6. Serena
SERENA
The first time I try to leave the flat, a man named Harris blocks the door with his body.
He’s polite about it. That makes everything better.
“Mrs. Castellano,” he says, “please step back.”
I look at the front door. Then at Harris. Then at the front door again, in case it has become a wild animal while I slept.
“I’m going to the chemist.”
“Mr. Greco can get whatever you need.”
“I need air.”
“We can arrange time on the roof terrace.”
“How generous.”
His face doesn’t change. Rocco hires men who can hear sarcasm, or a gunshot, without developing a visible pulse.
“Move,” I say.
“I can’t do that.”
“You can. You have legs.”
“Mrs. Castellano.”
“Am I a prisoner?”
Matteo stands at the end of the hall. He has a paper bag in one hand and my bottle of prenatal vitamins in the other.
His hair is wet from the rain. There are dark circles under his eyes.
Good.
I have slept for maybe three hours. Misery should be shared fairly.
“Harris,” Matteo says.
The man steps away from the door. Not far enough for me to open it. Just far enough to make the prison look less obvious.
Matteo comes toward me.
“You need to eat.”
“I need to leave.”
“It isn’t safe.”
“What’s outside?”
“We don’t know.”
“That’s a very flexible threat.”
I point at the door.
“Is Rafe in Edinburgh?”
“Not that we know.”
“Has anyone threatened me?”
“Not directly.”
“Do you have any actual reason I can’t go to the chemist?”
Harris suddenly finds the wall fascinating.
“Mr. Castellano gave an order,” Matteo says.
Not danger. Rocco.
“Move,” I tell Harris again.
He does not. I turn around and walk back to the kitchen before they see my face fall.
A cage with better manners is still a cage.
I grip the counter until my hands stop pretending to be steady.
The paper bag contains toast, bananas, plain crackers, and ginger biscuits. It’s a menu designed by someone who thinks pregnancy is a stomach illness.
Matteo puts a plate in front of me. I don’t touch it.
“Mrs. Castellano.”
“Serena.”
He pauses.
“Your name is Matteo. Mine is Serena. We held hands on a plane. I think society will survive.”
“Serena,” he says. “You need to eat.”
“You need to answer questions.”
“I’ve answered your questions.”
“No. You’ve arranged words near them.”
He takes the chair across from me.
The flat is too quiet. Four men came north with me on Rocco’s order. There are more guns in this building than there are people living in it.
“Where’s my passport?” I ask.
Matteo’s mouth flattens.
“Secured.”
“Where?”
“In the lockbox.”
“Whose lockbox?”
“The protection team’s.”
“Give it to me.”
“I can’t.”
“My husband took my money, my phone access is being watched, armed men block the door, and now you’re telling me I can’t have my passport.”
Matteo straightens. “Your phone isn’t being watched.”
“You answered that very quickly.”
“Because it’s true.”
He is offended. Actually offended. That’s useful.
“Can you see who I call?”
“No.”
“Can I call Lucia?”
Matteo looks down at the vitamins.
There.
“You’re terrible at lying,” I say.
“I did not lie.”
“You looked at a bottle like it might save you.”
He rubs one hand over his jaw.
“Mr. Castellano said no visitors until the location is cleared.”
“Lucia is my sister.”
“I know.”
“I lost a baby eight months ago.”
His face changes.
“I know.”
“Then you know why I might want my sister after my husband accused me of cheating, put me on a plane, and locked me in a beautiful apartment.”
“It isn’t locked.”
I look toward the hall.
“That’s your defense?”
“No.”
“Good. It needs work.”
He pushes the plate closer.
“Eat one piece of toast.”
“Take me to Lucia.”
“I can’t.”
“One piece of toast.”
He exhales through his nose.
“You’re negotiating food.”
“I married Rocco. It was adapt or starve.”
That’s not funny. It sounds funny.
Matteo almost smiles anyway.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“Not even a little.”
“Fine. All of it.”
He doesn’t agree. He also doesn’t say no.
I pick up the toast.
Rocco calls three times before noon. The first time, I watch his name until the screen goes dark. The second time, I turn the phone facedown. The third time, I answer.
I don’t speak. Neither does he.
For six seconds, we breathe at each other across an ocean.
I can picture him in his office. The little line between his eyebrows that appears when I’m upset and he doesn’t know how to fix it with money or murder.
I miss him so much I feel it in my teeth.
“Serena,” he says.
My name is rough in his mouth. Something in me gives.
“Did you find proof?” I ask.
Silence.
“That’s what I thought.”
“I’m working on it.”
“You shouldn’t have to work this hard to know your wife.”
“Amelie Laurent is missing.”
That scares me. I don’t let him hear it.
“Then find her.”
“I will.”
“Is that why I can’t see Lucia?”
“It isn’t safe.”
“For her or for me?”
“Both.”
“Has someone threatened us?”
He does not answer.
“Rocco.”
“Rafe knows the footage exists.”
“Because you showed him?”
Another silence.
I stand so fast the chair scrapes the floor.
“You went to him.”
“I needed answers.”
“I gave you answers.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. If you knew, I’d be home.”
Matteo appears in the kitchen doorway.
“Did you hurt him?” I ask.
“Why do you care?”
The question comes cold and quick. Jealous. My husband thinks I’m worried about my supposed lover.
“I care because if you kill a man over something I didn’t do, I have to live with that too.”
Rocco’s breathing changes.
“He’s alive.”
“How merciful.”
The word cuts. I hear it land.
“Serena, please eat.”
I laugh once.
“You sent four armed men to manage my toast.”
“You’re pregnant.”
“I was pregnant when you sent me away.”
He says nothing.
“I want to see Lucia.”
“Not yet.”
“Then there’s nothing else to say.”
“Don’t hang up.”
My hand stops.
His voice is different now. Not the boss. My husband.
“Please,” he says.
My eyes fill.
I want to ask if he slept. I want to tell him the baby kicked after landing. I want to say the flat is too cold and the pillows are terrible and I need him to come get me.
I want to be weak for five minutes.
“Find proof,” I say. “Then call.”
I end it.
Matteo is still in the doorway.
“I ate the toast,” I tell him.
He nods.
“Get your coat.”
We leave through the back stairs. Harris argues. Matteo does not raise his voice.
“I’m lead,” he says. “She needs medical supplies. I’m taking her.”
“Mr. Castellano said?—”
“I heard him.”
Harris looks at me. Then at my stomach.
“Two men go with you.”
“No.”
“Matteo.”
“Stay with the flat.”
Something passes between them. A warning. Maybe a goodbye. Two of Rocco’s men, one about to step off the leash, and both of them knowing what that costs.
I don’t understand it until later.
Outside, Edinburgh is cold and wet. The city looks gray enough to match my mood and old enough not to care.
Matteo drives himself. No second car follows.
“Are we going to Lucia?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Did Rocco approve it?”
His hands stay steady on the wheel.
“No.”
I turn in my seat.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Because you asked directly.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
He checks the mirror twice, takes three turns that make no sense, then circles the block before parking.
Protection. Real, this time. The kind that watches the street instead of me.
Lucia lives on the third floor of a narrow stone building with a blue door. There’s no lift.
By the second flight of stairs, I’m breathing hard.
Matteo stays one step behind me. He doesn’t touch my back. He doesn’t rush me. He waits every time I stop.
At the top, I knock. The door opens. Lucia stares at me.
She’s wearing red pajama trousers, one sock, and a face mask that makes her look mildly haunted.
“Serena?”
I burst into tears. Not a dignified tear sliding down one cheek. All of them. At once.
Lucia pulls me inside.
“What happened? Is it the baby?”
“The baby’s fine.”
“Is Rocco dead?”
“No.”
“Do I need to make him dead?”
I laugh into her shoulder. It comes out wet and awful.
“Maybe.”
Matteo stands outside the door.
“Who’s that?”
“My guard.”
“Why do you have a guard?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Come in,” she tells him. “You look like a man who needs to hear exactly what I think of this.”
Matteo almost steps back. Smart.
Lucia catches his sleeve and pulls him into the flat.
The story takes twenty minutes. Lucia interrupts seventeen times.
She calls Rocco several things I won’t repeat to our child.
Probably.
“Start again,” she says when I finish.
“I am not doing that.”
“The part where he sent you here.”
Lucia has removed the face mask. Green clay still clings to one eyebrow. She points at Matteo.
“Did Rocco put my pregnant sister on a plane alone?”
“I was with her,” Matteo says.
“That’s not what I asked.”
He glances at me.
“Yes.”
“Did he come to the airfield?”
“No.”
I look down at the table. Hearing it from someone else makes it worse.
Lucia’s hand closes around her mug.
“Did he know she was sick?”
“Yes.”
Lucia stands.
“I am going to kill him.”
“You can’t kill a mafia boss,” I say.
“I have a cast-iron frying pan and poor impulse control.”
“He has armed men.”
“So do you, apparently.”
She waves at Matteo. He looks like he would rather return to the flat and let Harris shoot him.
“I’m not armed in your home,” he says.
Lucia studies him. “Where’s the gun?”
“In the car.”
“Good answer.”
“Your turn. Why did you bring her here?”
Matteo’s face closes.
“She asked.”
“Rocco told you no.”
“Yes.”
“And yet here she is.”
“Yes.”
Lucia leans forward. “Are you going to drag her back?”
“No.”
The answer comes without hesitation. He keeps his attention on Lucia.
“Are the men at that flat protecting her from an actual threat?” she asks.
“There may be a threat.”
“That’s not an actual threat.”
“Rafe D’Amato knows the footage exists. So does the family. To either side she’s leverage—grab the boss’s pregnant wife and you’ve got a knife at his throat without firing a shot.”
“Does she need armed men controlling the door?”
“Not if she has a protection plan she agrees to.”
That’s the first time anyone has included my agreement in a sentence about my safety.
Lucia notices when a person breathes strangely in another room.
“And does she have one of those?” she asks.
“No.”
The answer hangs there.
Matteo looks tired now. Not from the flight. From the truth.
“Rocco ordered the flat prepared before he asked Serena what she wanted,” he says. “The team followed the order.”
“Including you.”
“Including me.”
He just owns it. No speech about loyalty.
My husband could learn something from the man who works for him.
That thought feels dangerous.
Lucia reaches across the table and takes my hand.
“You’re staying here.”
“My suitcases are at the flat.”
“I own clothes. I also have a toothbrush still in the packet because I steal them from hotels like a normal person.”
“You are a criminal.”
“Apparently that’s your type.”
The laugh escapes before I can stop it. Then it breaks in the middle.
Lucia squeezes my hand.
“You’re not going back to any house where men can exile you for your own safety.”
Lucia watches the first video once and the second for less than three seconds before slamming my phone facedown on the kitchen table.
“That is not you.”
No pause. No investigation. No proof.
My sister knows me.
The pain of that nearly folds me in half.
“I told him,” I whisper.
Lucia grabs my hand.
“I know.”
My phone rings. Rocco. I turn it over.
Matteo’s phone rings a second later. He answers.
“Boss.”
I can hear Rocco’s voice from where I sit. Not the words. The anger.
“She’s safe.”
Rocco says something else.
“No.”
Another burst of cold fury through the phone. Matteo’s face changes.
He has made a decision. I see it before he speaks.
“She is not returning to the flat.”
Rocco’s voice goes quiet. That is worse.
Matteo listens. Then he looks at Lucia’s hand wrapped around mine. He ends the call.
“What did he say?” I ask.
Matteo removes the earpiece Rocco gave him and places it on the kitchen table.
“He ordered me to take you back.”
“And?”
Matteo meets my eyes.
“I don’t work for him anymore.”
The room goes completely still around us.