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Painful like the mixed feelings I have about Luca. Maybe this really is just passing the time with him. Who knows? There was a moment the other day when I thought maybe it was more, but then he left, and that moment passed as quickly as it had come.
And then, of course, there’s the constant reminder of how easily he gave me up.
Every time I see him, my fingers itch with the need to confront him. But I can’t—not with what my father has planned. Not with me apparently being ‘the other woman.’
God, what an ugly phrase. Shame burrows its way deep inside me, making me yearn to unburden myself. I should seek confessional and atone for what I’ve done. What I’m doing.
But I won’t.
Evie doesn’t want him—that’s the secret I comfort myself with. Their relationship rests on a lie.
Secrets and lies.That’s all my life is anymore.
With a sigh of resignation, I lift my fingers to the necklace around my neck and look out the window at the building across the parking lot.
Tonight, I’m dealing with yet another secret.
Shadows stretch across pockets of glare provided by intermittent pole lights, most of them out or flickering weakly. Brownsville, Brooklyn isn’t the safest of neighborhoods to begin with, and I’m suddenly regretting my impulse to leave Baccio at the Palisades estate. One of Father’s men, who I remember from when I lived at home, is watching him. They’re no doubt kicked back watching a game right now, and even though I told himno popcorn, I can bet he’s tossing him pieces of that shit every time someone scores.
He’s your fucking guard dog.
Shoulda let him guard you.
He’s not fully recovered, though, and I can’t take the chance on anything happening to him. The indoor storage facility I’m headed into will be crawling with people. Many of them will be ill-intentioned, although not necessarily toward me. I wouldn’t make it five steps without Baccio wanting to go for someone’s throat.
Even though my fingers curl with the need to sink into his fur, it just makes sense to leave him behind and let the human guards do their thing.
One of the Scarpetta men—my men—opens the door, and I climb out. He follows behind me as I smooth the form-fitted bustier I wear over a crisp pin-striped blouse and a sleek pair of leather pants and stride forward with more confidence than I feel.
It always worked in California.
Inside, I cast a cursory glance around the nondescript storage facility.
Nothing to see here, folks. Just a guy working the night shift and a concrete-lined corridor with metal roller doors interspersed with numbered wooden doors.
I walk to the one numbered thirteen, punch in the code provided to me, and turn the handle. Behind door number thirteen is another corridor, this one long and plain and ending in an elevator. I climb into the elevator and ride it down, biting the side of my cheek to quell my nerves.
It’s a bit like walking through the wardrobe and into Narnia, only this isn’t some place of fantasy.
It is, however, a place of legend.
Too bad I mean to burn it down.
When my father summoned me home, I had no intention of following his orders. He could sit on his throne and rot.
Before coming back, I could have easily gone another decade without seeing or thinking about Luca. I wanted no reminders of that pain.
But this place—this Hell of a place—it’s the one thing that’s kept me up nights for the past five years. It’s my siren song of unfinished business that pulls me back to New York.
We step out of the elevator into an antechamber that feeds into an open steel platform encircling an underground coliseum. The noise level is instantly deafening. The center of the coliseum houses an octagonal cage set into a sand base—essentially a hole in the ground. Spectator bleachers rise behind partial plexiglass shields on all sides, filled with a sea of humanity shouting and screaming at the two people grappling within the cage. They’re thin and scrawny looking—not the usual sort of combatants I would expect to see in an arena.
One of the men punches the other, and a spray of blood arcs up and lands on the plexiglass.
“Why are we here again?” My guard, Ronaldo, looks nervous, his eyes everywhere at once. I need to give him something else to think about. He’s around my age, but I don’t remember him from when I was here before. I wonder if he even knows…
“Did you know my brother, Francis?” I ask in a conversational tone, striding ahead.
“I…no.”
