Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Gemma
The woman in the mirror looks like a stranger.
I turn my head, watching the light catch the new color.
Almost blonde now, pale gold where it used to be mousy brown.
Renata cut it to my shoulders and layered it around my face, and something about the whole effect makes me look younger.
Or maybe just different enough that the man from the motel wouldn't recognize me if he passed me on the street.
That's the point. I know that's the point.
But I keep tilting my chin, studying the way the ends brush my collarbone. I haven't had my hair done in over two years. Longer, maybe. Before Dominik died, I stopped caring about things like highlights and trims. I stopped caring about a lot of things.
"Mommy looks pretty," Nina says from the chair beside me.
Renata smiles but doesn't speak. She's been quiet the whole time, her hands gentle and sure as she worked.
Kind eyes, soft face, but no small talk.
I don't know if Luca told her not to ask questions or if she just understands that some women sitting in her chair don't want to explain why they need to become someone else.
"Your turn, baby," I say.
Nina climbs into the chair without complaint.
She liked the idea of getting her hair done together, liked that I went first so she could watch.
When I told her we were both getting haircuts, she asked if she could have the same color as me.
I said no, her dark hair is beautiful, but we'd cut it shorter so it's easier to brush.
She didn't argue.
Renata runs her fingers through Nina's hair, checking the length. Nina sits perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap, her feet dangling above the floor. She watches herself in the mirror with that quiet, serious expression that makes her look older than four.
I hate that expression. I hate that I'm the reason she learned to wear it.
The scissors make soft snicking sounds as Renata works. Dark hair falls to the floor in feathery clumps. Nina's hair was past her shoulders this morning. Now it's creeping up toward her chin.
"Does it tickle?" I ask.
Nina shakes her head carefully, trying not to move too much. "It feels nice."
When she's finished, Nina's hair falls in a neat bob just below her ears. She looks like a different child. Not my Nina with the tangled dark waves I was always trying to brush, but some other little girl who belongs to some other mother in some other life.
"Pretty," Nina says, touching her hair. "Like Camila."
Mariela's daughter wears her hair short.
Renata packs up her supplies without a word. I thank her, she nods, and then she's gone. The apartment feels emptier without her quiet presence.
"Come on," I say to Nina. "Let's go see our new room."
The new apartment smells like fresh paint. The living room is bigger, with a couch that doesn't sag in the middle and a kitchen the same size as the previous. I walk past all of it, straight to the room Luca said would be ours.
Two beds. A television mounted on the wall. A window with blinds that actually close all the way.
Nina runs to the smaller bed and climbs up, bouncing on the mattress. "This one's mine?"
"That one's yours."
She flops onto her back, arms spread wide, staring at the ceiling.
I sit on the edge of the other bed. The mattress is firm. Clean sheets.
Maybe Luca wants us to stay in here most of the day. Out of his way. Out of his space. That would make sense. He took us in because he had to, because he's the kind of man who couldn't walk away from a woman and child in danger. But that doesn't mean he wants us underfoot.
I should be grateful and I am.
So why do I keep glancing toward the door?
I touch my hair again and stare at myself in the mirror at the wall behind the door. I haven't looked at myself in a mirror this much in months. Years, maybe. I stopped looking at myself when looking meant seeing the bruises Dominik left, the fear in my own eyes, the woman I'd become.
But now I can't stop looking.
The color is nice. Renata knew what she was doing. The blonde warms my skin, makes my eyes look bluer. I look like someone who might have her life together. Someone who might walk into a coffee shop and order something complicated and expensive. Someone a man might notice.
I catch myself thinking it and feel my face heat.
This is stupid. This is so stupid. Luca isn't going to notice my hair. He's not going to care whether I look pretty or plain or anywhere in between. I'm a problem he's solving, a complication in his life, a woman who stole his car and brought trouble to his door.
But I want him to see it anyway.
I want him to walk through that door, look at me and think something other than there's the woman I have to protect. I want him to see me the way I saw him that night, when my stupid body decided that danger was attractive.
I want him to like my hair.
I don't know where this thought came from. I don't know why it matters.
"Mommy?"
I blink. Nina is watching me from her bed, her head tilted.
"What, baby?"
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine." I make myself smile. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
About a man with pale green eyes and tattoos on his throat. About the way he lifted my chin in the dark and told me the only reason he'd tie me up would be for pleasure. About the way my body went hot, liquid and wanting, and how I haven't felt that way in so long I'd forgotten it was possible.
"About dinner," I say. "Are you hungry?"
Nina considers this seriously. "A little."
"We'll wait for Luca. He'll probably bring something."
She nods and reaches for the remote, turning on the television. Cartoon voices fill the room. Nina settles against her pillow, the bear Luca bought tucked under her arm.
Luca
"Where are you?" Bruno asks.
"Building. Going up."
"Good. Stay there." A pause. Papers shuffling on his end. "I sent Dante and Liam to collect the woman's belongings."
My hand tightens on the phone. I told him where Gemma lived three days ago, after he demanded every detail I had. Standard procedure. Information flows up, not down.
"And?"
"Someone got there first." Bruno's voice is flat. Controlled. The tone he uses when he's already decided how angry to be. "Place was destroyed. Furniture overturned, walls opened up. They were looking for something."
"Shit," I say. "How long ago?"
"Dante estimates two hours, maybe less. The super didn't hear anything. Convenient deafness." Bruno exhales. "There's more."
I wait. The stairwell is quiet. Somewhere above me, Gemma and Nina are in the apartment. Eating dinner, maybe. Watching television. Living inside a problem they don't fully understand.
"They know the Sartoris are involved," Bruno says.
My jaw tightens. "How?"
"You tell me." His voice goes sharp. "You walked out of that motel with the woman and her child. You put them in your car. You drove through half of Chicago. How many cameras do you think caught your face?"
I close my eyes. The motel parking lot. The gas station on Cermak where I stopped because the tank was low. The intersection at Halsted. Cameras everywhere in this city, and I wasn't thinking about them.
"The Beka people have resources," Bruno continues. "Small organization, yes. But they have money, and money buys access. Traffic cameras. Private security footage. Someone willing to run facial recognition for the right price."
"Fuck."
"Exactly." Bruno's chair creaks. I picture him in his study at the compound, the one Riccardo used before him.
Dark wood, heavy curtains, the smell of old books and new power.
"Dante and Liam are on their way to you now.
Two cars. They'll collect the woman and the child and bring everyone to the compound. "
"The compound," I repeat.
"You have a problem with that?"
I have several problems with that. The compound means Bruno's territory. Bruno's rules. Bruno's eyes on everything I do. But it also means walls, guards and a gate that doesn't open for anyone without clearance.
"No problem," I say.
"Good." Bruno pauses. When he speaks again, his voice has shifted.
Softer, almost. The way he sounds when he's about to close a door.
"I've already assigned our man to create documentation.
New identities for the woman and child. Once the papers are ready, we send them to Canada.
Toronto, most likely. We have contacts there who can help them settle. "
"Canada."
"They'll be safe. The Beka organization won't follow them across the border. Too much trouble for too little return. Their reach ends at Chicago. Maybe Detroit. But Canada?" Bruno makes a dismissive sound. "Not worth the effort."
I should feel relieved. This is a solution. Clean, practical, final. Gemma and Nina disappear into a new life, and the problem disappears with them. The Sartoris wash their hands of the whole mess. No further involvement. No risk.
My chest feels tight.
"How long for the papers?" I ask.
"Three days. Maybe four. He is good, but good takes time." Bruno's tone sharpens again. "Until then, they stay at the compound. Under guard. You stay at the compound too. No more independent operations in my city."
"Understood."
"You know I'm only doing this because of who you are."
I don't answer. There's nothing to say to that.
"If one of my other men had pulled this shit," Bruno continues, "he'd be missing fingers by now.
Walking into someone else's territory. Taking action without permission.
Bringing heat down on the family because he couldn't mind his own fucking business.
" He pauses. "If it wasn't for what you are to Valentino, you'd already be out. You understand that?"
"Yes."
I understand it perfectly. The rules exist for everyone except the people who've earned exceptions. I've earned mine through twenty years of blood and silence and doing whatever the family needed without asking questions. That credit isn't unlimited. Bruno is telling me I've spent most of it.
"Good," he says.
I should leave it there. Accept the reprimand, keep my mouth shut, and be grateful the punishment is only words. That's what a smart man would do.
"I'd do it again," I say.
Silence on the line. Long enough that I wonder if he's hung up. Then a sigh—tired, frustrated, the sound of a man dealing with something he doesn't have time for.
"The only reason I'm bringing them to the compound," Bruno says, "is because Antonella insisted. Because of the kid."
Antonella. Bruno's wife. The woman who softened something in him that everyone thought was gone forever. I met her once, briefly, at a dinner six months ago. She looked at Bruno the way Elena used to look at me, before everything went wrong. Before the fire.
"Thank her for me," I say.
"You can thank her yourself. She'll probably want to meet the child." Bruno's voice hardens again. "One more thing."
I wait.
"I'm the one taking them to Canada," I say before he can continue. "When the papers are ready. I'm driving them."
"Fine," he says. "You drive them. But the moment you set foot in my compound, you come straight to my office. Don't stop to eat. Don't stop to piss. Don't stop to have a fucking conversation with anyone. You come to me first. Understood?"
"Understood."
The line goes dead.
I walk to the bedroom door and knock twice with the knuckle of my left hand.
"Yes," she says.
I push the door open.
Nina is on the smaller bed, on her stomach, knees bent and feet in the air. The bear is propped against the pillow. She is telling it something in a low voice.
She looks up at me, sees who it is, looks back at the bear. "He is busy," she tells the bear seriously. "We will talk after."
Then my eyes go to Gemma and the rest of the room disappears.
She is sitting on the edge of the larger bed. Her hands are flat on her knees. The hair is the first thing. It changes her face.
Then her eyes. She is looking at me. The pink is up in her cheeks again. She lifts a hand and tucks a piece of it behind her ear.
I do not say anything about the hair.
"I need to talk to you."
She nods. Her hand drops from her ear.
"Now?"
"Now."
She glances at Nina. Nina is back inside whatever the bear is doing. Gemma plants her hands on the mattress to push herself up.
That is when I hear it.
A sound on the other side of the apartment door. Outside in the corridor. The soft press of a sole on the hallway runner, the kind of step a man takes when he is trying not to take a step.
Then another. Two of them, then a pause that is too long to be nothing.
I put my finger against my lips.
Gemma freezes with her hands still on the bed. Her eyes go wide and stay there. She does not ask. She does not move.
I reach behind me, under the back of my coat, and take the gun out of my waistband.
I look at Nina. Nina is still talking to the bear. She has not heard. Small mercy.
I look back at Gemma and mouth one word.
Floor.
She nods once. She slides off the bed without sound, on her socks, and goes to Nina.
She lifts her with both arms — the bear comes with — and lowers her down between the smaller bed and the wall, in the narrow space where the mattress meets the baseboard.
Nina starts to ask something and Gemma puts her hand over Nina's mouth, gentle, and shakes her head once.
Nina's eyes go big over the top of her mother's hand. She does not make a sound.
Gemma folds herself down on top of them. Her back to me. Her body between the door and her daughter. She does it the way someone does a thing they have already practiced in their head, even if they have never done it.
I am at the bedroom doorway now. I move my weight onto the ball of my left foot, take the bedroom door with my right hand and pull it almost closed behind me, leaving the gap of a finger so I can hear.
The hallway sound comes again. Closer. Just outside the apartment door this time.
A pause.
Then the soft metal scrape of someone touching the lock.