Chapter 32
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Valentino
Ilight a cigarette before I call Bruno.
He picks up on the second ring. "She's moving."
"Good."
The smoke tastes like nothing.
"You're being relocated," he says. "Four hours from now. Fabio has the route. You'll get the details in ninety minutes, memorize them, then the phone gets burned. You don't argue with me on this one, Valentino."
"I'm not arguing." That gets him quiet. "Four hours."
"Fine," he says, but his tone says he's thinking too hard. "What the fuck happened between you and Amanda?"
And there it is.
It doesn't matter. I only care about one thing right now.
"I need you to swear something to me."
"Valentino."
"Listen first. Then curse at me." I pull in more smoke and let it out. "While I'm alive, you keep her safe. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs, she doesn't get touched."
"That's already handled."
"I'm not finished." I pull in smoke and hold it long enough to get my voice under control.
"If I die, you don't stop. You keep her protected.
Not until Enzo loses interest. Not until Chicago settles.
Until she's old, Bruno. Until she dies in a bed no enemy ever found.
You treat her like my wife, because if I live long enough, that's what she becomes. "
Bruno doesn't answer at first, but then he curses.
"You stupid, magnificent bastard," he says. "You fell in love on a protection detail? In less than two fucking weeks?"
"Five years. Two weeks is just when I stopped lying about it."
"Madonna santa." His breath rattles over the line. "All right. I swear it. On my father's grave, on the family, on whatever you want. She's protected."
"Thank you."
"But hear me, Valentino." For a second, he sounds like my cousin instead of the head of the family. "Nobody is touching you. You're not dying in some Roman alley over Aldo Basile's worthless corpse. I forbid it. Consider it an order."
"You can't order a bullet, Bruno."
"Watch me."
Papers shuffle on his end, and his voice hardens again.
"Nico and I fly out in two hours. Sicily. If Enzo tries to confirm the vendetta through Palermo, it becomes formal. We need to be at that table before he is. We know the old protocols better than he expects. That's our edge."
"Enzo wrote the old protocols."
"Then we'll quote them back to him. Old men love that." He exhales. "Four hours. Be ready. And Valentino, for the record? When this is over, you can stop talking about what she would have been and make her your wife properly. Capisce?"
He hangs up before I can answer.
The cigarette burns down to the filter before I remember it's in my hand.
I put it out.
The apartment feels wrong without her in it.
I make it to the counter before I see the chair.
The one she sat in this morning.
I grab it by the back and throw it into the wall.
Wood cracks. One leg snaps off and skids across the tile. The frame holds for half a second, then gives.
Not enough.
The fruit bowl goes next. Glass scatters. Apples roll under the cabinets. I put my fist through the nearest door, feel the wood split around my hand, then hit the one beside it because the first one leaves too much standing.
My knuckles open along the old scars. Blood runs over my hand and down my wrist.
I barely feel it.
A sound comes out of me once. Low. Ugly. I shut my mouth and rip the curtain rod down hard enough to take plaster with it.
There is no one in front of me. Nobody. No debt to collect. Nothing to solve with blood.
Just the apartment.
Just her gone from it.
By the time I stop, the kitchen is wrecked, my hand is bleeding, and the room still feels exactly the same.
Worthless without her.
Amanda
Luca drives without talking.
Good. I cannot manage polite conversation right now.
The dashboard clock says fifteen minutes since I walked out of the apartment. Since Valentino kissed me like he hated letting me go. Since he told me yes, he would come back, and I believed him as much as he believed himself.
Not enough.
I turn toward the window. I can't keep watching the minutes take me farther from him.
Rome moves past in pieces. A terracotta church. Laundry above a narrow street. An old woman crossing with a shopping bag hooked over her wrist. A kid on a scooter cutting too close before slipping between us and a taxi.
Valentino wanted ten days here with me.
Ten days to show me the city. He would have known the church. The street. The restaurant with the good wine and the bad chairs. He would have ordered for me without making me feel stupid for needing him to. He would have put his hand at my back at every curb because he never trusted Roman traffic.
I start crying when I realize Rome looks better because he loves it.
I hate that. I hate how easy it is now. I used to be better at hiding it.
I should not have gotten in the car.
I knew it when Luca pulled away from the building.
"Luca."
His eyes flick to the mirror. "Signora."
"How long to the airport?"
"Twenty minutes. Maybe less."
"Okay."
He waits like he thinks there is more.
There is.
I want to ask how long he has known Valentino. If Valentino seemed scared. If he said anything after I left. I want to hear his name from another person because he already feels too far away.
"Luca, how long have you—"
The hit comes from the left.
The car snaps sideways. My shoulder slams into the seatbelt hard enough to knock the air out of me. Then the sound catches up. Metal folding into metal. Glass breaking. Tires screaming against pavement.
The window goes white.
Airbag. Glass. Light. I don't know.
The car spins.
The seatbelt cuts into me. My hands grab at nothing. Luca's arm locks across the steering wheel. The street flashes once through the windshield, disappears, then flashes again.
Something hits the side of my head.
White.
Black.
When I open my eyes, the car is upside down.
My hair hangs in my face. The seatbelt bites into my shoulder and collarbone, holding me against the seat. My ears ring so hard everything else sounds far away. Something warm slides down my temple.
I touch it.
Blood.
"Amanda."
Luca's voice.
"Amanda. Answer me."
I turn my head. Pain flashes behind my eyes.
He hangs upside down too, one arm braced against the roof. Blood runs from his hairline into his eyebrow, into one eye. He blinks through it and keeps looking at me.
"Luca."
"Can you move your legs?"
I try. My right knee hits the dash. My left foot moves inside my shoe. "Yes. I think so."
"Good. Leave the belt on."
"What happened?"
"Hands on the roof. Brace there first."
"Luca, your head—"
"Now."
I press both palms against the roof. Petrol burns in my nose. Smoke under that. Hot plastic.
Luca reaches inside his jacket.
I know what sits there.
"When I tell you, release the belt and come out my side," he says. "Not yours. Mine. Stay low. Crawl."
"Okay."
Something scrapes outside my door.
A footstep follows.
Then another.
Slow.
The door groans. Metal bends where someone pulls from the outside.
"Luca."
"Do not scream."
The door tears open.
A hand reaches in. Big. Gold ring on the little finger. It grabs my jacket first, then my hair. I twist toward Luca, but the seatbelt catches me across the chest.
A knife flashes near my hip.
The strap gives.
I fall against the roof, shoulder first. The hand drags me through the opening before I can get my arms under me. Broken glass scrapes my palms. My sweater catches on something sharp and tears.
I scream anyway.
"LUCA!"
Something hits the side of my head again.
Everything goes black.
Valentino
The phone rings while I'm sweeping glass off the kitchen counter with the side of my hand.
Fabio.
He is at Fiumicino, holding the handoff. He should not be calling me. Fabio does not improvise unless the plan has already failed.
"Talk."
"They hit the car," he says. "Twelve minutes from the airport. A truck took them broadside and rolled them. The follow car called it in. Marcello's people were sixty seconds behind."
Glass sticks to my palm. I look down and find blood there. Somewhere in the wreckage of the apartment, I must have sliced my hand open and never noticed.
"Amanda."
"They took her. Luca is alive, but he's bad. Shot twice. Head wound from the crash. Our men have him, and they're taking him to the doctor now. There was shooting. Sandro's dead, Valentino. They left him on the road. The following car lost the truck near the ring road. Marcello thinks—"
I stopped hearing him after ‘they took her’.
"Valentino. Are you listening?"
I hang up.
The apartment is wrecked around me. Chair in pieces, lamp on its side, coffee table cracked through the middle. Fifteen, maybe thirty minutes ago, I tore through the place because she was gone.
Now Enzo has her.
The phone rings again.
Bruno.
I answer and hold it away from my ear because he is already shouting.
"Do not move. Do you hear me? You stay in that apartment. We have people on it. Marcello has the ring road. Dmitri is putting men in the air tonight. You are staying put."
I look at the blood on my hand.
"Staying put," I say. "While Enzo Basile has her."
"He won't touch her yet. She is leverage. She is worth more whole, and you know that better than anyone."
"I know exactly what she is." My voice comes out calm. Too calm. "Bait."
"Valentino."
"He doesn't want ransom. He wants me. He wants the man who beat his son to death, and he knew I would come if he took her. It was a smart move."
"That is why you aren't going. That is the entire fucking reason you will stay fucking put. You walk in there, he kills you slow, then he kills her anyway. Give me twelve hours. We do this with force behind it."
Twelve hours in a room with Basile men.
I carried her out of one already.
"You remember the water tower?" I ask.
Bruno goes quiet.
"At the compound," I say. "You bet me I couldn't climb it, so I climbed it. Zio Giuseppe beat both of us, and you said it was worth it because you had never seen a man do something stupid with that much commitment."
"Valentino, don't."
"Twelve hours is a good plan," I say. "Build it. Bring everyone. Burn his whole house down. But you are building it for her."
"No."
"I'm not waiting."
"Don't you dare. I am your Don, and I am ordering you to stay where you are."
"You are my Don," I say. "You are also my blood. And you swore, so I know she is protected no matter how this goes."
I pick up the rosary from the nightstand and put it in my pocket.
"Goodbye, cousin."
He is still shouting when I end the call.
The quiet comes back hard.
I let it have one breath.
Then I take out my phone again. Bruno's name fills the screen. Lorenzo has called twice. Fabio is already calling back.
I scroll past all of them and find the name I need.
I press it.