Chapter Four
GIO
The Callahans leave an hour later.
Connor is still grumbling about percentages, and Declan is still pretending he doesn’t like me.
So, business as usual.
I wait until Armando closes the private dining-room doors behind them before pouring myself another bourbon.
Marco should have returned by now.
He hasn’t.
The restaurant has settled into its late-night rhythm. Beyond the doors, servers clear the last tables while the kitchen staff argue over closing duties. Glassware clinks into racks, and someone drops a pan hard enough to make half the room wince.
The candles on our table have burned low. Abandoned glasses and folded contracts remain where the Callahans left them.
I glance at Armando.
“What’s going on?”
If something pulls Marco away from a business meeting for this long, it’s more than a minor problem.
Armando hesitates.
“The Russian girl.”
I frown.
“The Russian girl?”
“The one who disappeared.”
I lift one shoulder and take a sip of bourbon.
“Good for her.”
Armando doesn’t laugh.
“Boss sent six crews to look for her.”
I lower my glass.
Marco doesn’t send six crews after missing women. He sends six crews after men who owe us money, men who killed one of ours, or men stupid enough to steal from him.
Not women.
Not ever.
“Who is she?”
Armando shifts his weight.
“Lucia Romanova.”
The name means nothing to me.
Clearly, it means something to Marco.
“What the hell does he want with her?”
“He didn’t say. He told us to look, but not to approach.”
I study him.
Armando knows more than he’s telling me. He also knows better than to share something Marco ordered him to keep quiet.
Annoying.
“Where is Marco?”
“Bruno brought him home.”
“Great.”
I glance toward the empty space where my car should be waiting.
Marco took my ride.
“Care to give me a lift?”
Armando drives me to the family estate in Belmont, about twenty minutes outside Boston.
The gates close behind us with a heavy metallic clang.
Our family home sits at the end of a long curving drive, surrounded by old trees and enough security to make an embassy jealous. The exterior is pale stone beneath a dark slate roof. Black shutters frame rows of tall windows, most of them glowing softly against the night.
Cameras are tucked beneath the eaves. Men occupy the gatehouse and patrol the edges of the property. None of it is obvious unless someone knows where to look.
From the outside, the house appears respectable.
That’s the point.
Our parents bought it when Marco and I were boys. It was too large then and feels larger now, despite Angela’s efforts to fill it with food, flowers, and unsolicited opinions.
We’re nearly at the front doors when I remember the woman waiting in my room above Vesuvio.
I let my head fall against the headrest as the SUV rolls to a stop.
“Damn.”
Armando glances at me.
“Problem?”
“I left a girl upstairs.”
He snorts.
At thirty-one, I should probably be better at remembering where I leave women.
Apparently, I’m not.
“I need one more favor.”
“Boss?”
“Get rid of her.”
One eyebrow rises.
“Politely?”
“Yes, Armando. Politely.”
I consider it.
“Tell her I’ll call.”
He looks at me.
“Will you?”
I open the door of the SUV and throw him a smile.
“Probably not.”
I step out of the car and take the front steps two at a time. At this hour, the house is mostly quiet. The overhead lights reflect off marble floors polished to a shine, and my footsteps echo toward the broad staircase.
A vase of fresh flowers stands beneath the chandelier. Angela replaces them every Monday, whether anyone notices or not.
Marco’s office sits at the back of the first floor.
Mine is directly across the hall, though his gets considerably more use.
Light spills through his open doorway.
I lean inside.
“Hey.”
He looks up from the papers scattered across his desk.
Our mother’s gray-green eyes meet mine. On Marco, they usually look cool and assessing. They changed completely whenever she laughed.
He doesn’t laugh often enough for the resemblance to become obvious.
“Hi. How did it go with the Callahans?”
“They agreed to five percent, but Connor wasn’t happy about it.”
He snorts.
“Connor isn’t happy about anything.”
“His son takes after him in that regard.”
Marco raises an eyebrow.
“Declan? He’s mostly harmless.”
He turns a page and reaches for another without looking away from the file.
I step into the office and lean against the doorframe.
“I sent Gretchen home.”
He glances up.
“Who?”
“The woman from earlier. The blonde.”
“Oh.”
“I could tell you weren’t feeling it.”
His shoulder lifts.
“You didn’t have to forgo it on my account.”
“I know.”
I watch him work.
Marco’s office looks like an extension of him. Dark shelves. Straight-backed chairs. Nothing on the desk that doesn’t serve a purpose. The tall windows behind him overlook the rear grounds, but the curtains have been drawn against the glass.
His jacket hangs over the back of a chair. His tie is loose, and the sleeves of his white shirt are rolled to his elbows. A cup of coffee sits untouched beside his computer.
Whatever is in that file has his complete attention.
Or he wants me to think it does.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on with the Russians?”
He flips another page.
“Mikhailov misplaced his niece.”
“Lucia Romanova,” I say. “Armando told me.”
He doesn’t react.
“Who is she?”
He leans back in his chair.
“Maybe somebody. Maybe nobody.”
“Well, that narrows it down.”
His gray-green eyes settle on me.
“Clearly, you think she’s somebody.”
“She’s Maria Rossi’s daughter.”
I frown.
“The Rossi daughter?”
I know the name. Everyone in our world does.
Once, the Rossi family controlled half of Boston’s North End.
By the time Marco and I were old enough to understand the business, most of them were dead or scattered.
Their restaurants belonged to other families.
Their buildings had been sold or left to decay.
The name survived mostly in stories told by men old enough to remember when it carried weight.
“So what?” I ask. “She married Alexei Romanov.”
Marco nods.
“To settle a debt.”
He pushes a document across the desk.
I leave the doorframe and walk over. Pinning the page beneath one finger, I turn it toward me.
It’s a birth certificate.
Lucia Irina Romanova. Born July twelfth.
“Okay,” I say. “So?”
He slides another document toward me.
This one is a marriage certificate for Maria Anna Rossi and Alexei Ivanovich Romanov.
“And?”
“Look at the date.”
I trace my finger across the line.
January third.
I look at Marco.
“So?”
“So Lucia probably isn’t a Romanov.”
“How do you know that?”
He taps the birth certificate.
“Babies born three months early don’t usually weigh eight pounds.”
I look between the documents.
The dates settle into place.
January to July.
Still, there are other explanations.
“He could have gotten her pregnant before the wedding.”
“Doubtful. Rossi wouldn’t have permitted Romanov near her before the agreement was made.”
“You don’t know they never found a way.”
“I know the kind of man Rossi was.”
I push the papers back toward him.
“Then what are you saying?”
Marco’s expression changes by a fraction.
For him, it qualifies as a smile.
“I’m saying Romanov being her father is unlikely.”
I pick up the birth certificate again.
A photocopied school photograph has been clipped to the page behind it.
Lucia looks sixteen or seventeen. Her dark hair falls over one shoulder, and her eyes are fixed on the camera above a faint, unguarded smile.
She looks younger than I expected.
Not because of her face.
Because there is still something unguarded in it.
I set the photograph down.
“Then who is?”
“That’s what I’ve spent the last six months trying to determine.”
I stare at him.
“Six months?”
Marco returns his attention to the file as though he hasn’t just admitted to investigating a missing woman neither of us has ever met.
“You knew she was inside Mikhailov’s house?”
“I suspected.”
“And you never mentioned it?”
“There was nothing to mention.”
“There were six months of something to mention.”
He exhales slowly.
“I didn’t know whether she mattered.”
“But now she’s missing.”
“Now Mikhailov is tearing apart the city to find her.”
I glance down at Lucia’s photograph again.
“So she matters to him.”
“Yes.”
“And that makes her matter to you.”
Marco closes the file.
The soft snap sounds louder than it should in the quiet room.
“Potentially.”
There it is.
Marco’s favorite word when he cares about something he doesn’t fully understand.
I drag the chair across from his desk closer and sit.
“Where was she last seen?”
“Heading east on Hanover.”
“Barefoot?”
His eyes sharpen.
I grin.
“Armando might be loyal, but the restaurant staff love gossip.”
“She took off her shoes.”
“Practical.”
“She walked away in an evening gown without money, identification, or a coat.”
“Less practical.”
Marco gives me a flat look.
“You sent men after her,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Before the Russians could find her.”
“Yes.”
I lean back in the chair.
“What are you planning to do if you find her first?”
His gaze drops briefly to the file.
“I haven’t decided.”
That answer bothers me more than it should.
Marco always has a plan. He makes them while the rest of us are still deciding whether there is a problem. Watching him confront a question without an answer feels like discovering a crack in the foundation of the house.
“If Mikhailov kept her locked up for six years, she isn’t going to trust you just because you arrive in an expensive suit and tell her our father used to be friends with her mother.”
“I’m aware.”
“She might run from you too.”
His mouth tightens.
“I’m aware of that as well.”
I study my brother across the desk.
He looks tired.
Not physically—Marco can work for days without showing it. This is something else. His shoulders remain too still, his attention returning to Lucia’s photograph whenever he thinks I won’t notice.
A calculation he can’t quite make work.
“Why do you care?”
He doesn’t answer immediately.
Then he opens the file again.
“Our father believed Maria Rossi was wronged by the Mikhailovs.”
“Our father believed a lot of things.”
“He was usually right.”
“Usually.”
Marco turns the birth certificate so it faces him.
I recognize the dismissal.
Conversation over.
I rise from the chair and head for the door.
“Gio.”
I look back.
“If our men find her, I need to know before anyone else.”
The request is unnecessary. He has already given Armando the order.
What he’s really asking is whether I’m with him.
The difference between our eyes is most obvious when Marco looks at me directly. Mine came from our father, dark enough to hide most things. His came from our mother and reveal more than he realizes when the light catches them.
Right now, they’re asking me to trust him.
I glance at the photograph on his desk.
“Of course.”
I step into the hallway, leaving Marco alone with the file.
I still don’t know who Lucia Romanova is.
But I’m beginning to think my brother does.
Or at least, he wants to.