It seems to work. The guide gives a frantic shake of the head, and I make my way out of the Colosseum, alone.
* * *
Luca is not outside.I didn’t expect him to be, but I hoped for it. I’m trying to keep my panic at bay by imaging how goddamnmadI’m going to be when I find him. “Sofucking mad,” I mutter under my breath as I walk quickly away from the Colosseum.
I’m trying to be smart.
Waiting around under one of the foremost national monuments like a deer in the headlights is just going to get me killed—ifmy worst fears have come true, and Luca has been taken away from me by the IFF, or by a rival Family, or law enforcement, or a million other choices.
Taken, or worse…
No. He can’t be dead. I stamp that thought right out. Luca D’Amato is fucking indestructible; that’s all there is to it. And so it’s my job right now to find him, wherever he is.
I walk blindly, trying to pretend to myself that I’m throwing any shadows off my tail, but the truth is I’m not acting rationally. I’m just panicking, trying to find a dark corner to hide away in so I canthink.
When the shitty old Nokia that Luca insisted I swapped to tonight buzzes with a text message, I just about jump out of my skin. I fumble it out of my pocket, praying to any deity that might be out there that the text is from Luca, wondering where the hell I am, telling me he’s waiting at the Colosseum for me and to get my butt back there, pronto.
The text says it’s from Luca, but it’s not telling me to get back to the Colosseum.
It’s telling me that some unnamed “We” has my husband, and if I want to see him alive and in one piece, I’ll respond right fucking now and tell them I understand.
It takes me a while to get my shaky fingers to react, but before I do, another text comes through very quickly.
Instructions to come at 0600 tomorrow. You will exchange yourself for our prisoner. Reply I UNDERSTAND.
I resist the urge to write backI’M GOING TO KILL EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU MOTHERFUCKERS, and instead I type,I WANT PROOF OF LIFE.
All I get back is another:
Reply I UNDERSTAND.
I stumble into an alley and throw up all myfilleti di baccalàin a neat puddle on the sidewalk. Afterward, I wipe my mouth and try to stop shaking. “He’s alive,” I mutter to myself, because that’s all that matters. He’s alive, but there seems to be more than one IFF agent involved in this, because they used the plural:ourprisoner. Notmyprisoner.
My phone buzzes again.
Reply I UNDERSTAND.
I text these assholes thatI FUCKING UNDERSTAND, and then I turn off my phone just in case they’re tracing me somehow. I’m starting to think again. Cold rage is overtaking my fear.
I take a chance and dart back to a main street to flag a passing taxi, praying it’s not some IFF guy in disguise. I tell him to take me to St. Peter’s Basilica; no point letting anyone know where I’m staying who doesn’tneedto know. The driver has no interest in chat, thank God, so during the ride, I go through my options.
The IFF—because it has to be them, right?—has my husband.
They want me in exchange for him.
I don’t know where Luca is. He might be near the Colosseum, or he might not.
I could call Teo Vitali when I get back to the hotel. But what use would he be, really, four thousand miles away? What’s he going to do, call up his buddies in Rome, get a ragtag team of ne’er-do-wells together to rescue the Boss while I sit on my ass on a divan and eat grapes while I wait?
No. Fucking. Way.
Besides, I don’t have any idea at all where Luca mightbein this whole damn city, and unless I can give Teo a place to start looking—
I’ve been fiddling with my wedding ring, screwing it around on my finger as though it’s a lucky charm, and then it hits me. It hits me so hard that I let out a strangled laugh and the taxi driver looks at me in the rear-view, wondering if I’m trying to make conversation.
I look quickly out the window, squeezing my eyes shut, my heart beating rapidly.
Our wedding rings.Of course. Luca would have thought of this much sooner. The tracker in my wedding ring has saved me before, led him right to me.
