And I don't have anything left tonight. I have nothing left.
I go upstairs without another word.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
She locks herself in the bathroom and doesn't come out.
I stand at the bottom of the stairs and listen to the silence above me and tell myself she's fine, she just needs a minute, she just had Vittorio De Luca show up at a cabin in the woods and imply ownership over her while she was standing in a towel, and she is allowed to need a minute.
I give her five.
Then I give her ten, which is harder.
At fifteen minutes I pick up my phone and call Matteo.
He answers on the second ring. "Enzo."
"What the hell were you thinking?" I keep my voice low but I don't keep the edge out of it. "You gave Vittorio this address."
A pause. "I had t?—"
"Still, Matteo. You gave our location to a fucking bastard while we're hiding from the O'Rourkes. What if someone followed him? What if he was being watched? What if Declan's men tracked his car here and now they know exactly where she is?"
"I fucking know, Enzo." Matteo's voice is flat and tired in a way that tells me he's already had this argument with himself. "I know. He pushed and I couldn't stop him without making it worse. He threatened to go to his father if I stopped him from seeing her."
"So you gave him the address."
"So I gave him the address." A beat. "Is she all right?"
I look at the ceiling. "She's upstairs."
"That's not what I asked."
"She's handling it."
Another silence, longer this time, the particular weight of a man who knows he made the wrong call and has nothing useful to offer about it now.
"Keep her safe, Enzo."
"That's what I'm doing." I hang up before I say something I can't take back.
I stand in the living room with my phone in my hand and the ceiling above me quiet and Vittorio's hand brushing Isabella's shoulder running on a loop through my head, the way she kept her expression perfectly still and didn't give him a single thing he was looking for.
Twenty minutes now.
I go upstairs.
The bathroom door is closed, a thin line of light visible underneath it. I stand outside and listen and hear nothing, which is somehow worse than if I could hear her.
I knock once. "Isabella."
Nothing.
"Isabella, I know you're in there. Are you okay?"
Still nothing.
"Open the door."
