Page 62 of Accidental Alliance

That last question is the one that hollows me out the deepest. What do I tell him when the time comes?

The truth is a loaded gun aimed at my forehead with six bullets in the chamber. One I can’t think about or else I’ll be driven insane.

None of the men I have managed to question have given me any indication that Matteo is being mistreated, but that does not comfort me in the slightest.

Mistreatment is not only fists and hunger and bruises.

Sometimes, mistreatment is fear and confusion, being torn from the only safe thing you have ever known and placed behind a locked door by people who speak in clipped orders and carry weapons under their jackets.

There is no doubt in my mind that my child is suffering.

How can he not be?

His mother, the one constant in his life, is no longer with him. For seven years, I have been his fixed point, his answer to every nightmare, no matter what it is.

Now he is alone because Elio found us.

Because Davide knocked on my door, and Isabella Russo was never as dead as Marina Hayes needed her to be.

I sink down onto the edge of the cot, the thin mattress dipping beneath me with a tired creak.

The room is too cold, or maybe I am. I rub my hands over my arms, feeling the faint ache of sore muscles I overused while fighting men who were always going to overpower me eventually.

When I close my eyes, I see Matteo at three standing on a chair in our tiny kitchen, helping me stir pancake batter with more enthusiasm than skill.

At five, I watch him falling asleep with a picture book open across his chest. At seven, he is sprinting across a soccer field with his hair bouncing and his whole face lit with victory.

Then I see him being held by a stranger in my living room, eyes wide and terrified.

My breath catches so sharply, I press a fist against my mouth to keep the sound from escaping.

I hate this room. I hate this cot bolted to the wall. I hate the cold concrete beneath my bare feet.

I hate the camera perched above me like an unblinking eagle eye. I hate the fact that I have started measuring time by the slide of meal trays and the shift changes outside my door.

I can’t do this.

I refuse to let anyone keep my son from me any longer.

A faint sound comes from the camera above me, jarring me out of my thoughts.

It’s a tiny adjustment of the tilt of the lens, the mechanical sound almost politely quiet. My head lifts slowly, every nerve in my body tensing as I stare straight into the lens.

For a long moment, I say nothing. The little red light glows back at me. I have absolutely no confirmation that it is Elio watching from the other side.

It could be Alessio or one of their men bored from cataloguing my pacing and meal refusals for a report no one will read. But something deep inside me tells me I am right.

Maybe it’s because my body has always been cursed with a terrible awareness of him, a sick little compass that points toward Elio Conti no matter how far I run or how many names I bury myself beneath.

I slide off the cot and turn to face it fully.

The floor is cold beneath my feet. I smooth my hands down the front of my sweater even though there is nothing to fix. My voice is hoarse from disuse, but it does not shake.

“Come here,” I say.

The camera does nothing for a long moment. Only that hateful red light glows back at me. My chest tightens when slowly, it fades, and I stare at it for a long time.

I shuffle to the left.