"Okay," I say.
Leone nods. Turns. Leads us down the corridor.
I walk between Claudio and Emilio, and Alexandra falls in beside me, and the four of them surround me like a wall, and my fingers find the back of my neck.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Still here. Still Charlotte. Emma's in the car. You don't need her right now.
The door is ahead. Grey metal. Small window. A room beyond it that I can't see yet.
Twelve minutes.
I press my spine one more time. Drop my hand. Lift my chin.
And walk through the door.
Chapter Fifteen: Claudio
Theobservationroomiseight feet by ten. Concrete walls, fluorescent strip, two chairs, and a window that looks like a mirror from the other side. The glass is thick enough to stop a .22 round, which I know because I tested it four years ago when we installed the setup. Not for this. Not for anything I could have imagined. I tested it because I test everything.
Charlotte stands at the window. She hasn't sat down. She hasn't touched the chair or the water I set on the ledge, or the pack of Parliament Lights Emilio bought her from the machine in the common room. She stands with her feet shoulder-width apart and her arms at her sides and her chin level, and she looks through the glass at the empty briefing room like a woman staring down the barrel of something she can't unflinch from.
I'm behind her. Close enough to touch. Not touching.
Leone is in the corridor outside, phone to his ear, running last-minute coordination with Carmelo. Alexandra is in the tech room next door, pulling up Salvatore's financial records on three screens, building the evidentiary case that will turn Charlotte's eyewitness identification into something Leone can put in front of Aurelio. Emilio is at the east garage, watching the compound entrance, making sure nobody who shouldn't know about this morning's operation knows about this morning's operation.
The briefing room beyond the glass is a rectangle of polished wood and leather chairs. The table seats twelve. There's a projector on the ceiling that nobody uses because Aurelio prefers paper and distrusts anything with a screen. The walls are bare except for a single painting, some Italian landscape Aurelio brought from the old country, hung crooked and never straightened because nobody in this organization is brave enough to touch the old man's art.
The room is empty. The briefing starts in seven minutes.
"You don't have to stand," I say.
"I'm standing."
"There's a chair."
"I see the chair. I'm standing."
"Principessa..."
She turns her head. Those blue eyes. Flat and focused and carrying a weight that would buckle most people. "If I sit down, my legs will shake. If my legs shake, I'll think about why they're shaking. If I think about why they're shaking, I'll think about the conference room at Marchetti and the door and the way he looked at me, and then I'll be back there instead of here. So I'm standing. Because standing is the only thing keeping me in this room."
I nod. Don't argue. Don't offer comfort she hasn't asked for.
"Can I stand next to you?" I ask.
Her jaw softens. One degree. "Yes."
I move beside her. Our shoulders almost touch. The glass reflects us, faint ghosts superimposed on the empty briefing room. Two shapes, standing together, one broad and one narrow, like a wall and the shadow it casts.
The door to the briefing room opens.
My chest tightens. But it's not Salvatore. It's Viggo, one of the junior soldiers, carrying a stack of folders and a tray of coffee. He sets up the table with the particular nervousness of a man who knows his boss is coming and wants everything perfect. Folders at each seat. Coffee in the center. Pens aligned.
Charlotte watches him. "How many will be in the room?"
"Eight to ten. Depends on operations. The morning briefing covers overnight activity, ongoing missions, resource allocation. Aurelio attends. Leone attends. The senior staff fills the rest."
