TWELVE DAYS BEFORE
Nico didn’t show for his meeting, which is either a disaster or nothing. Oria’s still in the small conference room, losing her mind over it, and I’m with Oliver and Tamara, watching a bank of security monitors. It all looks normal. Calm. Boring. The precursor to everything happening at once.
Oliver just reported an uptick in SWAT team calls. Sheriff, not the police. All the buildings have a greenhouse on the roof.
“Audio doesn’t match the feed.” Tamara’s looking into the middle distance, one fingertip touching her headphone to push it tighter to her ear. “It’s got a code added.”
She scribbles in a notebook. I lean over her to read the scanner. Oliver stands with his thick arms crossed, boyish face set into mature concern.
I’d thought I was hiring him, and she was gravy. When did I realize that, between them, she’s the one in charge?
Just now. That’s when I realized.
“How would they know there’s a greenhouse on our roof?” I ask. “Do we have a mole?”
My mind runs through a list of names. Santino’s guys? Oria? We planted one with them. They could have done the same.
Why did Nico miss his meeting?
“A mole would have given up our address,” Oliver says.
“Google Maps,” Tamara adds, switching to satellite view, revealing the tightly packed roofs of Manhattan. Water towers. HVAC units. The occasional greenhouse, legal and otherwise, built by residents desperate for a bit of outdoor space. “They’re playing darts with a blindfold.”
I may be the target, but Sarah’s the bull’s-eye. If they get me, they get her, and she’s mine. They can’t have her.
We’re going to have to postpone Sarah’s freedom. No more jaunts out to buy soup until I destroy her family.
“They know too damn much.” I jab my finger at the scanner feed as robberies and car accidents scroll past.
“We’re cloaked,” Tamara says. “No breaches. I checked.”
“The only time the two spaces were directly connected was the wedding and the video call. Which one was it?”
Tamara’s as unflappable as any man. “Let me pull up the video.”
I know exactly which video she means.
Where I made her strip naked.
And kneel.
And beg for water.
And take off the one bit of clothing she begged to keep.
The greenhouse comes up. I lean over the keyboard, fast forwarding so I don’t have to confirm what a monster I am with an unwilling woman kneeling into my crotch.
Did I leave her there, sobbing, then fuck my hand the next day with the memory of it?
You bet I did.
The camera had been carefully set to keep the frame generic. No windows. Just the wall. No detritus, no furniture, no gardening supplies were inside it. But at one point, the clouds move, and in the corner of the frame, for one second, the moonlight leaves a grid-shaped shadow. I freeze it there.
“Shit,” Tamara says. “She threw her shoe at the camera. We couldn’t recalibrate until after.” She looks back at me. “I’m sorry.”
I don’t need an apology. I need a solution. “If they come here and find Sarah, they’re going to deliver her back to them.”
“We’ll move her,” Oliver says. “Get her somewhere secure.”
Easily done, but it’s not enough. I can’t send her away and stay behind to wait to defend my territory. If she goes, I go, and if I go, everyone goes.
“How much time do we have?” I ask.
“I’m checking dispatch now.” Tamara presses a button on her headphones. The dispatcher’s mechanical voice comes over the speakers. Some of it is code. Some plain English. She scribbles shorthand on a spiral pad. She’s going so fast I can’t catch any of it—then she stops. “I think I got it. The code.”
“And?”
“Packing up from 42 Crosby. Waiting for next hit.”
There’s no defense against the authorities. Not if I want to stay under the radar. When they get here, they have to find nothing but an empty greenhouse and an abandoned office.
No team. No high-level security. No guns, and especially no Sarah Colonia.
They’ll think it’s another missed shot and move on. We’ll return after they’ve turned their backs, more anonymous for being inspected and discarded.
Now that I have a plan for Sarah’s safety, I’m relieved. “Everyone needs to be ready to get out of here. Go bags. Hard drives. Burners. Everything.”
“Should we set up the car for you?” Oliver asks.
“I’ll take Sarah in the ghost. Call Benny. Tell him to prep for us.”
As I leave the office to get her, the job is done in my mind. I have a safe house an hour out of town. Nice grounds. Excellent security. Plenty of places to fuck.
I don’t find her in the suite, making me noodles. She’s in the hallway between with a rolling suitcase. As if she’s going somewhere, and Willa’s a thousand miles away from where she’s supposed to be, when all I need is a minute or less to talk to Sarah.
I need Willa to go away.
I need Oria to back me up.
I need it all to happen before someone says something stupid.
Then Willa calls me baby, and herself my wife, and I’m stuck between the truth of the moment and the lies of the past.
“What didn’t you tell me?” Sarah’s red-faced, dug in, monolithic in confused rage.
Willa’s shaking her head like a school principal with a recalcitrant student opposite her desk, and Oria looks as if she wants to turn the color of paint and disappear into the wall.
“Sarah.” Do I sound too stern? Is she open to a command? “You need to go sit down, and I’ll take care of this.”
“Am I your wife?” She answers my unspoken questions. It doesn’t matter if I sound stern. She’s not open to being told what to do, and she’s not going into my apartment without a fight in front of people. “Yes or no, Dario.”
I lock my eyes on hers as if I can use that connection to tell her it’s okay, that I adore her and she’s the only woman I want. But that’s too stupid to even be a wish.
“Jesus,” Oria mumbles like some disgusted and shocked innocent who doesn’t know a goddamn thing. She knew everything from jump. Everyone knew but Sarah because that was how it had to be.
“Yes or no!”
How do I explain this, and why the fuck do I have to right now?
“Yes or no!” Sarah’s fists are balled, white-knuckled, tight enough to crack walnuts. I taught her to expect something from me, and now here I am, betraying her in front of Oria and Willa.
How did I end up surrounded by so many women?
“Yes and no,” I say. “Now give me a god damn fucking second to explain.”
Less than a second passes.
“No.” She moves for the elevator, but I block her way. “I’m tired of your explanations. They’re just piled on top of lies and excuses.”
“You’re my wife.” Truth weighs my voice. “You.”
Willa scoffs, and suddenly, I’m nothing. The wedge of fact will not be used to displace the stone of truth.
“What have you done?” Willa asks. “What did you become while I was gone?”
“He’s a monster,” Sarah answers. “It’s what he’s always been.”
She slips away to the only exit I’ll allow, walking into the suite at the end of the hall. I bark her name like a sergeant who expects obedience and discipline, but she doesn’t even look at me before closing the door. I rush to it, but as I push against the wood, the latch snaps.
“Let me in!” I pound my fist against the door, expecting her to open it because obedience is the rule, along with truth and loyalty. But the lock snaps with a gentle crack. “Do you think this door’s going to stop me? This is my door. I own it. I can open it any time I want.”
“Leave her be,” Willa says from a mile down the hall. “She’s traumatized, and all you’re doing is making it worse.”
“Open up.” Cheek and shoulder to the wood, I smack the door. “I can get in, Sarah. I have every code and key to every lock in this building. I don’t want to do that. You need to let me in because you want to.”
My ears are ringing, but I can just hear the sound of something heavy against the floor. A piece of furniture being moved. She’s barricading herself in. I punch the code, but it’s too late. The door won’t budge.
Willa lets out a half chuckle that turns into a scoff.
I turn away from the door. Life in the Caribbean sun has made Willa’s skin darker. Richer. Her light brown eyes are as clear and incisive as ever—taking no bullshit from me or anyone.
Good. I have no bullshit to offer.
“Who called you here?” I ask.
Willa answers by turning to Oria.
“She wasn’t going to St. Eustatius on her own.” Oria’s bent into a curve of regret, shifting her body and gaze like a defendant who never bothered to plead innocent. “Not with you doing…” She waves in my general direction.
“Doing what?” Willa asks.
My wife of the law came here for Sarah, my wife of scars and blood. Willa does not like having her time wasted. Messes are dealt with. Glitches are stamped out like roaches.
We had this in common, and I appreciated it. Now I’m the hiccup in the plan. If she tries to brush me aside or wipe me out I’m going to regret hurting her, but I’m not sure I’ll have any choice.
“Your apartment’s empty,” I say. “If you need a new key—”
“I have it, but I—”
There’s a deep scrape, then a thud from the other side of Sarah’s door. Furniture.
“When I need you, I’ll call you.” I rap on Sarah’s door, speaking sweetly enough to attract a swarm of bees. “Let me in.”
Silence. I can’t sense her. How is that possible? How can I not know what she’s feeling at this very moment? How can she be so quiet when the noise in my head is so loud?
There are too many distractions. The questions and the looks. The intonations in what’s said and the clarity of what’s unsaid.
“What is wrong with you?” Willa’s brow twists in confusion. She’s living the reality of weeks ago, when we agreed to take certain risks and not others. I can’t pretend she’s not there.
“Sarah Colonia is staying with me. Period. You can get on a plane now or you can go downstairs, to your studio, and rest first. You can eat raw meat and spit nickels for all I care. Just get out of this hallway.”
“Give her time,” Willa says.
“Fuck off,” I murmur when I can’t shout.
Oria rests one hand on Willa’s arm and hits the elevator button with the other. “I’ll fill you in.”
The elevator slides open. I want them to get sucked into it and be gone. I want to be left here waiting for a sign that I’m not alone. None comes. It’s just me, this door, this hall, and the inaccessible woman close enough to touch.
“It’s not what you think.” My fingertips stroke the wood as if it’s her skin, and my forehead leans against it as if I’m sharing my mind with her. “Willa is… she was…”
The wall next to me rattles and hisses as if a nest of snakes is trapped behind the plaster.
It’s the pipes.
She’s in the shower.
I’m talking to a slab of wood, not a woman.
My forehead’s pressed to the door as I consider whether I should saw off the knob, pry away the jamb piece by piece, or go down to the garage and grab the chainsaw in the storage cage. I don’t think it has any gas in it, but I have cars I can siphon from.
Sarah now knows what I’ve pretended wasn’t true. She’s not my wife and never was. I started out fooling her and ended up fooling myself.
I close my eyes and replay the moments before Willa walked out of the elevator. Tamara is worried about the NYSD swatting greenhouses, and Oria’s worried about Nico. I’m worried about both, but I can’t think around this. Fucking. Door.
With Oria and Willa gone, I am left alone—worshipping an unseen goddess, waiting for a sign.
And it comes.
Tamara opens the door on the other end of the hall, and that sign arrives with the whistling speed of a missile.