Chapter 19
VIOLET
The elevator ride to the forty-second floor takes approximately nine thousand years.
We stand side by side, not touching, not speaking—it’s not at all what I’d expected to be doing if I’d imagined Gianni and me together alone in an elevator.
I compose and discard six different opening sentences in my head, each one worse than the last. I can explain sounds like a guilty person.
You have to trust me sounds like a liar.
My real name is Jessica doesn’t feel at all like something I’m ready to say out loud in the middle of my mafia-connected boss’s office.
Jessica was supposed to be dead and gone, never to return. But now she’s going to make an appearance.
Gianni stares at the doors. His jaw could cut diamonds.
When we step out onto the executive floor, it occurs to me that I've never seen him at work in anything other than a suit that costs more than my rent. Today he's still in the jeans and charcoal henley from this morning, sleeves pushed to his forearms, no tie, no waistcoat, no armor.
The security guard at the desk did a visible double-take when we walked in.
"No suit today?" I say, because apparently, I've chosen this moment to make small talk.
"Casual Friday."
"You don't do casual."
"I'm expanding my range."
His tone is as dry and sardonic as ever, and I almost smile before I remember we're in the middle of something very, very serious.
He unlocks his office, holds the door, and I walk in. He follows and closes it behind us with the firm, decisive click of a man sealing a room.
He doesn't sit behind his desk. He stands near the window, back lit by the Manhattan skyline, his arms at his sides. I stand near the door, ten feet of expensive Persian rug between us.
"Sit down," he says.
"I'd rather stand."
"Violet—"
"I'd rather stand, Gianni."
His eyes flash, and I’m sure his first instinct is to tell me to obey him. But he says nothing, letting it go.
"Your identity is fake.”
He hits the word fake hard, and it connects with the force of a goddamn punch.
“Every data point in your file was built from scratch by someone with one-in-a-million skills.
I know this because I had Spackman pull it apart piece by piece, and there's nothing underneath. There’s no history, no trail, no nothing.
" He pauses. "You appeared out of nowhere eleven months ago, fully formed.”
Silence hangs in the air. He’s made his case, and it’s unimpeachable. A small part of me wants to tell him some bullshit story, that Violet is real and he has bad information. But there’s no point. It took a year, but I’ve been found out. No sense in trying to lie about it.
“And you came into my life right when the U.S. Attorney's office started building a RICO case against me."
I gasp. "You think I'm a plant."
He doesn't deny it. The accusation hits me hard. I’d been ready to be called out for a phony ID, but this? He thinks I’m actively plotting against him?
"You think the FBI sent me.” My voice is as steady as I can make it, though my hands are anything but.
I fold my arms across my chest to hide them.
"You think I showed up here as some kind of undercover operation? You think I wrote a novel about you as a honey trap? A way to get you to let your guard down? And what, you think I fucked you as part of this?”
More silence. My pulse is roaring.
"I think the timing is convenient."
"Convenient." I spit the word out. "You think it's convenient that I appeared in your life scared and broke and hiding from something that could kill me, and the best explanation you can come up with is I'm a Fed trying to take you down?”
"I think a man in my position survives by considering all possibilities—and by not ignoring coincidences."
"And I think a woman in my position survives by making sure not to trust the wrong men.”
His eyes flash, and there’s a flicker of anger across his face. Gianni’s not the easiest man in the world to read, but I’m getting better by the day.
"Then tell me the truth," he says. "All of it. Right now."
"You won't believe me."
"Try me."
I stare at this man who’d let my son hold his finger on a sidewalk in Sunnyside an hour ago. This man who is looking at me right now like I might be the thing that destroys him.
I'm so tired of hiding. On top of that, it’s not an option any longer. I have to tell Gianni the truth before he believes something false.
"My name isn't Violet Wolfe," I say. "It was Jessica. Jessica Dawson. I changed it when I took my son and disappeared from Chicago because my ex-husband was going to kill me."
The room is silent. His brow furrows just enough to let me know he’s listening and paying very close attention.
“Your ex-husband,” he says.
"He's FBI," I continue. "A special agent, a total golden boy in the Chicago field office. Had a spotless record, charming and professional and every supervisor's favorite—though I knew he was as dirty as they come. But in public, he puts on his very best mask.”
I squeeze my hands together. This is harder than I thought it would be. But Gianni’s expression softens just enough to encourage me to go on.
“In private—" My voice catches. I push through it. "In private, he beat me. I suffered three years of this. He told me if I ever left, he'd find me. He told me he'd take Patrick. He told me he'd use every resource the Bureau has to hunt me down, and I believed him. I had every reason to.”
Gianni is very still. His expression hasn't changed, but something behind it has shifted—a recalculation happening in real time, pieces rearranging.
"My best friend is a hacker," I say, then I shrug. "Well, hacking is a hobby. She built my identity. She erased Jessica and created Violet, and I came to New York because it was the biggest city I could disappear in. I took a job at your company because it was hiring. I needed a paycheck and my kid needed a roof over his head. That's it—that's the whole story. There’s no FBI operation, just a woman who ran—and one who’s still on the run. I know you said you don’t believe in coincidences, but that’s what this is. If you still don’t believe me, I guess there’s nothing I can do about that. But I’m telling you the truth.”
The silence stretches for five seconds, then ten. My legs are weak underneath me and I feel sick.
"That’s a compelling story. But there’s nothing in it that convinces me you’re not a plant.” His tone is low and even, like he’s giving his final assessment. “One who has her story down pat—one who is a very good actress.”
The words hit me like a backhand, not because they’re cruel—even if that’s what it feels like in the moment. As angry as I am, as scared as I am, I understand he’s looking at this situation from the only perspective he can—one of a mob boss who has to consider all of the angles.
Even more, I can sense he doesn’t want to believe it, that he wants it to be a huge coincidence and I’m actually the woman I really am. But I understand what’s at risk.
"Then I don't know what to tell you," I say. My voice is shaking now, and I don't care anymore. "I’ve given you everything I can. I've told you the truth. If that's not enough, then..."
"Then what?"
"Then I'll disappear again. I've done it before. I'll take Patrick and I'll go, and you'll never have to wonder whether I'm real because I'll be gone and it won't matter."
He narrows his eyes. "You think I'd let you—"
The door explodes open. Not opens. Not swings. Explodes—hitting the wall hard enough to rattle the frame, and suddenly the room is full of people in dark suits with badges held high, voices overlapping in a flat, authoritative bark.
Gianni’s face is calm and even, and I get the distinct impression that this isn’t the first FBI raid he’s been on the receiving end of.
"FBI. Mr. Russo, we have some questions regarding—"
I don't hear the rest. Because the man leading them through the door—the man stepping into Gianni's office with his badge clipped to his belt and his shoulders squared in an easy, confident, camera-ready stride I’ve watched him practice so many times—is Lance.
He's here.
Standing fifteen feet from me in Gianni Russo's office.
And when he lays eyes on me, that particular, horrible kind of fear only he can make me feel returns like it never left.
"Well," he says, his gaze locked on mine. "Small world."
The floor drops out from under me can’t breathe and I can’t move.
Gianni stands on one side of the room, Lance on the other.
My chest aches and I feel dizzy. It’s like I’m twenty-three years old again, standing in my kitchen in Chicago the first horrible night he let the mask slip and showed me who he really was.
Gianni's eyes move from him to me. I see the moment it clicks. The recognition. Not of his face—of my fear. The kind of fear that doesn't come from guilt or deception; the kind that comes from a body that remembers exactly what happens next.
His expression changes.
Before either of them can speak, he turns to Gianni, adjusts his badge, and smiles. "Mr. Russo. I'm Special Agent Lance Dawson, FBI. I've just transferred from the Chicago field office." He extends his hand. "I believe we have quite a bit to discuss."