Chapter Seventeen
GIO
I know the moment the gates begin to open.
The low mechanical hum reaches me in the living room, followed by the groan of iron moving against iron.
Angela hears it too.
She stops arranging the roses Lucia cut that morning and looks toward the foyer.
Neither of us moves.
I’ve been standing beside the window for twenty minutes, watching the light fade over the drive and waiting for the SUV to return.
Waiting for Marco to prove me wrong.
The vehicle comes through the gates and stops in front of the house.
Two doors open.
Armando gets out.
Marco gets out.
The rear door remains closed.
Angela sets down the flowers.
“Where is Lucia?”
I don’t answer.
I’m already moving.
Marco has barely crossed the threshold when my fist connects with his jaw.
The impact snaps his head to one side.
Angela gasps.
Armando catches my arm before I can hit him again.
“Let go of me.”
“Gio.”
“Let go.”
Armando releases me.
Marco straightens slowly. Blood appears where his lip has split against his teeth.
He doesn’t retaliate.
That makes me angrier.
“Where is she?”
He looks at me.
“Mikhailov’s house.”
I hit him again.
This time, he sees it coming.
He still doesn’t block me.
My knuckles strike the same side of his face and send him into the foyer table. The vase of white flowers wobbles but doesn’t fall.
Armando steps between us.
“That’s enough.”
“Move.”
“No.”
I try to get around him.
Marco wipes the blood from his mouth with his thumb.
“Let him.”
Armando looks back at him.
“Boss.”
“I said let him.”
Armando steps aside.
I stare at my brother.
We have fought before.
As children. As teenagers. As grown men too stubborn to admit when an argument stopped being about whatever started it.
This is different.
I want to hurt him.
Not because I think it will change anything.
Because Lucia is behind a locked door, and Marco is standing in front of me.
“You gave her back.”
“Yes.”
“You put her in the car and drove her to him.”
“Yes.”
“Did you tell her where you were taking her?”
“No.”
The answer is quiet.
Something inside me breaks.
“You let her trust you.”
“I know.”
“You promised her.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
His expression doesn’t change.
“I don’t have another answer.”
I shove him.
He strikes the wall but remains on his feet.
“What did she say?”
Marco looks past me.
I follow his gaze.
Angela stands beside the living-room doors with one hand pressed over her mouth. Her face has gone pale.
“What did Lucia say?” I demand.
Marco’s eyes return to mine.
“She said she hated me.”
“Good.”
The word tears out of me.
“I hope she meant it.”
A muscle moves in his jaw.
“She did.”
Angela lowers her hand.
“You took her back to that house?”
Marco looks at her.
“Yes.”
Her expression crumples.
“No.”
“Angela—“
“No.”
She shakes her head and backs away from him.
“You told me she would be safe here.”
“I thought she would.”
“You told that girl she could trust you.”
“I know.”
“Don’t.”
Her voice is barely above a whisper.
It silences all of us.
Angela crosses the foyer.
For one moment, I think she’s going to strike him too.
Instead, she reaches up and touches the bruise forming along his jaw.
Marco goes still beneath her hand.
Then she lets it fall.
“I expected better from you.”
The words do what my fists couldn’t.
Marco looks away.
Angela turns and walks toward the kitchen.
The roses remain unfinished on the table. Several stems lie at angles across the polished wood, droplets of water glinting beside them.
Marco watches her leave.
I don’t feel sorry for him.
I refuse to.
“Why?” I ask.
He looks at Armando.
Armando reaches inside his coat and removes an envelope. He sets it on the foyer table.
Photographs spill across the polished surface.
Armando’s mother.
Dario outside his sister’s house.
Bruno’s granddaughter walking into her art school, her drawing case strapped over one shoulder.
Angela carrying groceries to her car.
The pictures were taken over the past two days, while Mikhailov kept us waiting.
I recognize the girl in the final photograph from the files Marco showed me. Pale eyes. Blonde hair. A canvas tote hanging from one shoulder.
She’s younger than Lucia.
“Who is she?”
“Lucia’s half sister,” Marco says. “Aniya Mikhailova.”
I pick up the photograph.
“Mikhailov has her?”
“He moved Aniya and her father before the meeting.”
“Where?”
“We couldn’t find them.”
“So you gave him Lucia.”
Marco’s stare hardens.
“He threatened every person in those photographs.”
“That’s what men like Mikhailov do.”
“He had people watching them, Gio. He knew their homes, their routines, where the children went to school.”
“So we protect them.”
“We did.”
“Then what was the problem?”
“We couldn’t protect Aniya because we couldn’t find her.”
I throw the photograph onto the table.
“You should have told Lucia.”
“She would have gone back.”
“Then that would have been her choice.”
“Yes.”
The single word catches me off guard.
Not because he agrees.
Because of the way he says it.
He already knows exactly what he took from her.
“You decided for her.”
“Yes.”
“After promising you wouldn’t.”
“Yes.”
My fist tightens again.
“Then why?”
“Because she would have sacrificed herself before we had time to find another option.”
“You didn’t find one.”
“No.”
“You still should have told her.”
“I know.”
I turn away before I hit him again.
The house looks exactly as it did this morning.
The clock in the living room marks another minute. Somewhere upstairs, a vacuum runs behind a closed door. The last of the daylight lies in long gold bands across the marble floor.
Nothing has changed.
Everything has.
I look toward the roses on the table.
Lucia carried them in from the garden less than three hours ago. She was standing in this exact spot when Marco told her to get into the car.
“Did Mikhailov agree not to lock her up?”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him?”
“No.”
I turn back slowly.
Marco’s expression remains composed, but something beneath it has gone hollow.
“You knew.”
“I knew his promises were worth nothing.”
“And you left her there anyway.”
“Yes.”
I cross the distance between us.
Armando tenses but doesn’t intervene.
“You’d better have a plan.”
“I don’t.”
“Wrong answer.”
“We tried every option we had.”
“No. You tried every option that didn’t involve starting a war.”
Marco’s eyes sharpen.
“A war would have killed people who never agreed to fight it.”
“And now?”
“Now those people are protected.”
Understanding settles slowly.
The photographs.
The additional guards.
The men Marco has spent the last two days placing outside homes and schools.
“You moved everyone.”
“Everyone except Aniya.”
“Where is she now?”
“Mikhailov says she’s back with Dmitri.”
“And we’re taking his word for it?”
“No. I have men confirming it.”
I study my brother.
The bruising along his jaw has already begun to darken. Blood marks the edge of his collar. His suit is rumpled, his tie hanging slightly crooked.
Marco is always immaculate.
Tonight, he looks exhausted.
More exhausted than I’ve ever seen him.
“You planned this.”
“I planned for the possibility that we would fail to find Aniya.”
“You secured everyone before you returned Lucia.”
“Yes.”
“So now what?”
His gaze moves toward the windows.
“Now we wait until Aniya is confirmed safe.”
“And then?”
Marco doesn’t answer.
I step closer.
“And then?”
His eyes meet mine.
“Then Viktor Mikhailov loses everything.”
The answer should satisfy me.
It doesn’t.
“Lucia isn’t one of his businesses.”
“I’m aware.”
“She isn’t an asset you can recover after you’ve weakened his balance sheet.”
“I’m aware.”
“You keep saying that as though knowing makes it better.”
“It doesn’t.”
“No. It doesn’t.”
I look toward the empty drive.
“Do you think she’ll ever forgive you?”
“No.”
The certainty in his answer leaves no room for argument.
“Then why are you standing here?”
“Because walking back into Mikhailov’s house without a plan won’t help her.”
“It would show her you tried.”
“It would get me killed in front of her.”
“At least she’d know you cared.”
Marco’s face changes.
Barely.
But I know my brother.
I see the wound.
“You think she doesn’t know?” he asks.
“She thinks you traded her.”
“I did.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Agreeing with every terrible thing I say.”
“I don’t have the energy to make you feel better about me.”
“You think this is about making me feel better?”
“No.”
He reaches for the photographs.
His hands are steady as he gathers them, but the edge of the envelope catches twice before he manages to slide them inside.
“I want eyes on Dmitri’s house, his office, and every vehicle connected to either of them,” I tell Armando.
“Yes, boss.”
“No contact. If Mikhailov suspects we’re watching, he may move her again.”
Armando nods.
Marco takes the envelope and walks toward his office.
I watch him go.
“You knew,” I say to Armando.
He doesn’t pretend otherwise.
“Yes.”
“And you helped him.”
“I drove the car.”
Lucia’s frightened voice echoes inside my head.
Where are we going?
I wasn’t there to hear it, but I can imagine it anyway.
“Why?”
“Because he ordered me to.”
“That’s convenient.”
Armando’s expression tightens.
“No. It isn’t.”
For the first time, I notice his eyes are red.
He looks toward the front doors.
“She trusted me too.”
I have no answer for that.
Armando leaves to make his calls.
I remain in the foyer.
The house is silent without Lucia.
That shouldn’t be possible.
She has lived here for only a few weeks. Before she came, this silence was normal. I never noticed it.
Now it presses against the walls.
I walk into the living room.
Her book lies facedown on the arm of the sofa. A paper tag from a cup of tea marks her place.
I pick it up.
She’s halfway through.
Lucia finishes books, even the ones she doesn’t like. She says abandoning them makes her worry the characters will remain trapped wherever she left them.
I close the book carefully.
Her sweater is still draped over the conservatory chair. One sleeve hangs almost to the floor.
Her sandals remain beside the pool-terrace doors, positioned neatly together as if she intends to come back for them.
A handwritten list sits on the kitchen counter.