—
The week after Valerio’s rescue and the sinking ofThe Prophetwas among the most difficult of Nikki’s life. She spent most of her days at the hospital with Valerio, or at the police station, where her description of the battle at Errichiello’s compound was the only eyewitness testimony. She believed in cooperating with the police, but it hadn’t felt safe to tell what she knew—so she kept most of the details to herself, building high brick walls around them.
Sealed inside, the memories were like an explosive. Menacing. Volatile.
The routine of everyday life was disconcerting—as if she’d drifted into a dream while the nightmare events were still happening. She heard the shouts and screams of men struck down, smelled the gunpowder and smoke, and the horrendous stink of the small concrete prison where they’d kept Valerio. Her heart still juddered and raced, terror lodged in her muscles and mind. That horror was not her world. She’d brushed against it in the past, but before now she’d only ever been on the periphery of the war.
—
The day after she was released from the hospital, Vincente Di Pavola sent his lawyer to her house with the nondisclosure agreement, instructing her to never discuss her relationship with Enzo. As if it had never happened. She signed her name, feeling numb—a sense of walls erected, gates locking.
—
She hadn’t returned to Phoenix Seven, but yesterday, Pasquale had called, asking after her.
“Angelo took down the posting for your job,” he told her. “I think he’s getting pressure from the Americans to bring you back. It’s becoming an embarrassment that he fired you.”
Nikki had seen the news footage of Kami and Monica released from jail, and the press conference with Ambassador Lissom, Angelo hovering in the corner of the screen.
She didn’t want to return and work for Angelo. The relationship had run its course. Angelo needed her to be different than she was, and she couldn’t maintain that dissonance any longer. She wasn’t sure what to do next, and she needed money. But she simply didn’t have the energy to maintain the facade.
—
At the gate to her building, Nikki stopped to grab the mail. She tromped up the stairs and through the door to her apartment. It smelled of disinfectant still—an aftermath of the stay by Valerio’s mother and sister: the floors, kitchen, and bathroom scrubbed, the jumble of shoes by the door straightened, scattered papers and boxes arranged into neat stacks.
—
Her phone rang.
“Darling, you lied to me!” Ethan scolded when she answered. “You promised I would be the first to hear about Jayston Lake—and now I find out about this on the news?”
“I’m sorry,” Nikki said.
“How are you doing, my dear?” he asked, voice softening. “What happened to that little girl?”
“She’s back in England, with her mother,” Nikki said.
—
Saying goodbye to Audrey had been unexpectedly difficult: the girl clinging to her and crying. Nikki had felt frozen and awkward, but something inside wanted to howl along with her.
—
Nikki took off her shoes and crossed to the living room, setting to work arranging and sorting everything back into boxes. She stacked these in the corner, and was pushing her sofa back where it belonged, when the leg caught on something.
—
She tugged it away from the wall, and saw that a large floor tile had come loose. It was tilted up. Wobbling. She crouched and moved it back and forth, shifting it back into place—when the edge caught, tipping suddenly into a hollow space beneath.
Surprised, Nikki gripped the tile with both hands and lifted it back.
There was a cavity in the floor. Nikki shone a light inside and saw that it was about thirty centimeters wide and sixty centimeters deep. It seemed empty at first—but there was something at the bottom.
She reached inside, and her fingers closed on the rough skin of a hardbound book.
—
It was a practical, rather than ornamental, edition—covered in faded green fabric, the only nod to artistry an embossed signature on the front cover. Black horizontal stripes on the spine provided perfunctory decoration, and a title in Cyrillic: ?????? ??????????.
