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"What did you do?" she asks.

Her voice almost holds.

Almost.

"Valentino. What did you trade?"

Five minutes.

Enough time to tell her the truth if I don't waste it trying to make this better.

I cross the room and go down on my knees in front of her chair.

Amanda

I'm crying before he says a word.

"Look at me," he says. His voice is rough, but steady. "Amanda. You need to understand something. I didn't have a choice."

"You..." I try again, but nothing comes.

He sees it. The words getting stuck. The panic sitting right behind them. His face changes, just enough to hurt, and then he leans up and kisses me.

His mouth tastes like cigarettes. I press into him until my teeth hit his, until the rope burns my wrists because my hands keep trying to reach him.

He pulls back only enough to speak, his breath warm against my face.

"I regret one thing," he says. "Only one. That we didn't have more time." His jaw tightens. "But what we had, bella, those were the best days of my life. All of it. I lived thirty-eight years, and the best part was a few days in safe houses with you."

A sound leaves me. Small. Ugly. Mine.

My tears run into my mouth, salt and blood from the cut at my temple.

"I love you," I say. It comes out wrecked, but sure. "I love you, Valentino. I've loved you since I was fifteen, and I'm going to love you when I'm eighty."

His forehead drops to my knee for one second. When he lifts his head, his eyes are wet. "I love you too," he says. "Ti amo, Amanda. Capisci? I love you."

I nod because I can't do anything else. I hold on to the sentence. Every word. Every sound.

"What happens now?" My voice climbs before I can stop it. "Tell me."

"They let you go," he says. "When this is over, they'll put you outside the gates. Enzo has no quarrel with you. You were Aldo's victim, and that shames him."

"When this is over," I repeat.

His face tells me enough.

"No."

"Amanda."

"No." I pull against the rope. It tears at my wrists. "You mean after they kill you. You walked through that gate and handed yourself over, and now you want me to leave here alone and call Vittoria like that makes any of this fine?"

"It doesn't make it fine."

"Then don't say it like it does." My voice breaks, but I don't care. "You come out with me. Both of us. That's the plan."

One corner of his mouth lifts.