Chương 8
“My dear son-in-law,” he said. “You have mistaken hospitality for weakness.”
The camera shifted.
Nico sat in a chair beside him, alive, with a split lip and one eye swollen shut.
Sofia’s brother looked directly at the lens.
“Don’t let her come back,” he said.
Someone struck him from behind.
The video ended.
Matteo felt the room go still around him.
Rizzo swore softly.
A second file appeared on the phone, triggered by the first.
Marco again.
“You have until six tonight,” he said. “Bring my daughter to Saint Michael’s Social Club. Come alone, and the boy lives. Refuse, and the next message will be shorter.”
The screen went black.
Matteo checked his watch.
Eleven forty-two.
He had six hours and eighteen minutes.
When he returned to the hotel, Sofia was gone.
For one violent second, Matteo believed Marco had reached the penthouse.
Then Hall stepped from the bedroom.
“She’s downstairs.”
“Downstairs where?”
“Radiology.”
“You let her leave the floor?”
Hall’s expression sharpened. “I accompanied an adult patient to a medical appointment.”
“Without telling me.”
“She sent you two messages.”
Matteo checked his phone.
Both had arrived while he was in the warehouse basement. One said she was going for scans. The other said, I am informing you, not asking.
Rizzo read over his shoulder.
“I like her,” he said.
Matteo ignored him.
He found Sofia in a private imaging center connected to the hotel through an underground passage used by high-profile patients. She sat in a dressing room wearing blue medical scrubs, her hair loose around her shoulders. A paper wristband circled her uninjured arm.
The moment she saw Matteo’s face, she knew.
“You didn’t find him.”
“We found proof he’s alive.”
“Where?”
“He was moved.”
She stood too quickly and gripped the edge of the chair.
“What proof?”
Matteo handed her the prepaid phone.
She watched the video once.
Then again.
On the second viewing, she paused before Nico spoke.
“Play it,” Matteo said.
She shook her head and enlarged the frame.
Behind Marco’s chair stood a dark wooden cabinet. A brass handle reflected light. On the wall above it hung a painting of the Madonna with a narrow tear in the canvas.
“That’s not his study.”
“Where is it?”
“My uncle Dominic’s house.”
Rizzo, waiting near the door, opened his phone.
“Address?”
Sofia gave it.
“Marco won’t keep him there now,” she said. “He made sure I would recognize the room.”
“Why?”
“So I’ll think I can help.”
Matteo took the phone from her. “He wants you at Saint Michael’s by six.”
Her face went still.
“He said alone.”
“You’re not going.”
“Nico told you not to let me come back.”
“He said it because he knows what your father will do.”
“He said it because he thinks his life is worth less than mine.”
“He’s wrong.”
“So are you.”
Matteo’s temper rose. “This is not an argument.”
Sofia looked at the locked dressing-room door, then at the medical bracelet on her wrist.
“It always becomes that with you.”
“What?”
“An order.”
“I’m trying to keep you alive.”
“And I’m trying to keep my brother alive.”
“Walking into Marco’s hands will not do that.”
“Then stop deciding before I finish speaking.”
Matteo closed his mouth.
The effort was visible.
Sofia sat again, breathing through the pain in her ribs.
“He wants me at the social club because the downstairs room has no windows,” she said. “He used it for punishments when I was a child. But the building shares a wall with the bakery next door. There’s an old service passage between the basements.”
Rizzo looked up. “Still open?”
“It was when I was sixteen.”
“That’s years ago.”
“I used it last month.”
Matteo stared at her.
“Why?”
“To meet Nico.”
The brother and sister had been planning her escape longer than Matteo understood.
Sofia continued. “If my father expects you to come through the front, he’ll put most of his men there. Someone can enter through the bakery.”
“Someone,” Matteo repeated.
“Not me.”
He studied her.
“I know I can’t go inside like this,” she said. “But I can call him. I can make him keep talking. He likes explaining why he’s already won.”
Rizzo nodded slowly. “That part tracks.”
Matteo looked between them. “You’re both enjoying this too much.”
“No one is enjoying anything,” Sofia said. “We’re making a plan.”
We.
The word no longer sounded accidental.
They returned to the penthouse shortly after one.
Hall confirmed two nondisplaced rib fractures and severe soft-tissue injuries. Sofia refused stronger medication because she wanted to remain alert. Hall argued. Sofia argued back. Matteo stayed out of it until Hall looked at him for support.
“She decides,” he said.
Sofia glanced at him.
It was a small thing. He knew that. The expression on her face made it feel larger.
Rizzo mapped the social club and neighboring bakery. The passage appeared on a property survey from 1948 but not on recent renovation plans. One team would enter through the bakery basement. Another would secure the alley. Matteo would go to the front with a small escort despite Marco’s demand that he arrive alone.
“You cannot go alone,” Rizzo said. “That is not bravery. That is poor staffing.”
Matteo ignored the insult.
Sofia sat at the table, wrapped once more in his cardigan. “My father will search you.”
“I expect him to.”
“He’ll take your phone.”
“I expect that too.”
“He’ll make you kneel.”
Rizzo’s eyebrows rose.
Matteo looked at her. “Has he done that before?”
“To other men.”
“Did it help him?”
“For a while.”
Matteo leaned back. “Then he can enjoy the memory.”
Sofia shook her head. “You still think humiliation is something that happens only if you feel humiliated.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’ll refuse because you hate him. Nico will pay for it.”
May you like
The room quieted.
Matteo did not like kneeling. His father had once made him kneel on a gravel driveway at fourteen after Matteo damaged a car. Not because the vehicle mattered, but because a visiting captain had seen the mistake. His father believed embarrassment had to be answered publicly.
