Chapter Ten
One year ago
Ivrea, Italy
Haze
Things got bad fast.
We’d tracked our target to Ivrea.
And we had the perfect plan.
Every year, Ivrea held the Battle of the Oranges to celebrate their liberation.
According to thirteenth-century legend, the evil duke who ruled the town was killed by a young woman he tried to force himself on.
Using oranges to represent the stones thrown at his castle during the subsequent revolution, huge crowds of people would now pelt them at one another.
The roaring noise from this massive, organized food fight would mask any of our victim’s screams, and the chaos would help us make an unnoticed escape.
Earpieces in. Guided by Jenny. We knew where he was staying. It was going to be a fast efficient takedown.
But it was a trap.
An empty room and outside it five men coming for us.
“The bedroom window,” Jenny said. “Jump and you’re at the back of the restaurant!”
I got out.
Fox didn’t.
Fox
I felt hands pulling me back. I spun round and punched the man nearest to me.
Then the second. I tried to turn back to the window, but several fists to the head dazed me enough to stop fighting back.
I staggered as they slammed me to the ground.
Three held me down as two pulled a black bag over my head.
I felt them carrying me down the stairs.
I felt them lugging me into a cart. My hands were tied behind me.
I tried to sit up and got kicked twice. The cart was moving.
The noise from the crowd grew louder. People were chanting and cheering now.
No one would hear me shout. I was powerless.
Their prisoner. How the hell had this happened?
I was meant to be better than this.
Haze
We saved him.
Just in time.
It all happened so fast.
Jenny shouting at me to hold the phone steady. The map. Following the GPS tracker in Fox’s watch.
The old factory.
“In there!”
The gunfight.
Dead men on the ground.
Sirens.
Jenny pulling me away from an unconscious Fox. Tying me to a post. “We’ve got to fix the scene!”
Shouting. People swarming everywhere.
I was cut free.
A clueless victim. Sitting wrapped in a foil blanket. I was there but my head wasn’t. I couldn’t think of anything but Fox. I needed to see him, hold him, hear him breathe.
The police were everywhere. I gave dazed answers to anyone who asked me a question.
One of them stood out. He was watching me. A tall man with dark skin and gray hair, dressed in a beautifully tailored blue suit with a crisp white shirt. He was smoking a slim cigarette. It was hard to clock his age, but I’d have placed him somewhere in his sixties.
He was coming toward me. He reached for my right hand and brought it to his nose.
“Alain Drake.” He announced with a slight French accent. “I am with Interpol.” He let go of my hand. What the hell was that?
“When can I see my husband?”
“I can take you now.” Drake walked over to a mustached detective who nodded a few times as Drake spoke.
Drake motioned me over and then led me outside. More hurried conversations with other police we passed. And then we were in his car. An old black Mercedes-Benz.
Five minutes of silence until he spoke. “Your hands smell of disinfectant.”
Jenny had scrubbed my hands to remove any gunshot residue in case I was tested for it.
“Someone gave me hand sanitizer. To get my husband’s blood off.”
Drake took a drag of his cigarette. He was not like the Italian detectives. He was trouble. “The way we found your husband. It looked like an interrogation.” I had come to the same conclusion. “He had information they wanted.”
I looked over at him. “Fox works in finance. I can’t imagine what a bunch of gangsters could want to know from him.”
“Your statement to the police said that a group of men took you and your husband from the carnival at gunpoint. Then another group of men attacked your kidnappers and got away before the police arrived.”
We had decided on the “innocent tourists caught up in rival gang dispute” angle.
Drake wanted to trip me up. “I was unconscious for quite a lot of my ordeal. I think that’s what happened. Loud gunshots and—”
We had just passed our hotel. “Stop!” I shouted without thinking.
Bibi.
I needed to see her. Drake seemed unfazed as he turned the car around.
I ran into the hotel and rang Jenny from reception. She brought Bibi to me. I took her pajamaed and sleepy into my arms. A hushed catch-up with Jenny as we hugged goodbye, and I was back at the car.
Drake helped Bibi into her seat. “Hello, ma chérie. I’m Alain.” He reached behind her head. “And what is this?” From behind her ear, he pulled out a purple-wrapped sweetie. “The fairies must like you. They only give presents to very special people.”
Bibi grinned at me and quickly unwrapped the sweet before popping it into her mouth.
I looked at him as he got back in the driver’s seat. “You have children? Grandchildren?”
“Some people aren’t born to be parents.” He started the engine.
“Couldn’t agree more.” I thought of my mother. Her blank face, the empty bottle.
Drake turned to look at me. “You had bad ones?”
“Oh, no,” I lied. “Wonderful.”
At the hospital, he whisked us through different rooms to a waiting doctor. I listened as he talked, trying to only take in what I wanted to hear.
Fox was going to be okay.
That was all that mattered.
I couldn’t bear to hear the list of his injuries.
I just needed to focus on the fact that he was going to be all right. I needed to focus on the good, because if I let myself take in the bad, the rage would take over.
Revenge would come another day.
Drake and the doctor took us through to Fox’s room. I didn’t notice them leave. I could only stare at my husband.
Fox’s arms were bandaged. He had black eyes. A broken lip. He was half-asleep now. Maxed out on painkillers, the doctor had explained.
I sat in the chair next to his bed, holding his hand, Bibi on my lap. “Dada ouchie.” She leaned down and kissed his arm.
I didn’t want to think about just how close I’d come to losing him.
Slumped in that chair, I must’ve drifted off. Shouting men, screams, shots, all peppered my dreams.
With a start, I woke.
Fox.
Bibi.
I looked around the hospital room. My husband was in the bed. My daughter was in my lap.
We were safe.
Bibi was playing with a shiny little ball, rolling it across the standing tray table that was next to us.
I stretched and stroked her hair. “What you got there?”
“I think fairies give me.”
I picked it up and rolled it around in my hand. It looked like a cheap pendant. The chain must’ve broken off. “It can be your lucky charm.”
“Yes!” Bibi kept rolling it between her hands.
I was grateful that she had something to focus her attention on. Something that wasn’t the beeps of machinery, the sterile setting of a hospital room, and her father’s damaged face.
“Haze,” Fox croaked. His eyes were open.
“Dada’s awake!” I smiled down at him.
Everything was going to be okay.