Chapter 35
VIOLET
“You’re working for Gianni.” I say it with as much disbelief as I feel.
“I am,” Kylie admits.
“How? Why?”
“He came to my office at The Meridian. His offer was good. He wanted me on his payroll for the express purpose of looking into Lance. Gianni has the resources, I have the skills. And it was all about taking that prick down.”
I take a moment, process what she’s saying. "And you didn't tell me."
"No."
The anger arrives hot and immediate, flooding my chest, tightening my throat. I push it aside. Kylie’s not the kind of person to do anything like this unless there was a damn good reason, one beyond just getting paid. But money’s a detail I can’t ignore.
"How much?" I ask.
"Enough." She holds my gaze. "More than enough.
He paid up front, Vi. And the first thing I did was move that money into an account he can't touch.
It's sitting there right now—enough to relocate you and me and Patrick to anywhere in the world.
New identities, new city, new everything.
If we need to run, we run. On his dime."
The anger doesn't disappear, but it shifts. I’m not happy, but her motivations are starting to become a little clearer.
"You've been spying on him," I say. "While working for him."
"I've been keeping a close eye on the man my pregnant best friend is living with. Yes." She doesn't apologize. "I needed to know who he really is. Not who he is with you, who he is when you're not looking. And I found something."
She opens her laptop on the table. Satellite imagery—grainy, time-stamped, showing an industrial block from overhead. She zooms in on a cluster of buildings along a waterfront I don't recognize.
"Hunts Point," she says. "South Bronx. This is a decommissioned meatpacking facility that's been off the grid for six years.
No active utilities, no listed tenants, no city records of any kind.
" She taps the screen. A dark shape in the parking area, time-stamped three days ago.
"That's Gianni's Lexus. I've tracked it here four times in the past two weeks.
Always at night, and always for less than two hours. "
I stare at the screen. The building is squat, industrial, surrounded by chain-link and broken asphalt.
"What's he doing there?"
"That's what we're going to find out."
I get a text on the way from Rudi; she’s at Gianni’s place with the boys and Nina. It’s a selfie of the four of them on the couch watching what looks to be Luca, which would make sense because Patrick’s probably seen it two hundred times by now.
Safe and sound. Thought you might have an unexpected sleepover on your hands—if that’s alright with you.
I heart react and tell her that’s just fine and she’s more than welcome to stay over too.
I let my phone drop into my lap, a sigh of relief pouring out of me. I hate that I’m a point in my life where just knowing my kid is safe is a relief.
In the car, heading north toward the Bronx, I press my hand against my stomach and try to organize the chaos in my head.
I'm driving to a building in an industrial wasteland to spy on the father of my unborn child, using surveillance tools he paid for.
If someone wrote this in a novel, I'd tell them it was too much.
Somewhere along the way, Kylie lost the guard who was trailing us. He’ll have hell to pay when Gianni finds out, but I couldn’t have him along for this little fishing expedition.
Kylie parks two blocks from the facility on a dead-end street that smells like diesel fuel. The neighborhood is industrial, half-abandoned—chain-link fences topped with rusted razor wire and loading docks with their doors hanging open.
"Stay close," Kylie says. "And stay quiet."
We move along the perimeter fence until Kylie finds what she's looking for—a section where the chain-link has been cut and re-bent recently, the edges still shiny.
Someone's been using this entrance regularly.
We slip through and cross the lot, keeping to the shadows along the east wall of the building.
The side door is unlocked as if whoever uses this place doesn't expect unannounced visitors.
Inside, the air is damp, rust staining just about every metal surface. The concrete floor is cracked and water-stained, and industrial light fixtures hang from the ceiling. None of them are on—the only light is what bleeds in from the streetlamps outside.
Then I hear voices. They’re low and controlled, coming from deeper inside the building, through a set of double doors cracked open just enough to let sound escape.
Kylie grabs my arm. We move to the doors and press ourselves against the wall. Through the gap, I can see into a larger space of what used to be a processing floor, maybe, open and high-ceilinged, the concrete stained with decades of industrial use.
A man is tied to a metal chair in the center of the room.
His hands are bound behind him with zip ties.
His face is swollen—left eye nearly shut, lip split, blood dripping from his nose onto his shirt in a slow, steady rhythm.
His head is hanging forward, chin against his chest, the posture of someone who's been in that chair for a while.
Spackman is standing to the man's right with his arms crossed, his jacket off, and his sleeves rolled up. His expression is flat, clinical. Not angry, not excited, just present. It reminds me of the way a surgeon looks during a procedure, cold and professional.
Gianni stands directly in front of the chair.
He's in shirtsleeves. No jacket, no waistcoat, no armor.
His cuffs are rolled to his forearms, and there's blood on his knuckles.
He's leaning forward, one hand gripping the arm of the chair, his face close to the man's face, and he's speaking in a tone that’s low and patient and scary as hell.
"I'll try once more," Gianni says. "And then Chad is going to take a different approach, and you're going to wish you'd answered me the first time."
The man lifts his head and spits blood onto the concrete. "I don't know anything about Dawson. Marino doesn't tell me—"
Gianni straightens and nods once at Spackman. My stomach sinks. Whatever happens next isn’t going to be good.
Spackman steps forward. He takes the man's right hand—still zip-tied behind the chair—and isolates one finger. The man starts to struggle, his breathing ragged, his head shaking.
"Wait—wait, I'll—"
Spackman bends the finger backward slowly. The sound the man makes isn't a scream—it's worse than a scream. It's a high, thin, animal sound that fills the factory and bounces off the concrete walls and settles into my bones.
Gianni watches. His expression doesn't change. Not a flinch, not a wince, not a flicker of discomfort. He watches with the calm, focused attention I’m used to seeing in his face in the office, but now in a newer, deadlier context.
The expression isn’t pleasure or sadism. He’s not enjoying this. But I’m not sure if that makes it any better.
"The addresses," Gianni says. "Marino's meeting points. Where he meets with Dawson. Give me locations, and this stops."
The man is gasping, his broken finger hanging at an angle that makes my stomach heave. "The—the pier. Red Hook. And a restaurant—Bensonhurst—Caruso's. That's where they meet. That's all I know, I swear."
"When?"
"Thursdays. Every Thursday. Please—"
Gianni holds up his hand. Spackman steps back. The man sags in the chair, sobbing.
"Thank you," Gianni says quietly and politely, as if the man just handed him a quarterly report instead of giving him an answer he had to torture out of him.
My hand is over my mouth. My back is pressed against the wall.
My legs are shaking so badly I don't know how I'm still standing, and my other hand is pressed flat against my stomach—against the microscopic life growing inside me that belongs to the man standing in a room with blood on his knuckles and patience in his voice.
Gianni turns suddenly. Through the gap in the double doors, his eyes find mine. The calm professionalism vanishes from his face, and what replaces it is something I’ve never seen before—horror. What I’ve just witnessed is something he never wanted me to see.
"Vi," Kylie whispers. "Move."
She grabs my arm and pulls. I stumble backward, away from the doors, through the side entrance, across the lot, through the cut fence, my heels catching on the broken asphalt. Kylie half-drags me to the car, pushes me into the passenger seat, and starts the engine.
We pull away and the factory shrinks in the side mirror.
"Are you okay?" Kylie asks.
I stare straight ahead. My hand hasn't moved from my stomach.
I don't answer.
Because I don't know.