Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Stefano
Maya doesn’t speak to me on the drive to the airfield.
She sits beside me in the back of the car with her hands folded in her lap, looking out at Miami as though she can memorize enough of it to return unchanged.
Dawn has started pulling color back into the streets, softening the palms and low buildings beyond the tinted windows.
She wears dark jeans, boots, and a black coat that hides the weapon Raven insisted she carry once we land.
She has not looked at me since she walked out of the bathroom after calling Raven.
Omar sits across from us with his phone in one hand, pretending to read messages. He has been pretending for twenty minutes. His eyes lift every time Maya shifts, then drop before either of us can call him on it.
“You are both exhausting,” he says eventually.
Maya does not turn from the window. “No one asked you to come.”
“I work for him.”
“That sounds like a personal failure.”
Omar looks at me. “You see what I deal with?”
“I do.”
Maya glances over at last. “You are both impossible.”
“That is not new information,” I tell her.
Her mouth twitches.
Only once.
The airfield is quiet when we arrive. My jet waits at the far end of the private terminal, engines warming beneath the pale sky.
Two of my men stand near the stairs while the pilot speaks with Omar.
Everything moves with the usual efficiency—bags loaded, perimeter checked, fuel confirmed, no staff lingering where they do not belong.
Maya stops at the bottom of the stairs and looks at the plane.
“You have a private jet.”
“I have several.”
She turns toward me slowly. “I was answering your question.”
Omar walks past us with a bag over one shoulder. “At least she is talking again.”
Maya gives him a flat look. “I can stop.”
“Please don’t. The silence was making him unbearable.”
I look at Omar.
He keeps walking.
Maya follows him up the stairs before I can offer my hand. I let her. Her anger has edges, but it is still movement toward me. Distance would be easier. Anger means she has not stopped caring enough to fight, and that is better than silence.
Inside, she takes the seat across from mine.
A message.
Not a declaration.
Omar notices, of course. He settles into the rear of the cabin, opens his laptop, and grants us the privacy that only exists because he is listening to every word.
The jet lifts an hour later.
Maya keeps her attention on the window until the clouds swallow Miami beneath us. Her shoulders stay tight through takeoff, one hand gripped around the armrest as if she were expecting the plane to give her another reason to be angry.
Once the seatbelt light clicks off, she reaches for the tray next to her.
There is a tablet mounted in the armrest, stocked with movies, shows, and enough music to entertain someone through a hostage situation. Maya scrolls through the options with the same grim focus she used while reviewing the Boston floor plan.
“What are you looking for?” I ask.
“A distraction.”
“You have Omar for that.”
Omar does not look up from his laptop. “I heard that.”
“You were supposed to.”
Maya ignores both of us and continues scrolling. Her finger pauses over an action movie with a man holding a machine gun in front of an exploding building.
“That one,” she says.
I look at the screen. “You have seen it.”
“Twice.”
“You complained through the entire second half.”
“Because the physics were insulting.”
“It is an action movie.”
“That is not an excuse.”
“It seems to be for everyone involved.”
Omar makes a sound that might be a laugh.
Maya looks at him. “You have terrible taste too?”
“I have no opinion.”
“That is cowardice.”
“That is survival.”
She starts the movie before I can answer.
For the first twenty minutes, she says nothing. Then the lead actor jumps from a moving train onto a helicopter with one hand and lands without breaking anything important.
Maya sighs loudly.
“That is impossible.”
“It is a movie.”
“It is still impossible.”
“He is the protagonist. They survive unreasonable things.”
She turns toward me. “Is that what you think?”
“I think people survive unreasonable things every day.”
The answer lands differently than I intended.
Her look softens for half a second, then she looks back at the screen.
A flight attendant appears with drinks and a tray of snacks. Maya reaches for the almonds, changes her mind, and takes the pretzels instead. She sets them between us without asking.
I take one.
She looks at me. “You eat pretzels?”
“I eat food.”
I take another pretzel.
Maya watches me chew, as if she expects the act itself to reveal a weakness.
Then she smiles.
It is small. Unplanned. Gone almost immediately.
The movie continues. The hero crashes another vehicle, gets shot in the shoulder, and manages to climb a forty-story building with one arm.
Maya shifts closer to the aisle between our seats, pointing at the screen. “That man should be dead.”
“He is not.”
“His shoulder is shredded.”
“He has motivation.”
“That is not medical care.”
“It has worked for him so far.”
She stares at me.
Then she laughs.
The sound is quiet at first. It grows when Omar mutters, “He is right. The man has plot armor,” without taking his eyes off the laptop.
Maya covers her mouth, but it does nothing to hide the laugh.
I watch her more than the movie.
She does not notice at first. When she does, she looks at me over her hand.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That is never true when you say it.”
“I was thinking you are very loud for someone who claimed she wanted silence this morning.”
“Maybe I changed my mind.”
“Maybe.”
She reaches for the pretzels again, but I take the bowl first and move it to my side.
Her brows rise. “Did you just steal the snacks?”
“You were not eating them.”
“I was pacing myself.”
“You are losing focus.”
“I am watching a movie masterpiece.”
“You are criticizing a man for surviving a helicopter crash.”
“He deserved the criticism.”
“You sound emotionally invested.”
“I am.”
I hand the bowl back.
Her fingers skim mine as she takes it. The touch lasts less than a second, but it settles into the space between us more heavily than it should.
She turns back toward the movie.
I let her.
For another half hour, the cabin feels almost ordinary.
Maya complains about the music. Omar argues that the music is the best part.
I inform both of them that they are wrong.
Maya steals the last of the pretzels from the bowl while insisting I had enough.
Omar closes his laptop long enough to point out that the lead actor has somehow survived a third explosion without losing his shirt, and the easy back-and-forth feels like proof we have not been pushed too far apart.
Maya complains about the soundtrack. Omar argues that the soundtrack is the best part.
I tell them both they are wrong. Maya steals the last of the pretzels from the bowl while insisting I had enough.
Omar closes his laptop long enough to point out that the lead actor has somehow survived a third explosion without losing his shirt.
“That is the most unrealistic part,” Maya says.
I look at her.
She catches my expression and narrows her eyes.
“Do not.”
“I said nothing.”
“You were about to.”
“I was thinking it.”
“That is worse.”
The movie ends with the protagonist standing in front of a burning building while everyone around him applauds for reasons no one explains.
Maya stares at the credits.
“That was terrible.”
“You chose it.”
Her eyes stay on the screen.
I understand then. Not the movie. Not the absurd explosions or terrible medical logic.
The known ending. The predictable lines.
The fact that she could spend two hours watching something in which every problem was loud, uncomplicated, and guaranteed to resolve itself before the credits played, because it is easier than thinking about what waits after landing.
I do not say any of that, though; instead, I reach for the remote and start another film.
Maya looks over. “What is this?”
“You choose after this one.”
“That is suspiciously generous.”
“I am capable of generosity.”
“You are capable of buying things.”
“That is also generosity.”
Her mouth curves.
By the time the pilot announces our descent into Boston, Maya has curled sideways in her seat, one boot pressed beneath her, her head resting against the armrest between us. Her eyes are closed.
Not asleep.
Just resting.
Her hand has drifted near mine on the shared console.
I could take it.
I do not.
The pilot’s voice comes through the cabin again.
“Ten minutes to landing.”
Maya opens her eyes.
The softness leaves her face before the sentence finishes.
She straightens. Pulls her coat snug. Checks the weapon at the small of her back with a movement so practiced it barely looks like one. The woman who argued about action-movie physics disappears behind Agent Reeves’s control.
Omar wakes immediately and opens his laptop again.
The cabin changes.
No one says it has changed.
The airfield in Boston is colder than Miami by enough that the wind bites through Maya’s coat the moment we step onto the stairs.
Cloud cover has flattened the sky into a hard white ceiling.
Black SUVs wait near the hangar. Raven stands beside the first one with two agents positioned behind her, blonde hair pulled back hard enough to make her look sharper than the weather.
Maya exhales once.
“Miami has ruined me,” she mutters.
“You will survive the weather.”
“I have survived worse.”
The words are light.
They do not feel light.
Raven’s gaze lands on Maya first, then shifts to me.
“Savarese.”
“Raven.”
“You brought the mafia.”
“You brought the FBI.”
Her eyes narrow. “You were not invited.”
“And yet here I am.”
Maya steps between us before Raven can decide whether this is a useful argument. “What do we have?”
Raven turns to her immediately. Professional. Focused.
“Leon is meeting a buyer tonight at a private club in the Back Bay. We have eyes on three of his men. We have enough probable cause to move as soon as we confirm the account information and transfer documents are in the room.”
“And the children?” Maya asks.
Raven’s expression tightens. “Nothing suggests they are in Boston.”
Maya’s shoulders lower by half an inch.
I notice.
Raven notices too.
“He has been asking questions about them,” Raven continues. “Not because he wants them back. He wants to know who took them.”
“Property,” Maya says.
“We take him alive,” Raven says, looking directly at me. “That is the operation.”
I meet her stare. “You say that as if I have forgotten.”
“I say it because you have a history of improvising.”
“Only when a situation calls for it.”
“That is exactly what concerns me.”
The briefing takes place in a secure conference room inside a rented office suite near the club. Maps cover the central table: entry points, kitchen access, security cameras, service corridors, possible exits. Raven explains her team placement while Maya studies every line, arms crossed.
She is good at this.
Too good.
She asks the right questions. Which stairwell runs behind the VIP rooms?
Whether Leon’s driver stays with the car.
Whether the club manager is compromised.
Whether the service exit has cameras or only a keypad.
Raven answers without condescension, and for several minutes I watch Maya become the woman who existed before me.
Agent Reeves.
Controlled. Precise. Difficult to reach.
When the briefing ends, Raven pulls Maya aside to speak quietly with two agents. Omar takes a call near the window. The room empties in layers until Maya and I are standing alone near the door.
She checks the weapon at her lower back, then reaches for the collar of her coat.
I stop her hand.
Her eyes lift to mine.
“What are you doing?”
“Your collar is crooked.”
“It is not.”
“It is.”
The same argument from Miami.
Her breath catches when my fingers skim the side of her neck. I smooth the fabric into place, slower than necessary, my thumb resting briefly below her jaw.
“We go in,” I say. “You stay where I can see you.”
“That is not the plan.”
“It’s my plan.”
Her eyes flash. “Don’t even think about it Stefano, we stick to Raven’s plan. We have our assignments to follow.”
I shift closer.
“Maya.”
“What?”
“If Leon says anything about Alice, do not let him use it.”
Her countenance stills, and the fight leaves her face for a moment. Then she nods, and steps back, and I let my hand fall. Outside the conference room, Raven calls her name.
Tonight, Leon will see her again. Tonight, he will learn exactly how much he failed to break. And if he mistakes that strength for mercy, Boston will be the last city he ever sees.