
“Please,” he says again.
“Are you going to drag me?”
His face goes still.
“No.”
“Then I’m staying here.”
Yevgeny reaches the curb.
“We had an agreement,” he says.
Marco straightens.
“You’ll wait.”
Yevgeny’s gaze moves past him to me.
His smile turns my stomach.
“I think we’ve waited long enough.”
Marco steps between us.
The movement is small but unmistakable. His body blocks Yevgeny’s view of me.
“You don’t touch her.”
“Then how do you propose we get her inside?”
I stare at the back of Marco’s suit jacket as the realization slides through me.
This was arranged.
Discussed.
Agreed upon.
Not a decision made in panic.
A negotiation.
And I was the payment.
Marco turns toward me again.
“Lucia.”
“I hate you.”
The words leave me quietly, calmly.
That seems to hurt him more.
Good.
I want him to hurt.
I want him to carry some part of what he’s doing to me.
“I know,” he says.
I climb out of the SUV because I refuse to let either of them pull me from it.
The night air catches beneath my sweater.