Chapter 44
VIOLET
I've been working the zip ties for forty-seven minutes.
I know this because there’s a clock on the mantle—an old brass thing with a cracked face, probably left by whoever owned this cabin when it was still a charming retreat outside of the city and not a place where women are tied up.
I struggle against the zip ties, the hard edges of the plastic digging into my skin. They feel a little looser, but I can’t tell if it’s because I’m actually making progress or if I’m getting used to the pain of fighting against them.
The second hand of the clock ticks and tocks, like it’s a countdown to Lance returning and finally finishing this in the only way I know will make him happy—with me dead.
The guard is still outside by the door. He hasn’t so much as popped his head inside, giving me the chance to do whatever I’m trying to do with the zip ties.
My wrists are raw and there's blood mixing with the sweat. The guard hasn't noticed because I'm sitting still and quiet, like a rabbit, like the thing Lance said I was. But I'm not a rabbit anymore.
The zip tie frays. Not enough to break—not yet—but enough that I can feel the give, the slight loosening around my left wrist. A few more minutes. Maybe ten. I keep working.
Outside, I hear a car on the gravel. Through the window I see the guard straighten, and I can hear the crunch of footsteps on gravel.
He’s back.
Through the window, I spot Lance approaching the guard, and I can tell right away by the look on his face that something has changed. The composure’s gone. His tie is loosened and his hair disturbed, like he’s been running his hands through it compulsively.
"They let him go," Lance says.
“What? Who?”
“Who the hell do you think?” he barks. “Russo!”
“How?”
"The raid. The warrant. The entire investigation." He's pacing now, the phone slapping against his thigh with every turn. "Thrown out. All of it. That hacker bitch walked into the field office with a hard drive and blew up two years of work in twenty minutes."
Kylie. My heart surges.
"And Theresa—" He laughs. The sound is jagged, broken glass. "Theresa is talking. Of course she's talking. She was always going to talk, she doesn't have the spine to—" He stops pacing.
Shit. There’s silence, then the sound of the front door unlocking.
Lance enters. He looks at me and his eyes are wrong. Not flat or empty or calculated or brimming with disgusting confidence. It’s this strange, faraway look he’d get on his worst nights, as if he’d been separated from his body and was simply watching events unfold.
It’s the look he had on his face the night he hit me hard enough to knock me out.
For a long moment, I expect him to simply take out a gun and shoot me, easy as that. But he doesn’t. Instead, he keeps staring forward, then he swallows, licks his lips, and speaks.
"This is your fault."
"My fault?"
"Everything. All of it. The investigation is dead because of you.
My career is over because of you. I transferred to New York, I moved my entire operation, I spent a year tracking you down, and now—" He steps toward me.
I can smell the nervous sweat on him. "You were supposed to be alone.
You were supposed to have nothing. No one.
You were supposed to be the scared little girl I married, and instead you—what?
You found a mob boss to hide behind? You found a hacker to cover your tracks? You built a whole new life and you—"
"I survived," I say. "That's what happened, Lance. I survived you."
He hits me with an open hand across the face. Not the calculated violence of the man who used to calibrate his strikes to avoid visible bruising. This is wild—reactive, desperate, the swing of a man whose mask has shattered and doesn't have the composure to perform anymore.
My head snaps to the side. Stars burst across my vision. My cheek burns. But the force of the impact jerks my body in the chair, and my left wrist—the one I've been working at for forty-seven minutes—slides free.
I keep it hidden. My right hand is still bound. My left hand drops to my side, out of his sight line, and I press it against the chair leg and wait.
"You think he's coming for you?" Lance is crouching in front of me now, his face inches from mine, his breath hot and sour. "Russo? He's in FBI custody. He's not coming. Nobody's coming. It's just you and me, Jessica, the way it was always going to be."
"He's not in custody anymore," I say. "I heard you say they let him go. Don’t try to lie to me."
"Shut up," Lance says. "Shut up."
"He's coming, Lance."
"I said shut up."
He grabs the front of my shirt and pulls me forward, the chair scraping against the floor. His other hand is raised and I see it coming the way I always saw it coming in Chicago, the wind-up, the tension in his shoulder, the moment before impact.
But I'm not in Chicago.
I drive my free hand into his throat. Not hard enough to crush anything, but hard enough to choke, hard enough to surprise, hard enough to make him stagger backward with his hands clutching his neck, coughing, eyes wide with the shock of a man who has never once had his victim fight back.
I yank my right wrist against the remaining zip tie. The frayed plastic stretches, bites, holds—then snaps. Both hands are free. I'm on my feet, the chair clattering behind me, and I'm moving toward the door when the guard enters and steps into my path.
Big. Solid. A wall of meat between me and the exit. I stop.
Behind me, Lance is recovering. Straightening. His hand goes to his belt, and I see the black grip of a handgun holstered at his hip that I didn't notice before, hidden by his jacket.
He draws it.
"Sit. Down.” His voice is raw from the throat strike. Hoarse, damaged. But the gun is steady. The gun is the one thing about Lance that's always been steady—his hands don't shake when he's holding power. Only when he's lost it.
"You hit me," he says, wonderment in his voice, genuine disbelief. "You actually hit me."
"First time for everything."
The gun rises and he levels it with my chest. My hands cover my belly. The look in his eyes is different than I’ve seen before. Blank and hollow and evil.
He’ll kill me. I know he will.
Suddenly, I hear the sound of tires on gravel. And not just one car—many—followed by the slam of doors, loud, authoritative voices. The guard turns toward the window, and through the boarded slats, I see multiple sets of headlights cutting through the trees.
Lance hears it too. His head snaps toward the window, and for one second, the gun drifts off target.
The front door explodes inward. Wood splinters. Hinges scream. And through the wreckage, back lit by headlights and the blue-red flash of federal vehicles, Gianni walks through the door.
Every ounce of the composed, controlled, three-piece-suit authority is stripped away, replaced by something raw and primal and terrifying.
His eyes find me first—standing, alive, my face bruised, my wrists bloody—and what crosses his expression isn't relief.
It's wrath. The cold, total, absolute wrath of a man who is looking at damage done to someone he would burn the world to protect.
His eyes find Lance. And the gun.
Lance swings toward Gianni. The weapon comes up, fast and desperate.
Gianni crosses the room in three strides, faster than a man his size should be able to move.
Lance fires. The sound is enormous in the small cabin, deafening, a crack that splits the air and punches a hole in the log wall two feet to Gianni's left.
He missed. At ten feet, with a steady hand and a clear target, Lance Dawson missed, because his hands aren't steady anymore.
His control is gone. The mask is gone. Everything is gone.
Gianni reaches him.
What happens next takes approximately four seconds. Gianni's hand closes around Lance's gun wrist, twists, and the weapon clatters to the floor. His other hand drives into Lance's jaw—once, twice—and Lance staggers, drops, tries to rise.
Gianni stands over him. Breathing hard. He picks up the gun and points it at the man on the floor.
"Gianni."
He doesn't look at me. He's looking at Lance and the expression on his face is the one I saw through the factory doors. The calm, the patience, and the violence behind his eyes.
"Gianni," I say again. "Don't."
The cabin is flooding with light and sound—agents pouring through the door, weapons drawn, voices shouting. I see badges and the federal government arriving to claim the man it failed to control.
Gianni's finger rests on the trigger. Lance stares up at him from the floor, blood running from his nose, his mouth, and for the first time I see fear on Lance Dawson's face. Real fear. The kind he used to put on mine.
The gun doesn't move.
"Mr. Russo." An agent calls to him, voice, steady, professional. "Put the weapon down."