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I’m already running at the security guard. He sees me coming and lunges for me. I duck under his arms, squeezing down low, my head brushing the barrier. I rush through, only for two more guards to grab hold of me, lifting me into the air, my feet still running but getting me nowhere.
“You are in big trouble now,” one of them says, reaching for a set of cuffs. “Stop resisting, would you?”
“Put her down,” a man’s voice says behind me. I crane my neck to look that way and find myself staring into Hunter’s eyes. “Put her down right now.”
60
Hunter
* * *
An hour earlier…
I look at my Milsub. One hundred and eighty-six thousand Euros. Right now, I would trade the entire thing for one more minute with Bex. My entire empire. All the money my family has accumulated, everything.
It’s too late to think like that. For someone who abhors lateness, I’ve managed to leave everything until it’s too late.
The flight is booked. I’ve got Alicia packing her bags. The marriage is over. Ernesto is in custody, and my father is already in Rome waiting for me to arrive.
Together we’re going to run things over there. Go back to both of our roots. Before it all went wrong.
Looking at the time makes me think of her. She noticed this timepiece when she was climbing into my limo. Unlike all the other women I’ve ever dated, she didn’t start talking about what a generous gift it would be to give to her.
She commented and then moved on. There was no assumption that I’d be handing things over to her and piling cash onto her. No demanding more and more money like Sofia, all to go up her nose or into a syringe.
Bex took my deal, but she didn’t take the money. Insisted it goes to Eddie and Catherine instead. What does that say about her? About the person I thought she was.
Because I don’t know who she is, not anymore. I want to speak to her, to tell her I screwed up, that I can’t imagine my life without her. Only it’s too late to do that. I’m leaving the country for good. As soon as I get this meeting over, I’m a ghost.
I glance at the time again just as footsteps echo on the floorboards at the end of the aisle. A figure emerges from the rows of books carrying a handful of volumes. “Hunter,” she says, sitting at the table opposite me. “My new favorite person.”
“Captain Hall.”
“Please, call me Sally.”
“Thought no one was allowed to call you by your first name. Isn’t that the commission rules?”
“You’ve earned the right with what you’ve done.”
“Betrayed my own blood?”
She shakes her head, flicking open the book on top of the pile. “This is Brody’s copy of Les Miserables,” she says. “He’s highlighted some sections. Which do you think he picked?”
“Anything where Javert is chasing Valjean would be my guess.”
She turns the book my way, showing me an underlined paragraph. “What’s this?” I ask. “The relationship between Marius and Cosette?”
“Obsessed with love until the end,” she says, closing the book. “I knew about him and Sofia, not enough to talk to him, but enough to know why he was so obsessed with bringing you down.”
“You listened to the tape then?”
“Oh, yes. I never would have guessed Oswald Lewis was the one who killed Sofia.”
“Why not?”
“A no mark, taking out a mafia princess? Just goes to show you never know what’s around the corner.”
“I guess not. So are we good?”
