Page 190

“I’m okay.”

She released a breath that sounded as though she’d been holding it since I left.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I’m fine, Adriana. We’re all fine.”

“What happened?”

I looked toward the stretcher carrying the injured girl.

“We stopped the containers.”

“Were there people inside?”

“Yes.”

Her breath caught.

“How many?”

“Forty three across both trucks.”

“Oh God.”

“We got them out, Adriana. They’re going to be okay.”

“All of them?”

“All of them.”

I turned away from the others.

“The files are everywhere,” she told me. “Every channel is showing them. They have my father’s photograph on the news.”

I closed my eyes. “Are you all right?”

“No. But I will be.”

I ended the call and returned to the others.

The last of the flames disappeared beneath a blanket of white foam, leaving behind nothing but twisted metal, blackened wreckage, and smoke curling into the morning sky.

Forty-three women sat along the roadside, wrapped in blankets and surrounded by paramedics and our men. Some were crying. Others stared ahead in stunned silence, as though their minds had not yet caught up with the fact that they were finally free.

The fourteen-year-old girl was carried into an ambulance, but the girl who had shielded her refused to let go of her hand. She climbed in beside her, still holding on.

I watched until the ambulance doors closed.

The convoy belonged to us. The evidence belonged to the world. And somewhere between the burning wreckage and the first light of morning, the Coccico empire had begun to collapse even before anyone could have their breakfast.

41

DEMITRI