Chapter Eight Charlotte #2
A pause. Then Emilio says something that makes Claudio exhale through his nose. His frustration tell.
"Follow up when you can. It might be nothing. But if Salvatore's network extends to the civilian businesses, we need to know which ones."
The call ends. I hear him set the phone down. The couch creaks as he stands.
He appears in the kitchen doorway. His face is the blank mask again. Full soldier. The man who held me in the dark and shook against my skin is filed away behind the mafia interface.
"Aurelio's clock is up tomorrow night," he says. "Seventy-two hours. Leone bought us time, but it's running out. If we don't bring proof of the mole, Aurelio starts handling it his way."
"And his way is?"
"Loud. Indiscriminate. He'll pull everyone with security access into interrogation and work them until someone breaks. And if the real mole is smart enough to survive that, which they are if they survived Renzo getting caught, then all Aurelio accomplishes is showing his hand."
I set my mug down. "You said Salvatore."
His eyes narrow. "You were listening."
"You were talking ten feet away in a house with no doors. Listening wasn't optional."
The corner of his mouth moves. Not a smile. The acknowledgment of a point scored.
"Salvatore handles security logistics for the Bonaccorso operation," he says. "Card systems, access levels, political contacts. He's been with the family for fifteen years. Aurelio trusts him."
"And you don't."
"I don't trust the timeline. Your name hits our system, and six hours later a hit team shows up at your door.
We find you, bring you to the compound, and forty-eight hours later another team breaches through a service corridor using a keycard that Salvatore had the access and authority to program.
" He pauses. "And now, according to Emilio, Salvatore has been asking where I took you.
By name. Not 'the witness.' Not 'the asset. ' Charlotte. Your name."
The coffee in my stomach turns sour.
"Nobody at Salvatore's level should know your name," Claudio continues. "You were logged as a protected intake. Restricted file. Only Leone, me, Alexandra, and Aurelio had access to your full identity."
"Unless someone opened the file who shouldn't have."
"Yep. Unless someone opened the file who shouldn't have."
We look at each other across the kitchen. The wood stove is dead. The room is cold. The light through the window is flat and grey and the mountain air coming through the gaps in the frame smells like pine and frost and the particular emptiness of places where no one can hear you.
"The man I saw at Marchetti," I say. "The one at the meeting."
Claudio goes still. Completely. Even his breathing pauses, and the absence of it is louder than sound.
"He had a scar on his left hand," I say. "Thick. Raised. Running from his thumb to his wrist. And an expensive watch. Gold face, custom. The kind you don't buy on a soldier's salary."
"Charlotte."
"Is that Salvatore?"
He doesn't answer.
"I need you to tell me," I say. "If I'm going to give you the one thing keeping me valuable, I need to know I'm giving it to the right person."
"The description matches."
"Matches, or is him?"
"I can't confirm until you see his face. In person. Without him knowing you're looking."
"Then take me back."
The words come out before I've fully decided to say them.
But they're right. They're the move. Six days on the road, running from a threat I've been holding the answer to since before I got in that car.
The information has been mine, my insurance policy, my leverage, the one card I could play to stay alive.
And I've been clutching it so hard my fingers have gone numb.
Claudio is watching me. Not the cold surveillance look. The other one. The one from last night, when he put his forehead against mine and asked me to be sure. The look of a man who sees what I'm offering and understands what it costs.
"Not yet," he says. "We go back on my terms. When I've set the identification up properly, when the five of us are in position, when Salvatore doesn't know we're coming." He steps closer. Not crowding. Closing distance. "You've held this for weeks. You can hold it a little longer."
"The clock is ticking."
"I know. I'll handle the clock."
"How?"
"I'll call Leone. Explain what we have. He'll buy more time."
"And if he can't?"
"Then we move faster." He reaches out. His hand finds my jaw. Tilts my face up. His thumb traces my cheekbone once, and the touch is so gentle compared to everything else about him that it makes my breath catch. "You're not disposable, Charlotte. Not to the operation. Not to me."
I should pull away. Charlotte Richardson pulls away. Charlotte Richardson doesn't lean into the hands of men who carry guns and speak about people in terms of leverage and assets.
I lean into his hand anyway.
"Make the call," I say. "And then we need to move. Staying in one place too long makes me nervous."
"Staying in one place too long makes everyone nervous. That's why we keep moving."
"Is that the only reason?"
He drops his hand. Steps back. The soldier clicks back on.
"I'll make the call. Pack what you need. We leave in an hour."
He walks out. I hear him on the phone again. Leone this time, the cadence different, more formal, the shorthand of two men who've been running operations together for over a decade.
I stand in the kitchen and press my fingers to the back of my neck. One. Two. Three.
The clock is ticking. Salvatore knows my name. The compound is compromised. The war is grinding on without us. And somewhere in a building I've never been to, a man with a scar on his left hand is wondering where I am and what I've seen and how quickly he can make me disappear.
I pour the rest of the coffee down the sink. Rinse the mugs. Fold the blanket on the couch. Small domestic acts that mean nothing and everything, the rituals of a woman preparing to leave a place she shouldn't have gotten comfortable in.
The farmhouse is quiet. The trees are still. The light through the window is turning gold.
I memorize it. Not because I'll miss it. Because I've learned to take inventory of the places I've been safe, however briefly, so I can carry them when the world stops being kind.
The farmhouse. The wood stove. The kitchen with the gold light. The bedroom where he shook.
Memorized. Saved. Mine.
I pick up my coat and go.