Ice moves through me. “Don’t—”
He lifts a hand, and the word dies. “Escort her back,” he tells the man, eyes still on me. “And double the watch.”
The man comes around the chair. I stand because I don’t want his hands on me again.
The hall feels colder than before. My legs carry me because they have to. Upstairs, the lock will engage, the room will go quiet, and all I will hear is his certainty: he wants Giovanni inside these walls.
I fix my gaze on the runner of carpet ahead and force my breath even. If he’s right, Gio is coming into a kill box. And if he isn’t, Adriano will make it one. I count steps to keep from shaking and try to think of anything, anything, that might shift the odds in our favor before the door shuts again.
Chapter Forty Two
Giovanni
The car settles as we idle. The street is one of those old-money loops where the houses sit back from the curb, and the trees line long drives. Russo’s place is just around the corner.
Antonio is behind the wheel, seat slid back, tablet angled low against his thigh to kill reflections. Nico’s in the rear, right behind me, steady and calm. I keep my eyes on the mirror that gives me a triangle of street and a slice of wrought-iron fence. The glass shows nothing, which is what I want.
Antonio checks his watch. “Three warehouses are down,” he says, voice low. “Waiting on the all clear for the fourth.”
We sit in silence in a way only we can. No one tries to fill it with useless words. I breathe in through my nose, slowly, and hold it. Russo country smells like cut hedge and wet stone. I let the breath out and find the calm I need.
Warehouse four is the last piece we need. When it goes, we do too.
The tablet gives a dull buzz against Antonio’s leg. He glances down. “Four is down,” he says. “Team out clean.”
Nico leans into the space between the seats. “Are we sure he really falls for this?” he says quietly. Which, for Nico, is just his regular volume.
“He’ll fall,” I say, absolutely.
If there’s one thing Roberto is good at, it’s reading people. And planning their downfall.
Nico nods once, accepting it as truth.
Antonio lifts his eyes from the tablet. In the dark, they look flat and calm. “You both know the plan?” he asks, because it’s his job to ask. “You want it one more time?”
“No,” I respond curtly. “Have they come in yet?”
“Just a few more minutes.” His eyes are still glued to the tablet.
I roll my shoulders once against the seat and try to loosen the knot. I don’t let my mind wander to Bianca, what she’s been through. If I let my mind go there, I can’t do what I need to do.
A ping comes from Antonio’s tablet.
Antonio doesn’t look away from the screen. “Now.”
I’m already opening my door slowly, staying low. Nico is pulling bags out of the car and hands me one before hefting one onto his shoulders.
Antonio rounds the hood and falls in on my left, tablet gone, hands empty. He takes the third bag and straps it to his back.
The houses along this block are generous with their hedges and stingy with their lights. We take the grass line where the sprinklers left a damp seam next to the cobbles. Our shoes barely whisper. I count the steps to the corner I already walked a dozen times in my head. We hold at the brick pillar at the corner and listen.
From here, Adriano’s place is visible: the top of a dormer; a slice of roof where the slate glints; iron fencing. Two guard shadows pass across a spill of warm light and then are gone. I watch the rhythm—forwards, vanish; backwards, reappear—and drop it into the same groove as my heartbeat.
The night is thick enough to hide us from prying eyes. Antonio is a half-step behind me and to the outside. Nico ranges tight to my other side, eyes on the periphery, hands loose.
At the next pillar, we stop and take a long look before moving again.
We don’t risk approaching the wall of Russo’s property just yet, but instead skirt the wall a couple of houses away.
