The rhythm of a woman who just found out who the fuck she is.
Chapter Fifteen: Carmelo
Gracesleepsforfourteenhours.
I wake sometime after five, my back against her headboard, her body curled against my side with her face pressed into my ribs. She doesn't move. She doesn't dream. She doesn't make a sound. For fourteen hours she's just gone, somewhere deep, and her body repairs itself while mine holds hers and my brain runs scenarios.
The placement network's handler will flag the Marinos within the next seventeen days. Claudio's monitoring protocol on the Chestnut Hill house hasn't triggered, which means nobody's been to check yet, but Danila's intel said the network is tightening. Handlers are pulling assets. The window is narrowing, and I'm lying in bed with a woman who just remembered five years of captivity and asking her to run isn't an option I'll consider.
My phone buzzes at two PM. Danila.
Handler name: Royce. Based in Wilmington. Handles six placements on the eastern seaboard. Reviewing files this week. Yours is in the queue.
I text back one-handed, my right arm pinned under Grace's head:Timeline?
Days. Maybe less. If Royce pulls the Marino file and can't reach them, he sends a verification team. Two men, usually armed, always fast.
How fast?
These guys? 24-48 hours from the flag.
I put the phone down. Grace shifts against my ribs. Her finger taps my stomach twice in her sleep, then stops. I look at the ceiling and place the variables.
Royce is reviewing files this week. He's going to pull the Marino file. He's going to call the Marino phone, which is at the bottom of the Delaware River with Danila's disposal crew's fingerprints on it. He's going to get nothing. He's going to send two men to Chestnut Hill, and they're going to find an empty house that's been professionally cleaned, and then the network is going to know that someone killed the Marinos and took their asset.. and then they're going to come looking.
They won't come to the apartment. They don't know about me. But they'll come to the restaurant, because the restaurant is in the Marinos' check-in logs. "Asset employed at local restaurant, South Philadelphia." They'll come to the restaurant, and they'll ask questions and someone will answer those questions, and the someone who knows Grace best, who works closest to her, who walks her home every night, is Javi.
I need to move Grace out of Philadelphia. Or I need to eliminate the verification team before they reach the restaurant. Or both.
I call Claudio.
He picks up on the first ring because Claudio always picks up on the first ring. It's who he is. Security chief, first responder, the man who answers the phone and deals with emergencies.
"The handler is named Royce," I say. "Wilmington. He's reviewing files this week. When he can't reach the Marinos, he sends a verification team. Two men. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours from the flag."
"Where will they go?"
"The house first. Then the restaurant."
"The restaurant." Claudio is thinking. "Who else works there?"
"A bartender. A cook. A line cook. An owner who's never there."
"The bartender. The one who walks her home."
Claudio has read every briefing I've sent to Leone. He knows the names, the patterns, the people. He knows about Javi because I put Javi in the briefing three weeks ago when I was marking Grace's radius.
"Yes," I say.
"If the verification team asks around, the bartender is the one who talks. Not because he'll cooperate. Because he'll protect her. He'll ask the wrong questions, draw the wrong attention. He'll make himself a target without knowing he's doing it."
"I know."
"You need to warn him."
"I can't warn him without explaining everything."
"Then you need to get him out."
