“Take me home,” I tell Katie quietly.
She looks concerned, her brown eyes wide. “Gigi—” she starts, but I can’t bear anymore conversation.
“Please. I need to be alone for a while,” I tell her.
She sighs.
The drive back to my apartment passes in heavy silence, broken only by the steady rhythm of rain against the windshield.
Katie parks outside my building but doesn’t turn off the engine.
I turn to open the car door, but Katie grabs me. I look back at her.
“Whatever you’re thinking of doing,” she says, “you don’t have to do it alone.”
I smile sadly at her. “Yes, I do.” I squeeze her hand and drink in her features. Is this the last time I’ll ever see Katie? I can’t see Luca allowing me any freedoms. “Promise me you’ll stay away from this. Promise me you’ll let me handle it.”
“I can’t promise that,” she says fiercely, her eyes welling up with tears.
I was afraid of that. “Then promise me you’ll be careful.”
She nods reluctantly and lets me go.
I carefully slide out of the car and walk as quickly as my lungs allow through the rain to my building’s entrance. I can feel her watching me until I disappear inside.
My apartment feels smaller than usual, the walls pressing in like they’re trying to squeeze the breath from my lungs.
I trudge from room to room touching familiar things, like the throw pillow Mom crocheted before she got too sick, the veterinary school diploma I was so proud of, photos of happier times when Dad still smiled without looking haunted.
My phone sits on the kitchen counter with Luca’s number programmed in, waiting.
The deadline is four hours away.
Four hours. Four hours that will decide if my father lives or dies.
Is he even alive?
The question runs through my mind.
Luca said he’d live if I agreed, but that was before I tried to fight.
Before his man had to beat me down to keep me from interfering.
What if that changed things?
What if they decided Dad wasn’t worth the trouble?
I try to talk myself out of it. I sit on my couch and make lists of alternatives, scenarios where this ends differently.
Maybe I could go to the FBI.
Maybe there’s witness protection for daughters of reluctant informants.
Maybe, maybe, maybe.
But every maybe leads back to the same conclusion: Luca Marchetti doesn’t make idle threats, and my father is already living on borrowed time.
I pick up the phone three times and set it back down.
