Chapter 28
NICO
A boot to the ribs. Air leaves me. I go down hard, concrete under my shoulder, hands at my collar dragging me up before I’ve found my breath, and then the chair catches me and the plastic bites into my wrists and it’s done. Doubled. Tight. They have done this before.
I have done this before too.
Two of them move out of my line of sight to the door. Boots. Russian. Velikov accent. They speak over me as if I am not in the room.
“Etot v poryadke.” This one is fine.
“Ona v sosedney.” Hers is next door.
They leave the door ajar behind them.
The bulb above me is yellow. Single. The wall behind me is concrete.
My wrists are zip-tied to the chair.
Plaster. Plaster. Plaster.
I have pressed my palm flat against the plaster wall of my bedroom every night for three years. The wall is always plaster. That is the point.
I press my palm flat behind me.
The wall is concrete.
The wall has been concrete the whole time. My shoulders lock before my brain catches up. My breath stops moving right. The plastic at my wrists is the cable they used in Moscow, the cable that cut into my wrists for hours while I—
The door in the hallway opens.
Boots come back. Then lighter steps. Then a third sound. A drag.
I look. The hallway is visible through the gap in my door.
A woman is being walked past. Hands bound in front.
Belly forward. The man at her elbow has one hand at the small of her back.
The hair piled at the crown of her head is the three faded reds I have seen at Casa Lucia every Tuesday when Mila brings her in.
Oksana.
Her head is down. She does not see me. They walk her into the room next to mine. That door closes. The first man at my door pulls it shut.
I am alone in the room.
Uno. Due. Tre.
Papa’s count. The count he gave me the night Mama died and I could not sleep. The count I translated into Russian for Mila on the rug beside her bed.
The count does not work in a concrete room in a Bratva safehouse with Oksana on the other side of the wall.
The watch is still on my right wrist. Papa’s. They missed it or didn’t know what it was, and either way it’s there, and I tilt the face and the bezel is unmarked and the crown is intact. Good.
My shoulder is torn where the boot caught the seam. Two ribs bruised, maybe cracked — I breathe through the test and the left side catches sharp. Cuts on the forearm from the window glass, dried now. Boots still on, laces cut. Two zip-ties at each wrist, doubled. The same setup as Moscow.
The same setup I got out of in Moscow.
I know how to get out of this.
Stop. This is not Moscow. This is now.
The door opens.
The man who walks in is in Izzy’s file. I know his face from her screen. Yuri Sokolov. Velikov wet-work specialist. Retired the year I came home from Moscow. Landed in Houston on a Canadian passport last month. The third man Izzy has been hunting. Came back for me.
Wet-work specialists do not get sent for negotiation.
He sees me looking. Cold-precise.
“Nakonets-to. Nico Santoro.” At last. Nico Santoro.
He crosses the room. Stops three feet from the chair. Crouches the way Alexei crouched three years ago. The same crouch. Same angle. Same patience.
“Tvoy brat khochet znat’, gde my tebya derzhim. My ne speshim emu skazat’.” Your brother wants to know where we are holding you. We are in no hurry to tell him.
The voice comes out even.
“Moy brat naydet vas. K utru.” My brother will find you. By morning.
Sokolov tilts his head. Interested.
“Ty uveren v etom.” You are sure of this.
“Da. Ya uveren.” Yes. I am sure.
He smiles. The same smile. Teeth.
“We did not come for her. We came for the Zakharova. We took the woman so the Zakharova would come for her.”
My chest goes through the floor.
They came for Mila. They came for Mila and they missed. I lock my chest down. I lock my jaw. I lock every muscle I have because if I let one thing move it will all move and he is watching for the face and he will not get it.
My face does not move.
“Vy proshli mimo.” You missed.
“Da. Proshli. No my vzyali to, chto bylo.” Yes. We did. But we took what was there.
“Zakharova ne pridet odna.” The Zakharova will not come alone.
“My eto znayem.” We know that.
He stands.
“A ty, Konsel’yere. Ty stoyal u dveri. Bonus. Morozov tri goda zhdal etot razgovor.” And you, Consigliere. You were standing at the door. A bonus. Morozov has been waiting three years for this conversation.
He means Alexei. Three years. The same three years I have carried the concrete room. The same three years I have not said her name out loud to anyone.
The voice comes out quiet.
“Ya tozhe zhdal.” I have been waiting too.
Sokolov stops at the door. Hand on the handle. He turns back. His voice drops into something older. Something I have heard before in a different room.
“Tell her when you see her. Morozov dripped digoxin into her father’s tea for three months. The girl was ten. She brought him the tea herself. She sat beside him while he died.”
My chest goes through the floor a second time.
She brought him the tea. She sat beside him. She was ten years old and she sat beside him while Alexei’s poison moved through his blood and she did not know. She has been carrying that without knowing.
I keep the face. I keep everything locked.
He smiles.
“Yesli ne khochesh’, chtoby ya tronul devushku, ty zagovorish’ kogda ya vernus’.” If you do not want me to touch the girl, you will talk when I come back.
My eyes stay on him. My face stays still.
He goes out. The door closes.
The bulb is yellow.
I sit.
My chest moves wrong. My breath won’t go right. My hands at the wrists stop feeling like mine and I cannot stop it and then —
Yelena across from me. The cigarette. The knife at her throat. The blood at the corner of her mouth. The concrete cold through the chair. The smell of her blood on the floor.
The humming.
Stop.
My body doesn’t stop. My shoulders tear against the restraints and the pain in my back opens and I slam back into the chair on purpose, my head hitting the back, and the pain in my ribs goes through my chest like something real, like something that is happening right now, tonight, in this room, and I hold onto it because it is the only thing that is only tonight.
Uno. Due. Tre. Quattro. Cinque.
The watch is on my wrist.
A pop. Distant. Through the steel door. Not a gunshot. The wrong shape for a gunshot in this room. The shape of a gunshot in a hallway.
Then another. Closer.
Then voices.
Cristo.
Marco. He is in this building.
Renzo’s voice through the wall, low. “Quella prima. La donna. La incinta.” Her first. The woman. The pregnant one.
He has gotten to Oksana.
A door opens not far away. Oksana’s door. Renzo’s voice drops into something careful, something low and steady, the kind of voice that says you are safe without saying the words.
Then Oksana’s voice. Small. Wet.
“Spasibo. Spasibo. Spasibo.” Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I press my forehead to the concrete.
Cristo. Cazzo. Madonna.
My eyes burn. They do not spill.
A sound at the steel door of my room. The hinges go. The door opens out.
Dante.
Black tactical shirt. Vest. The signet ring on his right hand under the glove. He crosses the room. Kneels in front of the chair. Pulls a knife from inside the vest. The blade comes up. The plastic at the wrists cuts apart. The plastic falls.
His hand goes to my shoulder.
“You’re out, brother.” Quiet. The same quiet he used the night Mama died.
My mouth opens. The first thing comes out hoarse.
“Sokolov. Yuri Sokolov. Velikov.”
“We have him.”
“Three of them. At least.”
“Five. All down.”
“Oksana.”
“Renzo has her. The medic is at the stretcher. She’s alive. Baby’s heartbeat is steady.”
“How long was I in here.”
“An hour tops.”
One hour. I stand. My legs are unsteady. Dante’s hand goes to my elbow. I let him keep it. For the first time since I was a boy I let my older brother steady me.
We walk to the door together.
The hallway is concrete. Bulbs at the ceiling. Five of Morozov’s men down at the end of the hall. Neat shots. Marco’s work.
Oksana is on a stretcher between Renzo and a medic.
Pregnant. Pale. Conscious. The bruise at her right cheekbone is fresh.
Her hands have not moved from her belly.
Flat. Protecting. The wedding-ring chain at her throat is twisted around the necklace chain.
The medic fixes the chain. Oksana does not notice.
Oksana is looking at me.
The medic kneels at the side of the stretcher with a small monitor. Presses it to the side of Oksana’s belly. The monitor finds the heartbeat inside a beat. The baby is alive. The medic looks up at Renzo. Renzo’s shoulders go down half an inch.
Oksana’s hand comes off her belly. Reaches for me.
I cross to her. Touch her wrist.
“Vy doma.” You are home.
Her eyes close for one breath. Open. Her mouth opens.
“He said her name. Mila. He said her sister’s name. Yelena. He laughed.”
My chest seizes. I hold it. For her. She does not need what is in my chest right now. She needs the voice that tells her it is over.
“He’s dead. Sokolov. He will not say either name again.”
Oksana’s eyes close. A tear slides down the side of her face. The medic catches it with a thumb.
I will carry the rest to Mila at the compound.
The medic lifts the stretcher with Renzo at the head. They go down the hallway. Marco at the side door. Earpiece in. Mama’s St. Christopher catches the hallway bulb at his throat under the collar. Into the comm.
“Base. We’re out. Both. Bringing them home.”
He looks at me. Capo nod. I nod back.
Dante’s hand stays at my elbow the whole drive. Neither of us speaks. The watch is warm against my right wrist and I press it into my palm and feel it tick. Proof of time. Proof I am moving through it. We are moving through it.
The gate of the compound opens before the SUV stops.
Marco’s voice on the comm ahead of us. The drive is full.
Cassia at the front door in the silk robe with the bump full under it.
Giada at the door in scrubs, the duffel at her feet, the medic gear ready.
Nonna behind them in her apron with the rosary in her left hand.
Isabella at the steps in jeans and one of Renzo’s shirts. Maria at the porch.
Mila is in the drive.
She is in dark layers. The chain at her throat. The clothes she had on at the back room. She has been in the drive since the SUVs hit the gate. She walks. She does not run. Her spine is straight. Her hands at her sides. The walk of a woman who learned to move through danger without showing it.
Marco’s SUV is ahead of ours. Oksana comes out first on the stretcher. Mila goes to Oksana. She takes Oksana’s hand. Walks beside the stretcher to Giada at the door. Mila does not let go of Oksana’s hand until Oksana is on the gurney inside.
Then Mila turns.
She walks back across the drive.
I am out of the SUV. Dante’s hand at my elbow. The watch on my right wrist. The shirt torn at the shoulder.
She stops three feet from me. Her eyes do not flinch. She lifts her right hand. Puts it on my chest over the torn shirt.
The hand stays.
I close my eyes. Open them.
She moves her hand to the side of my throat. Her fingers find the pulse point and press there, just for a breath, and I feel it — feel her feeling for it — the proof that I am here and breathing and back. Then her hand moves to my face. Her thumb at the line of my jaw where a boot landed.
My throat tightens. Heat moves through my chest, wrong and necessary, the way blood moves when the wound is finally found.
Her face does not change. But her breath goes shallow and I hear it — the small break in the exhale, the hitch she does not try to hide. She has been holding that in since the drive. Since she heard the comms. Since she stood in this drive and waited and did not know.
Quiet. The same voice she used in the medical wing, the one that carried the lullaby through that room.
“Ty doma.” You are home.
My eyes burn. I press my forehead to hers. She holds my face with both hands and I let her. The drive is full of my family and I do not care who sees it. I am not performing anything. I am a man who was in a concrete room an hour ago and the woman holding his face is the reason the count worked.
For the first time since the chair in Moscow, I am not alone.
I let her hold me up and it is the hardest thing I have done in this building tonight.