Page 13 of Broken
“No.” His eyes were hard on mine.
“Why not? Do you think they won’t let you anywhere near me either?”
“You’re perfectly safe here, and your phone’s signal willpoint to a different location as long as you’re in here.” He tapped the device next to the computer. Oh, so that was what it was for. “A lot of people know where you work. If your apartment is the first place they’ll check, your workplace is the second. Walter can team up with someone or the Cobras might have a traitor among them. Can you really be a hundred percent sure they won’t betray youor that they’re capable of protecting you?”
“And can I be sure you won’t betray me? I believe you still intend to kill me, or have you given up on that in the meantime and forgotten to tell me?”
“I’ll keep you safe while Walter’s out there. You have my word.” His hand reached out toward me, but he seemed to catch himself and let it drop to his side.
“Right.” It looked like he stillwasn’t willing to admit the truth or maybe I was the delusional one here. God, I really hoped my gut feeling wasn’t wrong, because I’d made my decision. “Okay. I’ll stay here with you for now, but I’m going to call Vix and I’m going to tell her everything. I can’t just disappear and have everyone worry about me. Besides, the Cobras can set a trap for Walter if they know he’ll be coming.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but I raised my finger to shush him.
“You can’t change my mind on this. I’m not going to keep this secret from my friends any longer. They need to know about you and about Walter. Their lives are at risk too if Walter thinks they’re hiding me. I won’t leave them vulnerable like that.”
He must have seen the determination in my eyes, because he only nodded.
Chapter 8
“ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR mind?” Vix yelled, and I had to move my phone away from my ear for a moment. Yeah, she wasn’t too fond of my idea to stay in Theo’s apartment.
“Look, we’ve been through all of this for the past half an hour or so.” I groaned, then lowered my voice, because Theo had gone off to sleep in his room,which was only separated from this one by a not so thick door, so I had to be quiet if I didn’t want him to hear my every word. “He’s not going to kill me. I saved his life and he’s already been with me at my apartment. If he wanted to kill me, don’t you think he would’ve done it already?”
“He was my mother’s second for a reason,” Vix said. “You know what he’s capable of. Maybe he’s playinggames with you and wants you to trust him before he stabs you in the back. Literally.”
“Vix...”
“No, listen. As soon as you told me, I had the Cobras’ tech team search for the guy you mentioned. They just found something.”
“Found what?” I whispered, getting as far away as possible from Theo’s room. There had better not be any bugs in this place.
“Walter’s here because he wantsto become the Rosa Nera’s leader.”
“Um, okay.” That wasn’t overly surprising. “Does that mean I’m some kind of a test for...?”
“It’s much worse, actually,” Vix said. “That’s why I want you to get out of that place and away from that guy. Just tell me where you are. Mick can’t locate your signal for some reason. It keeps popping up in different places, and we know you’re not at the lastlocation it detected because we checked.”
“What? Wait, I know about the signal. Theo has some kind of a device blocking it so that Walter can’t find us. But what do you mean when you say it’s worse? What’s going on?”
“You should really come here and...”
“Just tell me. Please.” I clutched the phone in my hand, glancing toward the door to Theo’s room. What hadn’t he told me?
“Someof the old Rosa Nera members who refused to leave after my mother was killed finally found her will. She decided that, in case she was murdered by her enemies, the person who brought the head of her killer to a third-party contractor would become the new leader and inherit everything she had, including her secret bank accounts.”
My head jerked back. “Well, that sounds like something yourmother would do.” And it explained why everyone was now after me. They must have thought that Ingrid had left everything to her daughter, but now that they knew that there was a way for them to get their hands on what was left, they wanted to give it a try. “How did they even find out I killed her?” I didn’t think anyone had seen me, and Theo... What if he had told them? Would he have done that? He’dbeen really mad at me, so maybe...
“I don’t know. It might have been the surveillance cameras or Theo told them. Don’t you get now what’s going on here? He’s waiting so he can defeat all of his opponents and then kill you himself.”
“But if he wanted to be the leader, he could just get it over with. There’s no reason for him to wait.”
“Of course there is. Everything’s fair now thathe’s competing for the leadership, so he can kill off any of the Rosa Nera members without anyone thinking anything of it. They’re good contenders or they wouldn’t have gone after you. If he got to you first and became the leader, then he’d most likely have to let the rest of the contenders live, even though they’re a threat to his position since they want it and are more likely to betray him eventually.If he killed them right after he became the leader, everyone would think he’s afraid, which I’m sure he doesn’t want.”
What if Vix was right? What if Theo was really playing me because he knew how I felt about him? Hell, maybe he’d shot himself to see what I’d do. The antidote had been on him. Maybe it had all been a test for me to see if he could fool me long enough.
“Chiara? Are youthere?”
“Yeah.”