Charlotte is in the bathroom. The shower's been running for twenty minutes. She hasn't spoken since the county road. Not silence. Shock. The quiet, glassy-eyed shock of a civilian who just watched four men die and is processing the reality that the worldcontains that kind of violence and she's standing in the middle of it.
She held it together in the car. She held it together at the gas station where I dumped the sedan and bought a beater pickup off a man who didn't ask questions and took cash. She held it together through sixty miles of back roads and a motel check-in with another fake name and another scratchy vinyl chair and another room that smells like sex and stale cigarettes.
She held it together until the bathroom door closed. Then I heard her breathing go ragged through the wall. The counted rhythm breaking apart. Three in, two hold, one out. Then nothing counted at all. Just breathing. Just a woman standing under hot water trying to wash the last three hours off her skin.
I give her space. She needs it. I need the time to work the problem.
I pull out the burner. Stare at it. The call I'm about to make is going to change something between me and my brother, and I don't know how to prevent that, and the not-knowing makes me want to disassemble a weapon that I've already disassembled twice today.
I dial Emilio.
He picks up instantly. "Talk to me."
"We were tracked. GPS device on the car. Planted before we left the compound."
Silence. Three full seconds.
"Planted when?"
"During the extraction window. Between 2:45 and 3:50 AM."
Another silence. This one is different. I can feel Emilio doing the same math I did. Running the list. Arriving at the same short set of names.
"Claudio." His voice is careful. The voice he uses when he knows I'm about to say something that's going to hurt both of us. "Ask me."
"I'm not asking you."
"Yes you are. You're just taking the long way around. So let me save you the trip." His breath comes through the phone, hard and controlled. "I was in that garage from 3:25 to 3:35. I brought you the duffel. I gave you my jacket. I did not touch the car. I did not put a tracker on the car. I would rather cut my own hands off than betray you. Ask me if I'm telling the truth."
"I don't need to ask you."
"Then why do you sound like a man who's about to?"
Because I'm scared. Because the list is short and his name is on it and the thought of that is the one scenario my brain can't process without short-circuiting. Because I share his blood andhis face and every significant memory I've ever formed, and if he's the one feeding them our location, then nothing I've ever believed about the world is true. Because I know he didn’t and wouldn’t ever betray me, but the feeling in my chest at almost losing Charlotte is making me irrational.
"I don't doubt you," I say. "I need you to know that."
"I know." His voice softens. Barely. Marginally, and only for people he'd die for. "But someone walked into that garage during your window. Someone who wasn't me, wasn't Leone, and wasn't Matteo. Which means someone else knew what was happening."
"The alarm woke the entire compound. Anyone could have seen me loading the car."
"Anyone could have seen you. But not anyone would have had a GPS tracker ready to go in the middle of the night. That's premeditation, brother. Whoever did this planned for the possibility of an extraction before it happened."
"Salvatore," I say.
"Salvatore was in the compound during the breach. I don’t yet know how he figured out what the plan was, but I fully intend to figure it out with Carmelo and Leone. He was definitely doing something in the compound over that time. I confirmed with the gate log. He was signed in at 11 PM and didn't sign out until 6 AM."
"Which means he was awake during the attack."
"Or someone woke him."
"Or he knew it was coming."
Emilio exhales. "Listen. I've got something else. The bartender. Savannah. The one at the waterfront club."
"What about her?"
"She's gone."
