Chapter 13 - Come Alone
Nico read Bianca's message again.
COME ALONE.
Nobody in the room believed he would.
Nobody except Nico.
"Absolutely not," Grace said.
"She is my wife."
The word wife struck something inside me that I had no right to feel.
Bianca was alive.
Whatever had begun between Nico and me existed in the strange space created by believing she was dead.
Now she was not.
That changed everything.
I stepped away from the table.
Nico noticed.
Of course he did.
He seemed to notice every movement I wished he would miss.
"Emma."
"Go."
His eyes narrowed.
"That sounded almost easy."
"It isn't my decision."
"No."
"Then stop looking at me like I am supposed to make it for you."
Marco leaned back in his chair.
"This is uncomfortable enough that I almost miss the basement."
Clara elbowed him.
"Shut up."
Nico ignored them.
"Bianca may be under surveillance."
"Probably."
"She may be forced to send the message."
"Probably."
"Then I need to go."
"I said go."
My voice came sharper than I intended.
Nico studied my face.
"You are angry."
"I was arrested yesterday, my grandmother apparently spent decades spying on your uncle, a woman wearing my face has been walking around pawn shops, and your dead wife just texted you while holding my ex-fiance at gunpoint."
I spread my hands.
"I have options."
Marco covered his mouth.
Clara looked down at the table.
Nico did not smile.
He stepped closer.
"Come with me."
I stared.
"The message says alone."
"You will stay out of sight."
Grace made an angry sound.
"No one is going."
Nico turned.
"Grace."
"You are walking into a trap with a woman who has been missing four years, an ex-gambler who has lied about everything, and an unknown sender who knows your private number."
"Yes."
"I hate representing you."
"You invoice accordingly."
She muttered something under her breath.
The location arrived ten minutes later.
An abandoned ferry terminal on the south branch of the river.
Midnight.
Nico had six hours.
He spent the first four building a plan he pretended was not a plan.
Three surveillance teams went into the area wearing utility uniforms.
Marco selected two men he trusted from before his disappearance.
Clara studied every street camera and drainage route.
Grace contacted a federal prosecutor she trusted without naming the location.
I sat at the kitchen table with Leo while all of it happened around us.
He colored a triceratops purple.
"Dinosaurs weren't purple," I said.
"You don't know."
"Scientists know."
"Were they there?"
I looked at him.
"You are going to be exhausting at sixteen."
"Papa says I already am."
Nico stood in the doorway.
Leo looked up.
"Are you going to Mama?"
Nico entered slowly.
"Yes."
"Bring her home."
The room became painfully quiet.
Nico crouched beside him.
"I will try."
Leo frowned.
"Trying is not promising."
"No."
"Why not promise?"
Nico looked at his son for a long time.
"Because I will never promise you something I cannot control again."
Leo looked down at his purple dinosaur.
Then he nodded.
"Okay."
Nico kissed his hair.
When he stood, his eyes met mine.
"A word."
We went into the hall.
He handed me a small velvet pouch.
Inside was my grandmother's ring.
I looked up sharply.
"Grace said it stays with the evidence team."
"The evidence team made a complete forensic copy of the film."
"So?"
"The ring belongs to you."
I touched the sapphire.
The sight of it hurt.
"David took it because he needed money."
"David took many things because he needed excuses."
"You sound like you hate him."
"I dislike men who make women pay for their weakness."
His voice had an edge that did not come from David alone.
I slid the ring onto my finger.
It fit exactly as it had years ago.
"Thank you."
"Do not thank me for returning what was yours."
I looked at him.
"That may be the most decent thing you have said."
"I am occasionally disappointing."
A smile escaped me.
It faded quickly.
"Bianca is alive."
"Yes."
"You still love her?"
The question came out before I could stop it.
Nico did not answer immediately.
I hated myself for asking.
"Forget it."
I turned.
He caught my hand.
Not my arm.
Not my wrist.
My hand.
His fingers closed carefully around mine.
"I loved the woman I believed died four years ago."
I looked at him.
"That is not an answer."
"It is the only honest one I have before I see who she is now."
That honesty hurt and comforted me at the same time.
"Fair."
His thumb moved once over my knuckles.
"And whatever happens tonight does not erase what happened between us."
"Nothing happened between us."
His eyes lowered to my mouth.
My pulse jumped.
"Not yet."
The hallway suddenly felt too narrow.
"Nico."
"Tell me to stop."
I should have.
I had known him less than three days.
His wife was alive.
His brother had returned from the dead.
My ex-fiance was apparently being held at gunpoint.
There were at least twelve excellent reasons not to kiss Nico Valenti.
I could not remember one of them when he touched my face.
I kissed him first.
Maybe because I was tired of things happening to me before I chose them.
Maybe because pain, fear, and anger had burned away whatever caution I used to hide behind.
Maybe because he had looked at me since Lumina as if I were not furniture.
His hand slid gently to the back of my neck, nowhere near the bandages.
The kiss was not soft.
It was controlled only because both of us knew how dangerous losing control would be.
When we separated, his forehead rested against mine.
"That was poorly timed," I whispered.
"Very."
"We should not do it again."
"Agreed."
Neither of us moved.
Then Marco called from downstairs.
"If the tragic romance is finished, some of us would like to rescue my sister-in-law."
Nico closed his eyes.
"I may kill him after all."
"Leo said no."
"Another inconvenience."
At eleven forty, we left.
I rode in a utility van two blocks from the ferry terminal.
Nico walked the final distance alone.
At least he appeared alone.
Marco watched from a rooftop through a scoped camera.
Clara sat beside me monitoring radio traffic.
"You kissed him," she said.
I nearly dropped the binoculars.
"What?"
"Your mouth looks guilty."
"Mouths do not look guilty."
"Yours does."
"Watch the cameras."
She smiled.
"Bianca is going to complicate that."
"I know."
Clara's smile faded.
"My sister loved him."
"I know."
"He loved her."
"I know."
"And four years can make strangers out of people who once shared a bed."
I looked at her.
"Are you warning me away?"
"No."
She looked toward the dark terminal.
"I am warning you not to make decisions for Bianca, Nico, or yourself before any of you know what survived."
That was unexpectedly kind.
"Thank you."
"Do not get used to it."
At midnight exactly, headlights appeared.
A gray sedan stopped near the river.
Bianca stepped out.
Even from a distance, she looked thinner than on the video.
David emerged from the passenger side with his hands visible.
Bianca still held a pistol against his ribs.
Nico walked into the pool of light beneath a broken lamp.
He stopped twenty feet away.
"Bianca."
She stared at him.
The gun lowered slightly.
For four years, Nico had believed this woman was ashes beneath a grave marker.
Now she stood in front of him breathing cold air.
"You got older," she said.
Nico's face broke for one second.
"You did not."
"Liar."
Her mouth trembled.
Then she saw movement on the roof.
She raised the gun.
"You brought people."
"I brought insurance."
"I said alone."
"You taught me not to follow bad instructions."
Bianca almost laughed.
Then she looked at David.
"Tell him."
David swallowed.
"Vittorio paid me."
I closed my eyes inside the van.
There it was.
"For what?" Nico asked.
"At first, nothing."
David looked sick.
"He bought part of my gambling debt."
"Why?"
"Because he knew about Emma's ring."
Nico's face hardened.
David continued.
"He knew I had access to her."
"You stole it for him."
"No."
David shook his head.
"I stole it because I was desperate."
I believed that part because it was exactly ugly enough to be true.
"But when I took it to Bell Street, a man offered to erase forty thousand of my debt if I never asked what happened to it."
Bianca looked at Nico.
"Vittorio had been waiting years for someone close to Eleanor's family to bring that ring through one of his shops."
"Then why did he lose it?"
"Because Samuel Price recognized Eleanor's name first."
Bianca's eyes filled.
"Samuel contacted me."
"You recovered it?"
"Yes."
"And hid it in Emma's apartment."
"Yes."
My hands clenched.
Clara touched my arm.
Bianca spoke toward the darkness, as if she knew I was somewhere listening.
"Emma, if you are here, I am sorry."
I froze.
Nico turned slightly.
Bianca almost smiled.
"You never were good at coming alone."
"She is safer hidden."
"No one connected to us is safe hidden."
She looked at David.
"I found him before Vittorio's men did."
David rubbed his wrists.
"She nearly shot me."
"I considered it."
"Comforting."
Nico stepped closer.
"Where have you been?"
Bianca's face changed.
"Running."
"For four years?"
"At first."
"And then?"
"Caught."
Her voice went flat.
"Vittorio found me fourteen months after I disappeared."
Nico stopped.
"Saint Gabriel?"
"Not immediately."
"Why did you not contact me before?"
"Because I thought you killed Marco."
Nico flinched.
"He is alive."
Bianca stared.
"What?"
A voice came from the darkness behind her.
"Still dramatic, Bianca."
Marco stepped into the light.
The gun fell from Bianca's hand.
For a second, nobody moved.
Then she ran.
Marco barely had time to open his arms.
Bianca collided with him.
A sound came out of her that I will never forget.
Not a scream.
Not a sob.
Something older than both.
Marco held her while she struck his chest with both fists.
"You were dead."
"So were you."
"I hated you."
"Mutual."
She laughed through tears.
Nico stood several feet away watching his wife cling to his brother.
I could see everything moving through him.
Relief.
Grief.
Jealousy.
Guilt.
Love.
Then the river lights went out.
Marco shouted.
A shot cracked.
David dropped.
Clara grabbed my arm.
"Down."
Gunfire erupted from the terminal roof.
Men poured from the maintenance doors.
Nico dragged Bianca behind a concrete barrier.
Marco returned fire.
I saw one of the attackers under a floodlight.
Silver lion pin.
Scar across the right hand.
Salvatore Conti.
"Nico," I shouted into the radio.
"Salvatore is here."
Static answered.
Then Salvatore's voice came over every channel.
"Thank you, Emma."
My blood froze.
"You always did notice the wrong things."
The utility van doors ripped open.
A gun pointed at my face.
Salvatore smiled from the darkness.
May you like
"Eleanor made the same mistake."
