“And Nate?” she gets out before Elise can try to end the phone call.
“Yeah, Mar?”
“Thank you. For being willing to come on such short notice. You are. . .my best friend.”
Elise hangs up then, and Marianna closes her eyes for the span of a big inhale. When she opens them, she meets mine and nods.
I think if I were one of her sisters, with the secret long-spoken language, I would know what message she means toconvey with that look. But if there’s anyone to help us, they’re called off now. She wants to protect them, I know, but who will she let protecther? If not me, and not Sasha, or her family, then who?
I don’t currently see a way that I survive this, and I can only pray to any holy entity that will listen that Marianna will. And that the people she just spared will recognize what she did and protect her where I cannot.
I believe they will. I have to believe they will.
“The code, Maxim.”
“It’s not a code,” Marianna says. “He’s not a fool, you think he would have anything less than bio-sensors on his safes? And only one?”
“Careful,” I murmur about her sharp tone. I have two dozen shallow cuts to show how Colton feels about what he deems as disrespect.
“He married a Morelli,” she says by way of explanation at Colton’s blank expression. “We wouldn’t let him have old tech. You need Maxim to open the safes. And you need him alive.”
This surprises both him and Elise, their heads tilting in opposite directions as they try to detect the lie. Itisa lie, but God is she convincing.
Their expressions mirroring each other, Elise and Colton Tenneson bear a striking resemblance. One I can’t help but wonder how I never saw it before.
“Except for the one at home, which you need both of us for,” Marianna says with a sort of tired sigh. “What, you thought it was a locker combination? A simple touchpad with a six digit code?”
That’s exactly what it is, but I won’t say so.
“Why didn’t you mention this?” Colton barks at Nikolai.
“I don’t know shit about tech safes, Dad used to say there was only the one and that the code had to be changed every ninety days,” he defends.
“I haven’t seen one in the house,” Elise adds.
“Oh, when you were snooping around our bedroom you didn’t think to look for false panels?” Marianna says, like Elise is the most stupid woman in Boston. “I mean, what kind of operation do you think Maxim is running? He’s not an amateur.”
“Where are they?” Colton demands.
Marianna shrugs, pushing him. The tick of her jaw is the only thing giving away to me her apprehension when she looks like a bored brat.
Colton loses his patience, lifting his gun and shooting it once, the bullet slicing through my right foot with a white hot agony. I grunt and tumble over, the chair and cuffs the only thing keeping me up.
“Okay!” Marianna screams. “One at the club, one in the house, and another at my sister’s.”
“Little Mary, why must you make things so difficult? That was easy, wasn’t it?”
Blood is pouring from my throbbing foot, a fresh puddle joining the dried spots from my other wounds. The blood loss and pain threatens to take my consciousness again, but I stay as focused as I can manage.
“Well, get them up then. We’ve got some safes to open.”
Marianna holds my gaze, an apology of sorts in hers, and then they start to move us.
39
MARY
Even with my bound hands,I try to help Maxim get to the car via extremely unbalanced hobbling. His arms are not cuffed, which would feel like an oversight if there weren’t six men with guns trained on us as we walk. No way in hell could any of them carry Maxim and he can’t very well walk with the hole they put through his foot. I feel horrible about that, but I couldn’t let Tenneson think I wastoocooperative, not when I was just being so helpful calling off the backup and telling them about the safes.
