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“I’m taking you to a safe house.” My voice is nothing but a rasp, and I clear my throat to continue when Carina glares at me, holding up a hand. Her fingers dance across her medallion as she stares at me. I can’t read what I see in her dark brown eyes.
“Just stop,” she says.
I obey and focus on the road. She’s normally the one who obeys, but I don’t fucking blame her. She has to know at this stage that it won’t stop. What would she think if she knew I’d been ordered to step aside and let her die?
“Your plans haven’t really been working,” she says, “so maybe it’s my turn to make the plans.”
“Carina, no offense, but this isn’t a playground for little girls.” I glance at her. This person has been one step ahead of us all along, which indicates some kind of inside track. Does she really think she’s capable of outwitting whoever that is? Especially after being back in New York for…what? A week?
And does she really think she could just roll out a red carpet and expect me to walk it? Could I, even? That’s a level of trust I have never given to anyone—not even my own father. Not after the Pits.
But then, Carina was a victim of the Pits, too. If there’s anyone I can trust, it’s her.
“Do you have any idea what I’ve been doing for the past five years?” she asks softly.
I grimace and shake my head. I can always humor her by listening to her idea. It doesn’t mean I have to comply.
“Call Sal Fiorelli,” she says. “Ask him about his General-Queen.”
I sit up straighter in my seat. The General Queen of the Western division is a shadowy figure, but a legendary one, a female who’s risen in Fiorelli’s ranks over the past several years…
…several years.
“You?”
She nods, her expression serene, and I can’t help it. I laugh. It’s long and protracted and ends with me wiping tears from my eyes with my unbloodied hand.
Carina rolls her eyes. “I really didn’t expect this level of patriarchal assholery from you, Luca.”
I sober and grip her thigh, squeezing firmly. I suddenly don’t give a shit that my hand is covered in blood. Carina has seen worse. If the stories are true, she’s engineered worse. The General-Queen is famed, even in New York, for being a ruthless, beautiful bitch, one who can spot a liar yards out and who won’t hesitate to chop off a finger if that’s what’s needed. “I’m impressed and turned on as fuck all, wild one. I should have known.”
A little smile plays at the corners of her mouth. “You’re forgiven.”
“What do you recommend?”
“My family has a safe house not far from here.”
I don’t want to use a safe house I have no control over. But, trusting my own people doesn’t seem the wisest choice right now, particularly with the extra security I sent to cover Carina mysteriously missing.
“Okay, we will go to your safe house,” I answer. “Lead the way.”
The safe house that Carina directs me to is in the Bronx, right next to a row of Cuban restaurants and gentrified apartment buildings. I stare up at it, thinking that it’s the kind of place the two of us might have ended up living in if other choices had been made. It’s a quiet townhouse with bright fake flowers in window boxes, and so completely normal looking. It seems like someone could come out at any moment to walk their dog.
I haven’t gotten out of the vehicle. I can’t look away from how normal it is. We aren’t normal. We never will be.
“We use it as an Airbnb. Of course, my father wasn’t on board with the idea, but when I explained it would get the locals accustomed to the idea of strangers coming and going, he waved his hand and gave the go-ahead.”
I look away from the picture-perfect house to Carina. “But what if you need it?”
She hasn’t met my gaze but focuses on the house. “We have more than one. We keep the schedule open at all times on a rotating basis in each of our safe houses, but otherwise, they’re generally occupied. We keep an updated schedule in cloud storage so we can always access it on the fly.”
“That’s smart,” I say. I make a mental note of this strategy.
Carina gets out, and I climb out behind her. She pushes a white gate open for us to walk down a concrete sidewalk framed by a small patch of grass. She lifts a red porcelain boot with yellow and red flowers planted in it by the door, retrieves a silver key from beneath it, and without even glancing back, opens the door and walks inside.
“It’s kind of archaic,” she says over her shoulder. “Having a physical key. But it’s handy if someone doesn’t have digital access for whatever reason.”
There’s a small bathroom in the entryway. I turn on the tap and start to wash my hands, but the blood is thick, and I have to scrub my flesh to remove it. Once that’s done, I focus on my face, scrubbing harder than necessary to get rid of the bloody reminder. When I’m done, my jaw aches. Picking up the towel, I dry my face and then my hands before pausing.
