Chapter 8 — The Wrong Way Out

“Your name,” I said.

The woman looked over her shoulder.

“Teresa. I’m covering the evening shift.”

“Where’s Nico?”

“Checking the fire.”

I raised my phone and called him.

The connection began, then dropped.

The woman pointed toward the smoke.

“You can try again outside.”

A guard near the staircase shouted for us to clear the corridor.

I couldn’t see his face through the haze.

Teresa caught the door before it swung shut behind us.

I followed her into the servants’ stairwell because the air was clearer there and because staying in a filling corridor wasn’t a plan.

But I kept my phone in my hand.

“Which garden exit?” I asked.

“The west one.”

“Nico said the west service passage was closed.”

She didn’t answer.

At the landing, she turned left.

The emergency exit sign pointed right.

I stopped.

“This isn’t the way out.”

“There’s smoke near that door.”

“There isn’t smoke down here.”

She reached for my elbow.

I pulled away.

“Go get Nico.”

Her expression changed.

The hurried concern vanished.

She lunged for my phone.

I threw it down the stairwell before she could take it. It struck the rail with a sharp crack.

I hoped someone would hear.

Then I shoved her and ran toward the exit sign.

A man stepped from the doorway ahead.

I turned back, but Teresa was already behind me.

The man caught my arms.

I kicked his shin and screamed.

He swore.

Teresa pressed something against my upper arm.

Pain burned through my sleeve.

I kept fighting.

The exit light blurred.

The last thing I remembered was dragging my heel along the floor, trying to make them carry my weight.

I woke with my cheek resting against my shoulder.

My mouth tasted bitter.

For a moment, I thought I was in the study.

Then I tried to move my hands.

Something tightened around my wrists.

I lifted my head.

Rows of velvet seats stretched into darkness.

A single light stood near the front of a stage.

Above me, a painted ceiling disappeared into shadow.

I was tied to a wooden chair.

My ankles were secured to the legs. My hands had been bound behind the back.

I tested the rope slowly.

No give.

A door closed somewhere beyond the seats.

“Comfortable?”

Vittorio walked into the pool of light.

He wore a dark coat over his evening clothes.

The silver coin moved between his fingers.

“Your staff need better manners,” I said.

My voice sounded rough.

He smiled.

“Dante’s staff need better screening.”

I looked around without moving my head too much.

There were two men near the aisle.

A third stood beside a backstage door.

No Teresa.

No phone.

No bag.

The originals weren’t with me. Ruth had the access instructions. Copies had already gone beyond Dante’s house.

I held on to that.

“Where am I?”

“Somewhere your husband used to own.”

“Used to?”

“Families move assets. You’re learning that.”

He stopped in front of me.

“Did the box disappoint you?”

I kept my expression still.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sofia. You opened it yesterday.”

“Then why ask?”

He crouched.

The coin vanished into his pocket.

“Because I want to know what Lucia left out.”

I looked at his face.

Up close, I could see the resemblance to the man in the photograph from the bank box.

My father.

I hated that they shared a family.

“She left enough.”

“Not enough to finish the job.”

“You sound worried.”

His hand closed around the edge of my chair.

“I sound impatient.”

I studied the knot at my ankle.

Not because I could reach it.

Because looking down gave me a moment to think.

He knew about the box. He knew there was missing information.

He didn’t know whether I had it.

“Dante has the records,” I said.

“Dante has the same incomplete material you do.”

“Then you don’t need me.”

“Oh, I do.”

He stood.

“Your mother built her precautions around you. A tune. A toy. Words a child could remember without knowing why. I gave you time to find them.”

“The archive attack.”

“A little encouragement.”

“You killed a man to leave a message.”

His face didn’t change.

“He understood the assignment.”

I looked away before he could see how deeply that chilled me.

The dead attacker had been disposable.

So were the people standing near the aisle.

So was I, once he had what he wanted.

“What’s the final information?” I asked.

“You tell me.”

“I was six.”

“And yet you found the key.”

“My mother’s instructions were in the box.”

“Some of them.”

He walked toward a table beside the stage.

A folder lay there.

He opened it.

Copies of the scholarship records.

Not the full set we had assembled. I recognized missing pages.

He had someone watching the process.

Or he had obtained an older set.

I needed him talking long enough to learn which.

“Who brought you those?” I asked.

“You ask too many questions.”

“It’s a family trait, apparently.”

He turned one page.

“Lucia asked the wrong ones.”

“You mean she asked where the money went.”

He closed the folder.

“Your mother was paid well. She had a good house, a husband, a child. She could have kept all of it.”

“She didn’t lose my father. You took him.”

The silence after that was deliberate.

He approached slowly.

I forced myself to look up at him.

“Careful,” he said.

“Why? Are you going to tell me he died in an accident?”

His hand rose.

I braced.

Then he lowered it.

I understood something important.

He could hurt me whenever he wanted.

But not yet.

He still needed someone to come.

I looked toward the backstage door.

“Who are you waiting for?”

Vittorio smiled.

“There she is.”

“Who?”

“The girl Lucia raised.”

I held his gaze.

“My mother is dead.”

“Is that what she told you?”

The words struck harder than the needle had.

I remembered the false address on the physician’s paperwork.

The tape.

The careful phrase about finding the box because hiding was no longer enough.

I could barely breathe.

“You know where she is.”

“I know where she’ll be.”

“With me here.”

He didn’t answer.

He didn’t have to.

I began counting the men again.

Two in the aisle.

One backstage.

Vittorio.

Four that I could see.

I tried shifting my chair.

One leg scraped against the floor.

“Don’t waste your strength,” he said.

“I’d like to sit without my hands going numb.”

He considered me, then motioned to the man backstage.

The man checked the rope.

I flexed my fingers as he lifted it away from the chair.

For a second, the pressure eased.

I tried to move one wrist farther beneath the other.

He tightened the knot again.

Pain shot up my arm.

But there was slightly more room now.

Not enough to escape.

Enough to keep trying.

Vittorio noticed my breathing.

“Better?”

“No.”

He laughed quietly.

Footsteps sounded beyond the auditorium doors.

One of the men moved to meet whoever had arrived.

My heart began pounding.

Vittorio returned to my chair.

“Your husband has admirable speed.”

Dante walked down the center aisle.

Alone.

He carried a black folder in his uninjured hand.

There was blood near his collar, where his shoulder had begun bleeding again.

I shook my head.

He saw me.

He kept walking.

“Let her go,” he said.

Vittorio’s hand settled on the back of my chair.

“What a touching entrance.”

Dante stopped at the stage steps.

“The records are here.”

“Are all of them?”

“The ones you asked for.”

I looked at the folder.

Then at Dante.

“You shouldn’t have come alone.”

His gaze stayed on mine.

“I wasn’t leaving you here.”

Vittorio pulled a pistol from beneath his coat.

He rested it against my shoulder, pointing upward along the side of my neck.

“You were meant to bring an army, Dante. That would have been more entertaining.”

Dante didn’t move.

“They’re coming.”

“Of course they are.”

Vittorio leaned close to my ear.

“His car is on its way to the harbor. So is the signal his men are following.”

He looked back at Dante.

“You should be more careful about whom you trust with your routes.”