Page 48

48

STEFI

I wake up on a boat, my jaw aching and my head throbbing. The pain is making me nauseous like it always does, but I push it down and do my best to ignore it.

This isn’t good. This isn’t good at all.

I take stock of my situation. I’m tied to a wooden chair in the middle of a cabin. My hands are behind my back, my wrists secured by metal handcuffs. My ankles have been bound to the legs of the chair with nylon rope. It’s thin—only the diameter of my pinkie—but from experience, I know it’s near unbreakable. The only thing that’ll work against it is a sharp knife, and my blade, the one Joao gave me, is gone.

I feel a set of eyes on me. I turn my head as best as I can and see Christopher staring at me. My breath hitches as I look at him, taking in every detail. His sharp cheekbones and ocean-blue eyes are from his father, but the stubborn set of his jaw is all me.

This is my son. Alive, close enough to touch, and he has no idea who I am.

Tears prickle in my eyes, but I blink them away. I have to stay strong for him. But I don’t know what to do. Should I tell him who I am, or should I hold my tongue? I want to; God knows I want to gather him into my arms and hug him tight. I want to kiss his face and rock his too-thin body, and I want to tell him that he’s my world, he’s my everything, and his father and I are going to rain fury down at the people that did this to him. We’re going to make this right.

Except I can’t promise him that. All I can offer him is hope. Hope that we’re going to escape. Hope that we’re going to be reunited, hope that we can become the family we never got a chance to be.

I can’t tell him the truth. Right now, he sees me as the enemy because of Bach’s lies. But if he finds out that the woman he shot is his mother, how will he react?

It could shatter him.

And I can’t risk that. I won’t.

My emotions don’t matter; I need to do what’s best for my son. “Hey,” I say softly, careful to keep my voice calm and unthreatening. “Ewan, right?”

He nods but doesn’t say a word.

“How old are you?”

“Almost eight,” he mutters.

Seven and a half, actually. I remember myself at his age. How alone I was, how powerless I felt. How much I hoped that my parents would improbably find me and rescue me from the horror I found myself in.

His eyes are haunted and he’s too thin, too skinny. Fucking Bach is probably withholding food. Starving us was one of his favorite training methods. My stomach churns as I think about what he must have gone through, and a wave of self-loathing washes over me. While I was busy tearing down the spider web that is Bach’s vast and evil network, my son was at the mercy of this monster. I couldn’t save him from it. I couldn’t protect him.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper.

“About what?” His voice challenges me to pity him. “You’re the one who’s gonna die.”

I search desperately for the right words. “I used to be you. I was taken from my parents and brought to Bach when I was five.” I exhale in a shaky breath. “Do you remember your mother?”

He shakes his head. It’s what I expected—what else could it be? I never even got a chance to hold him in my arms. I blink back the tears that fill my eyes and threaten to spill down my cheeks.

“Me neither. All I can remember is the way my mother smelled, like jasmine mixed with incense. Every time I get a whiff, it brings me comfort.”

His expression softens for an instant before he abruptly turns away. Crap. I shouldn’t have tried so hard. I don’t want to push him away. To Christopher, I’m a perfect stranger, and he has no reason to trust me. He’s learned through bitter experience not to trust the adults in his life.

I cast about for a neutral topic of conversation, something that would keep him here, talking to me. “Where am I?”

“On a boat,” he says, stating the obvious. “We’re docked.” He jerks his head toward the deck. “He’s waiting for your husband.”

Joao. Of course Bach would have called him. He doesn’t just want to kill me; he wants to kill both of us. My heart clenches. As much as I want to entertain the fantasy that Joao will go back to Venice for reinforcements, I know better. Joao knows Christopher is still alive and being held prisoner by Bach. My husband is on his way here, murder in his heart.

Footsteps sound above my head, and Christopher—Ewan—flinches like a puppy that’s been kicked over and over again. Rage fills me. “Where’s the rest of your cohort?”

He looks confused. “Co-hort?”

“The other children, where are they?”

“There was one other. . .” His voice drops to a whisper. “It’s just me now.”

My poor, poor baby. All of Bach’s insanity—his insane mutterings and his wild mood swings—have been directed squarely at him. “I’m so sorry,” I say again, though the words don’t feel adequate to this situation. “I’m so, so sorry, Ewan. I can’t do a damn thing about the past, but we’re going to get out of this. Things are going to change.”

“No, they won’t,” he says tonelessly. “You tried to run, but he found you, and you’re his prisoner again. Nothing will ever change.”

“I know it seems that way, but Bach isn’t going to get away with it this time.” If Henrik kills Joao, he’ll be declaring war on the Venice Mafia, and Antonio Moretti will not let him get away with it. One way or the other, it’s the end of the line for Bach. Joao and I might die here today, but Christopher will survive, and I cling to that silver lining.

“My husband will find me,” I continue, my voice confident. “And he will kill Bach. We’re going to help you, Ewan. Things are going to get better.”

“You shouldn’t lie to him,” a cold voice says from the doorway. Bach enters the cabin. “I see you’re up, Stefania. You missed the call I had with your husband, but rest assured, he’s on his way. And then I’m going to take the greatest of pleasure in killing you both.”

Just then, there’s a clattering on the deck. Christopher disappears from the room and returns a moment later with Joao. My heart sinks, and I shoot him an apologetic look. “Sorry about this. I shouldn’t have got caught.”

“Hello, Joao,” Bach says, retreating a very safe distance away from my husband and keeping his gun trained on me. There’s an unspoken message there. Try anything, and I’ll kill your wife. “It’s been a while.”

Joao ignores Henrik. “No worries, Stefi,” he responds to me, as if Bach hadn’t spoken, staring at our son with open yearning in his eyes. “I’m right where I want to be.” His mouth twists into a smile that does not reach his eyes. “Look on the bright side. Henrik didn’t die in a car accident. Now we get to kill him.”

Like me, Joao is not going to give Bach the satisfaction of watching us fall to pieces. Bach can kill us, sure, but we won’t cower. Enough is enough—neither of us will do anything to traumatize our child further.

Moretti will find Bach, and my son will be rescued. As for Joao and I. . . if we’re going to die, then this is the way I want it to happen. Together.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” I reply. “And I don’t know about you, but I want to take my time. Savor the moment.”

Christopher watches us in confusion while Bach’s face turns an extremely satisfying shade of purple. This isn’t the scene he had in mind. We should be begging for our lives, and instead, we’re grimly plotting the best way to kill him.

“I don’t think you understand the situation,” he spits out. “So let me spell it out. I have a gun, and the two of you do not.” He gestures with his gun. “Search him,” he orders our son. “Make sure he’s unarmed.”

Christopher pats Joao down as thoroughly as he can but finds nothing. “I could have told you that,” Joao says when he’s done. “Stef and I don’t need weapons to kill you, Henrik, and if you don’t remember that, you’re an even bigger fool than I took you for.”

“Tie him up,” Bach snaps. “Tie them separately, not back-to-back. I don’t want them freeing each other.” His mouth twists into a malicious smile as he watches my child work. “I’ve spent a lot of time finding the perfect death for the two of you. I think you’re going to love what I’ve come up with.”

“He’s waiting for us to ask,” Joao says, a bored note in his voice. “He hasn’t realized that we don’t give a fuck.”

Winding Henrik up is its own reward, but that’s not the only reason Joao’s doing it. The angrier Bach gets, the less attention he’ll be paying to what Joao is actually doing, which is testing his bonds and flexing his wrists against the handcuffs to see if he can get them to release.

I need to keep Bach angry and distracted. “What a fucking coward you are,” I tell him. “A grown man hiding behind an eight-year-old child? You couldn’t even shoot me on your own in Germany; you sent Ewan to do it. Pathetic.”

A vein throbs in Bach’s forehead. He wants to hit me so badly, but for some reason, he’s holding himself back. “He should have killed you,” he grinds out. “I was quite unhappy about his failure.”

My heart leaps in my mouth. “Did he hurt you?” I ask Christopher urgently. “What did he do?”

My son doesn’t respond, not at first. But Bach loves to show off his handiwork. “Show them, Ewan,” he says.

Christopher silently lifts up his shirt. Down his right side is a line of relatively fresh and angry-looking burns. I stare at them for a second, unable to comprehend what I’m looking at, and then Joao growls deep in his throat. “You burned a child?” he spits out, fury infused in every syllable.

Oh God. I nearly lose the contents of my stomach. The round marks are cigarette burns. He held his cigarette against my son’s skin to punish him, not once, but three times.

“You fucking psychopath,” I snarl, so angry I can’t see straight. “You burned a child. You’re going to pay for this.” I look at the young boy in front of me, and tears fill my eyes. “What he did was wrong,” I whisper. “I know it feels like nobody cares, but I do. We’re going to get you out, Ewan. Hold on for just a little bit longer. The end is almost in sight.”

“You really shouldn’t give him false hope. After all, in a couple of hours, you’ll both be dead. I have something truly special in store for you. In fact, it was Ewan here who gave me the idea. He was watching a documentary about sharks. Did you know that a colony of great white sharks has recently migrated to the Black Sea? No? Me, neither. It caused quite a consternation as the sharks swam from the Mediterranean, through the Turkish Straits, and into the Black Sea. The marine biologists at Istanbul University tagged them, and there’s even a website that broadcasts their location.”

He rubs his palms together in glee. “I’ve killed a lot of people in a lot of ways, but I’ve never tossed anyone into shark-infested waters. I’m so looking forward to it. And on that happy note, I need to leave you. Someone needs to get this boat underway, after all. Ewan, come with me.”

I turn toward Joao as soon as Henrik leaves. I can’t talk about Christopher without breaking down, so I ask about the handcuffs instead. “Any luck?”

He shakes his head grimly. “No. I’m sorry, Stefi. I can’t get free.”

“Me neither. We’re not going to get out of this, are we?” I take a deep breath. “Can I tell you something terrible? As much as I wish you were safe in Venice, there’s a small, shameful part of me that’s glad you’re here with me.”

“I’m glad I’m here too,” he replies. “Together ’til the end.”

I’m about to reply when I feel something sharp on the seat of my chair.