Chapter Five

"Don't call him."

Alexander's thumb stopped over his cousin's name. Elena had her hand wrapped around his wrist. She hadn't planned that. His skin was hot and his pulse was hammering under her fingers.

"He has Sofia."

"Which is why you don't call him." She kept her voice flat. "Look at your hand."

He looked. It was shaking.

"You'll shout, and he'll hear that he got to you. After that, he's running the call." She let go slowly. "Let me do it."

"He's my cousin."

"He aimed a rifle at your car."

"I know what he did." His voice cracked on the last word. He turned his head so nobody could see his face. Enzo studied the floor. The man at the monitors suddenly had to adjust a screen that didn't need adjusting.

Elena waited. When Alexander turned back, his face was smooth again, but a muscle was jumping in his jaw.

"He taught me to drive," he said. "Stick shift, in my father's old Alfa. I stalled it nine times and he never laughed once. He stood next to me at my mother's funeral the whole day."

"People can do both."

"Do both what?"

"Love you and sell you." She held out her hand. "My father taught me that. Phone."

He gave it to her. "Speaker. Say as little as you can."

"I always do."

The line rang twice.

"Cugina." Marco's voice was warm, almost relieved. "You're alive. I was worried."

"Don't call me that."

"Alexander's wife is my cousin. That's just math."

"Proof of life," Elena said. "Now."

"Straight to business. He told me you were sharp. He didn't say you'd be rude."

"He doesn't tell anyone anything. Put Sofia on."

Rustling. A scrape, like a chair on tile. Then a small voice.

"Elena?"

Her throat locked. She dug her thumbnail into her palm until it stung. "I'm here. Are you hurt?"

"No. No, I'm okay." A wet laugh that turned into a gasp. "They took my shoes. I don't know why they took my shoes."

"Sofia, listen to me. In Iowa. On the plane. What did I make you promise?"

A pause. Sofia was thinking, and Elena could hear the effort in it, a mind trying to work through fear. "That I'd never let you hire the guy with the ponytail."

Elena's eyes closed for one second. She's still in there. She's still herself.

"Good. Stay calm. I'm coming."

Marco came back on. "Satisfied?"

"I'll give you what you want."

Across the table, Alexander's head snapped up. She shook hers once. ‘Wait.’

"But I don't have it on me," she went on. "He didn't leave a box, Marco. He left a puzzle, and I need time to solve it."

"You have until tomorrow morning."

"I need until tomorrow night. Nine o'clock. The Gilded Harbor Club, back room, public."

Marco laughed. It was a good laugh. Easy. "Public?"

"Cameras on. Staff in the room. You bring Sofia, I bring what I have. Nobody's holding anyone at gunpoint in a place that keeps footage."

"You've thought about this."

"I've been thinking for ten minutes. Imagine what I'll do with a day."

The silence stretched. She counted. Four seconds. Five.

"Fine," Marco said. "Nine o'clock. And Elena?"

"What."

"Don't trust everyone who tells you he's protecting you."

"Is that a threat?"

"It's advice. A friendly one." His voice dropped, quiet and almost sorry. "Ask your husband where he was at 6:52 last night."

The line went dead.

Nobody in the room moved.

Elena set the phone down on the metal table. She kept her hand on it. It gave her something to hold. Alexander stood across from her, perfectly still, the way a man stands when he's decided not to react.

"Where were you at 6:52?" she said.

"Elena."

"It's a simple question."

"It's not simple."

"Boss," Enzo said carefully.

"Not now."

"Boss, maybe—"

"I said not now."

She stepped around the table. Her heels clicked on the concrete, loud in the quiet. She stopped in front of him, close enough to see the pulse in his neck.

"You told me at the funeral you had dinner at six-thirty. You said my father never showed. You said he was never late. You called Kessler at 6:40 because you were worried."

"That's true."

"Then where were you at 6:52?"

His eyes didn't leave hers. "Driving."

"Where?"

"Your father's house."

The word landed in her chest like a dropped weight. She hadn't realized she was hoping until the hope was gone.

"Mrs. Dunn found him at seven," she said slowly.

"Yes."

"You were in the house."

"I was outside the house. I rang the bell. Nobody answered, so I—" He stopped.

"So you what?"

"It's not what he's making it sound like."

"Then say what it is."

"Elena, I can explain, but not in a room with—"

Her phone buzzed against the table.

She didn't pick it up. She looked at it. Unknown number. A single message with a video attached, a grey thumbnail with a play arrow, the timestamp in the corner reading ‘6:52 PM.’

Alexander saw it too. His whole body went tight. "Don't."

"Why?"

"Because you won't be able to unsee it."

"That's a very strange thing to say to a woman whose father just died."

She pressed play.

It was her father's study. She knew it by the lamp, the green shade, the crooked corner of the bookshelf she'd bumped as a kid. The camera sat high in a corner, wide and grainy. The light was dim. Her father was in his chair behind the desk, head tilted against the leather. His reading glasses had slipped halfway down his nose. One arm hung off the armrest.

He wasn't moving.

A sound came out of her throat. Small. She pressed her free hand flat over her mouth.

On screen, a tall man in a charcoal suit stood over the desk. His back was to the camera. He put a hand on her father's shoulder, gently, and bent, like he was listening for something. He stayed there far too long.

‘Please let it be nothing. Please let him be checking for a pulse.’

Then he straightened. He took a small black notebook from the desk drawer, the one her father kept locked, and slid it inside his jacket.

He turned toward the camera.

It was Alexander's face. Calm. Grey eyes. A thin scar through one eyebrow.

He looked straight into the lens, reached up, and the screen went black.