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I WATCHED AS THE CORONER rolled Mauro’s body out of the apartment. My entire system was riddled with so much shock, it was as though it was happening to someone else entirely.
Because there was no way that Mauro could be dead. There just wasn’t. He had always been around, as long as I could remember, had always been a part of my life. And he wasn’t just gone – he was gone on the heels of the revelation that he hadn’t been who he said he was.
Had he been telling the truth? There was no way he would have lied to me. No way he would have made the last things he’d said to me untrue. Would he? Surely not. My mind was spinning as I tried to make it all fit together, but I just couldn’t come close. My brain was spent from everything that had happened, and now – now that he was gone – I had to reckon with what he had left behind.
His blood was still staining the armchair and the floor in front of it, and I stepped over it to grab his phone. I had pulled it from his pocket before he had been taken out of here. I was sure there would be something on here that I could use, no matter how much I wished I didn’t have to. No matter how much I wished he was here to guide me.
I had never been out on my own like this before, and it scared me. It was the buzzing, fizzing kind of fear that warned me that I might not be able to take this on. But I had to. If I was going to stop Nikita, and if I was going to be able to keep Nadia safe, then I needed to be able to fight right now, fight harder than I ever had before.
I sat down on the edge of the couch and started going through Mauro’s phone; he had never bothered locking it. Probably because he had no reason to think that my father or I would ever go looking for anything in it. We had trusted him so much, it hadn’t even crossed either of our minds in all the time that he had been working for us that he might be pulling for a different side.
I wasn’t sure I believed him. I didn’t know why he would lie to me like that, sure, but it didn’t mean I would just take what he was saying at face value. He had been delirious, close to death. He could have said a lot of things he didn’t really mean. He might have just came with a mess of words for the sake of getting them off his chest. Perhaps he had been confused with the pain and the blood loss.
Or maybe he had been telling the truth. Because in all the time I had known him, I had never known Mauro to mis-speak. He picked his words carefully, chose every one to make sure they meant just what he intended them to. I couldn’t imagine he would have let that slip in those vital final seconds that he had on this Earth, no matter how bad he might have felt.
I started going through his phone – his messages, his old calls, anything that I could use that might give me a hint as to what had been going on with him. But it wasn’t until I opened his contacts that I found something that pointed to an answer.
One of the contacts was simply listed under if I die. My heart skipped a beat when I saw it. Had he known? Had he always known that this was a possibility, and that he needed to be ready for it? I hovered my finger over the call button, no idea if I should actually hit the button or if I should calm down a little first.
Shit. I didn’t have a choice. I needed to get moving on this now. If Mauro was right, and Nikita really was about to bring war to my doorstep, I had to be ready and willing to fight him when he did. I clicked the call button and held the phone to my ear.
After a moment or two, someone answered.
“Mauro?”
“This isn’t Mauro,” I admitted at once. “This is Andreas. Andreas Salieri.”
There was a pause on the other end of the line, the sound of breathing, like they were working out how to respond to that.
“Where’s Mauro?”
“He’s - he’s dead,” I told him. I couldn’t believe I was saying it out loud, not really, but I had to come to terms with it at some point. He was gone, and I was out here on my own now. He was relying on me to do the right thing. I had to prove that he could.
The person on the call caught their breath, but it didn’t seem to stun them. They must have been prepared for something like this. Given what Mauro did – if what he had told me had been true – then it had been coming for a long time.
“We need to meet,” the person replied. It was a man, I was quite sure of that. The accent was throwing me, though. European? Not Italian, not Serbian – maybe French?
“When?” I asked. “Where?”
“I’ll send you an address,” he replied. “It’s a couple of blocks from your apartment.”
“How do you know where I—”
“Meet me there in three hours, sharp,” he replied. “I’ll speak to you soon.”
And, with that, he hung up the phone.
Okay. Okay. I could do this. I needed to. It might not be easy, wrapping my head around everything that was being asked of me right now, but I could do it. I had to meet with this guy, even if I had no idea who he was or what his connection to Mauro might be. There was too much on the line, too much I couldn’t let slip through my fingers. And with every second that ticked past, I was sure Nikita was drawing closer and closer, ready to take me out for good.
And Nadia – Nadia. I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her, her name thrumming at the back of my mind with every heartbeat. I needed to get her out of whatever mess she was trapped in right now. She might have left me, but I knew she wouldn’t have done it unless she felt like she didn’t have any other choice. This wasn’t something she had done because she wanted to, it was something she had done because she felt she had to, and if I could change the circumstances, I might be able to get her back.
I organized some security to come with me to the address the mysterious caller had texted me. I knew it was dangerous, especially at a time like this, to head out somewhere with no knowledge of where I was going to end up, but that was the risk I was willing to take.
From this point on, I needed to throw myself at whatever I could to make it through this mess. Mauro had left me a trail of breadcrumbs, and I was going to follow them until the end of the line. No matter what. For his sake, for mine, for Nadia’s - for the sake of my father’s legacy, too. It was all on me now, and I was determined to see it through and prove I could do what needed to be done.
I had no idea how that caller had known where I lived, but true to his word, the address that he was sending me to was only a few blocks from my apartment. I was tailed by security, but I went in unarmed, knowing I had to play it cool. I had to make sure that whoever I was meeting with didn’t have a reason to fear me, even if I wanted them to be scared right now.
The address led to a darkened bar, with blacked-out windows and a scruffy sign over the doorway. Not exactly the kind of place I was used to hanging out at, but I brushed it off. This wasn’t about me. This was about doing the right thing, no matter how unsure I might have been about stepping over that threshold to find out what was waiting for me.
I approached the door, eyes darting back and forth to make sure nobody was following me. A slight rain had started to patter on the sidewalk, and the streets were quiet that day, as though the city was holding its breath. Waiting for something to happen.
I pushed the door to the bar open, and it groaned against its hinges as I stepped inside. The place smelled like booze and cheap cigarettes. The bartender, an older man with a scar running down one side of his cheek, looked up to see me enter, and then turned his attention back to buffing out the stains in the mottled bar in front of him.
I scanned the room, trying to find who I had come to meet. There weren’t many people in the bar, so it wasn’t exactly hard to make them out. A few older guys, sitting in the corner booths and sipping on booze, a younger couple in motorcycle leathers nearer the door, and then...
Over in the darkest corner of the bar, I saw him. The person I had spoken to on the phone. I knew it was him at once. The way he was looking at me, it couldn’t be anyone else. I started towards his table, and he didn’t move, not taking his eyes off of me as I drew closer.
In the dim light, I could make out a few details of his face. He was a little younger than Mauro – at least, I thought so. He seemed ageless, in a way, like a vampire, his face not creased but marked with the knowledge of years beyond those that he had lived. His eyes were sharp and gray, and he was wearing a well-made suit, tailored to fit his lean form.
“Andreas?” he asked me as I got close enough to hear him. I nodded. He jerked his head to the seat opposite him.
“Sit down,” he ordered me. “We have a lot to talk about.”
I did as I was told. He had a packet of cigarettes on the table, and he was rolling one between his fingers frantically, as though he was attempting to blow off steam. I knew how he felt. The tension was palpable, even as I tried to control my nerves. Did he have people watching us, too? Surely, he must have eyes on us right now, the same way I did. It was too dangerous to risk doing this without it.
“Mauro’s dead?” he asked, and I nodded.
“I watched his body get wheeled out by the coroner just before I called you,” I replied. “He was shot, by one of the Serbians, I believe.”
“Shit,” the man muttered, shaking his head. It was clear that was the last thing he’d wanted to hear.
He looked up at me. There was a coldness to him, but I knew in the line of work that Mauro had been in – and presumably this man, too – he had no choice but to keep it that way.
“I’m going to skip the pageantry,” he told me quickly. “I’m Leo. I’m an FBI agent, I was working with Mauro on your and Nikita’s cases.”
I nodded. I still couldn’t bring myself to believe that Mauro had really lied to me all this time, but as long as I kept getting this evidence that it was true, what other choice did I have?
“And, from this point forward, unless you do exactly what I tell you,” he continued, narrowing his eyes at me. “Then you can consider yourself under arrest. You understand me?”
I nodded.
“I understand.”
