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“Look.” He pulls up images of the adjacent building and points to the fourth-floor window. The spot offers a clean view of the warehouse interior from four separate angles, and there are no structural obstacles or real shadows once the lights are on. “It’s a perfect location for an assassination.” He delivers this detail with the casual tone of a weather report.
I assess the angles for four seconds, maybe five, calculating trajectory and response time. Then I hand the tablet back.
“Tell Vito and Rocco where I’m going,” I say. “Nobody else.”
Nico’s mouth flattens into a hard line as he dips his chin once.
When I return to the main house, I find Lucia standing in the kitchen doorway with a coffee cup clutched against her chest as if it can anchor her. The door to the corridor must have been open because her eyes are wide, and her expression shows that she’s heard enough.
“Are you walking into a trap?”
“You shouldn’t listen in on private conversations.”
Her eyes narrow. “Tell me I’m wrong. It sounds like a trap. And what’s worse, it sounds like you already know that and are going anyway.”
I hold her gaze but remain silent.
She steps close enough that I catch the faint scent of jasmine under the coffee and the starch of her shirt. The first button on her white blouse is undone, showing off her smooth clavicles.
Her voice drops, urgency threading through it. “Marco. Don’t go.”
The two words pack more of a punch than they should and burrow under my ribs.
So, I give her the truth that has governed my life since I was eighteen and too proud to admit I had been set up by the only man I trusted.
“I have a job to do.”
The warmth in her eyes dies out instantly.
“Fine.” Her flat tone stuns me, and without another glance, she spins and marches back into the kitchen.
I linger for a moment longer, then head outside into the biting morning air. My car waits at the curb like a patient animal, but before I can open the door, my phone rings.
“Nico.”
He offers no preamble. “Tomas contacted one of the kitchen staff in our compound. He was asking about Lucia’s daily schedule.”
I grab the door handle, tightening my grip until the metal bites into my palm.
On the other end, Nico pauses. “An insider is feeding Tomas information. The meeting was one thing, but he’s asking questions he shouldn’t know to ask.”
A cold caused by a subject more sinister than the weather settles in my chest, prompting me to glance up at the kitchen window.
Lucia stares through the glass, the light casting her in a warm glow, her coffee still in hand. From this distance, I can’t read her expression, but she can certainly read mine.
We’re taking a calculated risk by going to Red Hook, but leaving her here has now become a different kind of gamble.
I know how to take a hit, but I don’t know which hit is worth the scars.
Chapter 11
Lucia
I have no reasonable justification for why I’m currently sitting in the main atrium of St. Catherine’s Children’s Hospital wearing a four-dollar pair of sunglasses I bought at a gas station.
If anyone strolls up to me and questions my presence, I’ll say that I’m a physician with a professional interest in pediatric care facilities. But actually, I’m stalking Marco.
Three days ago, he returned from the Red Hook warehouse with a kind of calm silence that carries the weight of a traumatic event. He deflected most of my questions and answered none of the ones that mattered.
