Chapter 16
Lula
The drive leavingCavalli’s is very different from the one a mere hour before.
This time, I relax in the backseat with Victor, holding his hand. No blindfold. I returned his knife, and he gave me back my Sig Sauer. Its weight feels weird but familiar.
Two of the guys ride in the front. Joe and Spiro. Joe is driving again, keeping to back roads.
We’re rolling down an alleyway when I recognize the silver siding of the building up ahead.
“Stop here a moment,” I say. “Please.”
Joe looks into the rearview mirror, and Victor nods. The car slows to a stop.
The back door of Three Diner opens before I step out of the car. Two of the owners greet me. The tall young woman with dark glasses and the tiny white-haired one with weathered hands. The shadow of a third woman, round and matronly, haunts the door.
“You’ve returned,” the young woman says, with a hint of a smile. Her head angles like she’s looking into the sky or hearing music playing far away. “And you’re not alone.”
“Yes.” I don’t know what I want to say to them, so I wait through an awkward pause.
“You’re ready, daughter of Vera,” the white-haired lady pronounces.
My throat clogs up, but I nod.
“Then go, and fate will bless you.”
I slide into the back seat, and Joe takes his foot off the brake a second later. Victor tips his head to the two women and gives them a cocky wave.
As soon as they’re out of view, he leans forward to study my face. “Did you get what you needed?”
“Yes,” I say, but then I amend, “but not from them. I already have what I need.”
“Almost,” he says and holds up a silver chain, the sword charm dangling from his palm.
I’d cuss him out, but I’m too happy to see my old necklace. I lift my hair and let him put it on me. He takes his sweet time and fiddles with it so the sword settles on my sternum.
And all too soon, we’re at an ancient brick warehouse a few blocks away from the docks. I recognize the area. “This is Vesuvi territory.”
“Yes. Stephanos has bolt holes like this all over the city. It’s how he’s survived.” He’s patting his clothes, presumably checking his hidden knives. “He’s inside.”
This is it. The moment I’ve prepared for all my life.
I press the sword into my skin for a second before shrugging out of Victor’s long coat. I take a moment to check my Glock. In the front seat, Joe and Spiro are doing the same.
“Here.” Victor holds up a black vest. I shrug it on, and he makes sure it’s fastened up the front.
“We disabled those cameras,” Spiro tells me, pointing to the surrounding buildings and the silver or black equipment nestled in the eaves. “But he’ll have more inside.”
“Thank you.”
A heaviness settles over me, more than the weight of the vest. Reality descending. I open the car door, and the sky above is so blue, I could cry. The shadows at my feet are dark and deep, and I can see every speck of dust floating in the air between me and the warehouse door.
When I step out of the car, Victor appears at my side. “I’m coming with you.”
“Of course.” He’s made it clear he wants to keep me close. Whether because he loves me or thinks I’m his property, it doesn’t matter.
He pulls on a black ski mask and glides ahead of me. Signaling me to wait, he presses a hand to the heavy steel door. It opens easily, without a sound. Did he come here beforehand and oil the hinges? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Victor leans in, his whisper barely stirring my hair. “He’s fond of booby traps, but there won’t be many here because he hasn’t had the time to set them. He was hiding elsewhere. Recent events flushed him out.”
Recent events. Like Victor killing Bruno and presenting his head to me on a platter. A grisly valentine.
I can’t help it. I glance at Victor with a little grin. He lifts his hone-blond brows and signals me. Come?
In answer, I press a thumb and forefinger together and stalk into the warehouse, gripping my Glock tight. The safety’s off, and it leads the way. The vest Victor gave me lays like a stone on my chest, but I welcome the weight. It keeps my heart from flying from my chest.
But I’m calm and centered as I move deeper into my enemy’s hiding place.
I don’t need luck or fate.
I have Victor.
Once inside, he signals me to go left. There’s a TV buzzing somewhere off to the right, but I trust him. A quick glance at the concrete floor shows faint footprints in the dust and a glint of steel wire.
Booby trap number one.
We round a huge shipping container, and I stop when he signals me to.
He points at a camera overhead. We back up and find a different way through the stacked crates and past a few big machines folded up like the carcasses of giant dead insects. Victor points out more cameras, another trip wire—booby trap number two—and a patch of disturbed dust that seems to cover a metal plate of some sort. Every step of the way, he uses the hand signals he taught me during my captivity to guide me safely forward. We sidle carefully past booby trap number three, all while an announcer on TV narrates a baseball game.
We’ve taken care not to kick up too much dust, but it hangs thick in the air. I breathe through my mouth, willing myself not to sneeze.
The TV noise is coming from a small room up ahead. Once an overseer’s office, the grimy windows mute the yellow light, but it glows like a beacon of light and sound in the forgotten space. There’s a set of footprints leading from it to the back of the warehouse, to an exit or bathroom or both. Victor and I creep around until we’re in front of the door. Through it, we have a straight line of sight into the cramped room. There’s a shelf with a microwave on top and a mini fridge below. Takeout containers and potato chip bags litter the floor. Just out of sight, on a sagging couch, Stephanos lounges in ratty slippers.
He’s just sitting there in his sweatpants, watching TV and eating chips. Living his life long after he snuffed my mother’s out.
Victor, slowly so I can see him, draws a long knife. A good throwing knife. He mimes tossing it at one of the booby traps behind us. The noise will startle Stephanos and drive him out of his nest.
Right into the line of fire.
I nod and raise my Glock. Victor slips forward, and I bite back a hiss. He’s sneaking closer to get a better shot at hitting the booby trap but also to cover any other hidden exits Stephanos might use. My instinct is to call him back and tell him to stop, but I don’t.
I trust him.
He raises the knife and pauses. I reaffirm my grip on my gun.
His throw is so quick and smooth I don’t see the knife. But the instant it hits the trip wire, there’s a discordant twang, and a tower of boxes comes crashing down.
Stephanos is up and racing out the door toward me. His yellow-white shirt fills my vision, and I brace myself and take aim.
Crack!
The force of the shot reverberates up my arm. Acrid smoke fills my nose. I fire again and again, my ears deafened by the noise. The pulse of the gun is a steady heartbeat against my palm. In the distance, through the gray clouds, Stephanos jerks and dances.
There’s a clap of noise and an explosion of heat that sends me staggering to the right. The world is muted beyond my buzzing ears.
Something else knocks into me, and I crash to the floor. The weight isn’t sharp or too heavy, and I understand what it is as the dust settles. Victor. Covering me with his huge body.
He’s on his feet in the next second, peeling me off the floor and backing me into a safe corner. I keep my Glock out, pointing into the dancing dust cloud at his back. Covering him like he covered me.
My back hits a corner, and a breath escapes. The warehouse area we’re in is wrecked, with clouds of sawdust threatening to make me cough and debris littering the floor.
“Stephanos?” I manage to say without hacking on the heavy particulate hanging in the air.
“Hurt, but he managed to trigger the explosion.” He pauses, and we both hear it: a labored wheezing a few yards away.
The hunt is not over yet.
Victor helps me step over splintered wood and creep closer to our quarry.
Stephanos is a slight form on the floor, grunting as he tries to pull his leg out from under a fallen steel beam. Trapped by the explosion he triggered.
I pause and look up at Victor, waiting for his signal. His ski mask is no longer black but gray with dust.
After a sweep, he raises his hand and touches his forefinger to his thumb, giving me the go-ahead.
I raise my hand and offer him my Glock. He understands instantly and trades my Glock for his knife.
For a moment, we stand together, holding our weapons and gazing into each other’s eyes. His gaze drops to my lips like he wishes he could kiss me. My body tightens. Okay, I signal back.
He touches my back gently. Go.
I step over a fallen board and stroll to the spot where Stephanos is pinned.
He’s smaller up close. Grooves line his face and sunken cheeks, surrounding his black, beady eyes. There’s an unhealthy pallor to his skin, and I know that time and heart disease would’ve ended him sooner rather than later.
But that won’t be his fate.
His eyes go wide, and he bares his teeth when he sees me. “You.”
“Me.” I sink down and plant a knee on his chest.
He blinks at me with sawdust-coated eyelashes. Up close and exposed like this, his ugliness is repulsive, like something crawling out from under a rock. He bats at me, but his arms are limp, weakened by the bullets he took to the chest. He struggles to breathe under my weight, his body fighting to stay alive.
I set the knife at his grime-streaked throat, ready to strike the way Victor took pains to teach me. “This is for my mother.”
* * *
Victor
The blade flashesas Lula cuts just as I taught her. I force myself to wait with my weight pitched forward into my toes until the stench of death rises in the air. I pull off my ski mask, meant to dull my distinctive hair.
Lula rises slowly, her dark hair swinging like a cape behind her. I don’t have to go to her. She returns to me, offering me the knife back. Her eyes are black. “You’re right. It is more satisfying.”
There’s blood on her jaw and cheek. I secrete away the knife and touch her face carefully, tipping it this way and that. There’s a dark stain in the corner of her mouth, blending with the brighter red of her lipstick. “You have some blood. . .”
“Don’t worry,” she murmurs. “It’s not mine.”
I swipe it away and bow to claim her lips.
My dark, vengeful angel.
The sound of a slamming door breaks us apart. “What—” She raises her empty hands. I still have her Glock.
“It’s all right,” I say, even as I draw us into the shadows. “Spiro made a call to your cousin.”
“Royal?” she says as her cousin appears, flushed and angry and glaring at me. His men fan out behind him, covering him.
“Lula.” His gaze sweeps the area, registering Stephanos’ still form before returning to us. He opens his mouth, but before he can speak, someone else pushes forward, raising a gun with a shout.
* * *
Lula
I watchit in slow motion. Royal, looking angry and relieved, ready to tear me a new one. Enzo and the rest of our cousins are covering his back but turn toward the new threat.
It’s my brother, crashing through the debris, his gaze fixed on Victor. “You,” he snarls and swings his gun muzzle upward.
“No,” I shout and step between them.
Too late.
Gino’s pulling the trigger, but fate’s on our side. In his carelessness, Gino blundered into one of the booby traps. He’s already falling forward as the gun goes off. I flinch, but the shot goes wild. It hits a machine and ricochets. Everyone ducks.
Royal curses in Italian. “Someone take his gun.”
Enzo rushes to take care of it. Gino’s still flailing on the floor.
“Idiota.” Royal runs a hand over his face. He looks tired as he turns to me. “Lucrezia.”
“I’m okay.” I step forward, tears pricking my eyes at the sight of him. “I’m in a vest. Victor. . .” I turn back to where Victor stands silently, the sunlight filtering in through the dust gilds his stunning features. He looks calm, maybe a little sad.
Behind me, Royal clears his throat, and I realize I’ve lost my train of thought. It’s not often that that happens.
“Victor,” I say more firmly, “found Stephanos. He helped me.”
“Helped you?”
“Saved me. He saved me.” From myself especially.
Royal looks back and forth between us. I can tell it’s on the tip of his tongue to give the order to incapacitate or maybe even kill Victor.
So I gesture for my beautiful monster to come and wait until he’s standing at my side to make things clear. “You can’t kill him,” I tell Royal and the men of my family, gripping Victor’s hand. “He’s mine.”