Chapter Seven
LUCIA
I’ve never been to this branch of the Boston Public Library.
Right now, that feels like an advantage.
Viktor and his men will search the places they know. They’ll check businesses connected to the family, restaurants I’ve visited, and every hotel expensive enough to meet Viktor’s standards.
They won’t expect me to walk into a neighborhood library.
At least, I hope they won’t.
The building is cool and dim after the bright afternoon outside. It smells faintly of old wood, dust, and aging paper. Fluorescent lights hum overhead, illuminating rows of shelves, faded blue carpet, and bulletin boards crowded with notices for community meetings and children’s reading programs.
Nothing matches. Nothing shines.
The ordinariness of it feels safer than anything expensive could.
I locate the nearest exit before approaching the information desk.
A woman about my age sits behind a computer, scrolling through her phone. Her dark curls are pulled into a knot on top of her head, and a half-empty bottle of water rests beside the keyboard.
“Hi.”
She looks up.
“Oh, hi. What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for a computer.”
She points toward a hallway.
“Just down there and to the right.”
I hesitate.
“Something else?”
My gaze drops to the desk.
“Do you have a library card?” she asks.
My breathing quickens.
I hadn’t thought of that.
“Do I need one?”
She smiles.
“No. I can print you a guest pass. One second.”
She clicks through several screens, then reaches beneath the desk.
“Here you go.”
She hands me a narrow slip of paper with a login and temporary password printed on it.
No identification.
No questions.
I look down at the pass.
“Thank you.”
“No problem.”
She returns to her phone before I’ve stepped away.
The interaction is already over for her.
I carry the slip down the hallway, where a room of humming computers sits off to the right. Tall windows overlook the street, but shelves positioned across the lower panes prevent anyone outside from seeing much of the room. An older man in the back is playing solitaire. Otherwise, it is empty.
I choose a computer where I can see both the doorway and the reflection in the nearest window.
The monitor wakes when I move the mouse.
It has been years since I’ve used a computer. Viktor never allowed one in my rooms, and the phone he gave me could call only numbers he approved. The keyboard feels unfamiliar beneath my fingers, but I manage to enter the temporary password.
A blank search page opens.
I stare at the cursor.
For two years, I’ve thought only about escaping. Every plan ended at the moment I crossed Viktor’s walls.
I never thought about what came afterward.
I type my first question.
How to get ID without a birth certificate
The results are not encouraging.
Do I need ID to get a job
Yes.
Do I need ID to rent an apartment
Also yes.
What jobs can I do without ID
Surprisingly few.
Each answer reveals another thing I don’t have. An address. A bank account. References. Proof that I exist beyond a name entered into a search box.
I stare at the screen.
How to disappear
That one is mostly a joke.
Mostly.
I’m about to type another question when a man sits in the chair beside me.
My knees slam into the underside of the table.
“Don’t scream,” he says quietly.
A whimper escapes instead.
“I promise I won’t hurt you, Lucia.”
I stare at him.
Dark suit. Dark hair. Gray-green eyes that seem almost colorless beneath the fluorescent lights. A trace of beard shadows his jaw.
He’s much younger than Viktor, probably in his early thirties, but he carries himself with the same quiet authority as the men who sit at Viktor’s table. The kind of man people make room for without being asked.
His suit fits too well. His watch is expensive. He has positioned his chair far enough away that he isn’t touching me, but close enough to prevent anyone else from joining us.
Every detail feels deliberate.
“My name is Marco Catenzio.”
His gaze remains on my face, watching for recognition.
“I know who you are,” I whisper.
That seems to surprise him.
Only briefly.
“My family did business with the Rossis,” he says. “Your mother’s family.”
“They’re dead.”
He inclines his head.
“Most of them.”
“Then what do you want?”
He taps one finger against the edge of the monitor.
“The same thing you want. To keep Viktor from finding you.”
My failed search remains on the screen between us. The blinking cursor waits after the words How to disappear.
I turn back to him.
“Why do you care if Viktor finds me?”
“Because my father believed Maria Rossi was wronged by the Mikhailovs.”
For a moment, all I can do is look at him.
No one talks about my mother.
Not Viktor. Not Dmitri. Not even Ivan.
“Our families were allies once,” Marco explains.
“The Rossis or the Romanovs?”
His head tilts slightly.
“The Rossis.”
He looks over his shoulder.
The older man is still playing solitaire. No one else has entered the room.
“When I learned Viktor Mikhailov had been hiding Maria Rossi’s daughter in his house for six years, I started asking questions.”
“What kind of questions?”
“Questions about you.”
“About me?”
The corner of his mouth moves.
Not quite a smile.
“No one keeps a woman hidden for six years without a reason.”
He offers nothing more.
I study his profile, searching for some clue to what he wants from me. There is a slight bend in his nose that keeps his face from being too perfect. A faint line appears between his eyebrows when he concentrates.
He doesn’t look away when I examine him.
“And what did you find?”
His eyes meet mine.
“That Alexei Romanov probably wasn’t your father.”
The room shifts around me.
The hum of the computers recedes. The clicking of the older man’s mouse disappears. Even the fluorescent lights seem to dim.
I grip the edge of the desk.
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Your birth records don’t make sense.”
My birth records.
If Alexei Romanov wasn’t my father—
“Then who is?”
“That,” Marco says, leaning back in his chair, “is what I’m trying to determine.”
The cursor continues blinking in the search box, but none of my questions seem important anymore.
My mother took me to Alexei Romanov’s funeral when I was two. I don’t remember him. I remember her grief—or perhaps I was told about it often enough that it became a memory.
My entire life, I believed he was my father because she said he was.
Now this stranger tells me Alexei Romanov was someone else entirely, while the man who may have fathered me remains a mystery.
The need to move hits me without warning.
I push back my chair.
“I have to go.”
Marco rises at the same time, but he doesn’t reach for me.
“You can’t return to the boardinghouse.”
I freeze.
“How do you know where I’m staying?”
“Because I made sure someone was watching you.”
Cold moves down my spine.
“To keep Viktor from finding you,” he adds.
“How long have you been watching me?”
“Since this afternoon.”
I glance toward the doorway.
He sees it.
“If you want to leave, I won’t stop you.”
“And if I say no?”
“Then my men will keep Viktor’s away from you for as long as they can.”
“For as long as they can?”
“Yevgeny Petrov has been asking questions near Saint Cecilia’s.”
My stomach tightens.
Father Russo.
If Yevgeny finds him, he may learn about the boardinghouse. He may already know.
I slowly lower myself into the chair.
“I have nowhere else to go.”
Marco remains standing.
The severity around his mouth eases. Something almost like pain enters his eyes before his expression closes again.
“What?” I ask.
“I can put you somewhere safe. Somewhere Viktor won’t think to look.”
Now it’s my turn to hesitate.
Safety is never free.
Viktor provided a home, clothes, food, and protection. Every one of those things became a weapon when he wanted obedience.
“What kind of place?”
“A hotel.”
I shake my head.
“He’ll check hotels.”
“Not this one.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because I own it.”
Of course he does.
He probably owns several.
“You’ll be able to come and go as you please,” Marco says. “No guards outside your door. No one monitoring your calls.”
“What will it cost me?”
“Nothing.”
“No one does this for nothing.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because my father would have wanted me to.”
The answer doesn’t satisfy me.
It does, however, sound like something he believes.
When we step outside the library, I stop.
A large black SUV with dark tinted windows idles at the curb.
For one terrible moment, I’m back outside Viktor’s house. Men spread across the sidewalk. A vehicle waits with an open door. My body remembers before my mind does.
My breath catches, and I step backward.
A man exits the driver’s side and walks around to open the rear passenger door. He has a lean build and close-cropped dark hair graying near his ears. At first glance, he seems less physically imposing than Ivan or Yevgeny.
The economy of his movements corrects that impression.
Marco notices my reaction immediately.
“Armando can drive us,” he says. “Or we can call you a cab.”
“Cab, please.”
He nods once.
“Armando, call a taxi.”
The man beside the SUV blinks.
“Boss?”
“Call a taxi. We’ll wait.”
Armando looks at me, then at the open door he’s still holding.
He closes it without argument and takes a phone from his pocket.
Marco walks to a city bench and sits.
I follow more slowly.
His dark-gray suit fits too well to be anything but expensive. The bench is streaked with grime and marked by several large patches of bird droppings, but he sits without checking the seat or brushing anything away.
“Don’t mind Armando,” he says. “He isn’t used to providing public transportation.”
I sit at the opposite end.
“I figured.”
The SUV remains at the curb in front of us. Armando stands beside it, speaking quietly into his phone while pretending not to watch me.
“I’m sorry you have to pay for a cab,” I say.
“I didn’t consider how the car would look to you.” Marco shakes his head. “That’s on me.”
I study him.
“Do you always admit when you’re wrong?”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“Only when I am.”