She didn’t answer right away. Her hand hovered over the burner phone, thumb poised. She looked at the number written on the fake-marble counter, as if it meant something more than digits.
“If I pick up, does that mean I’m in charge?” she said.
Dante smirked. “If you pick up, you get to hang up too.” He offered her another pastry, but she waved it off.
The phone rang, right on time. The number was unknown; the ringtone echoed sharp through the kitchen and bounced off Marco’s skull. He covered his ears with the fern, which made Jade snort in spite of herself.
She picked up, put the phone on speaker. “Hello,” she said. Not a question—just a word.
Victor’s voice came through, syrupy as before. “You made it. Good.”
Jade said nothing.
“Where’s Moretti?” Victor continued.
Dante took two steps forward, set his chin on his fists. “I’m here. And I’m always going to be here when you’re dealing with Jade, Victor, or whatever your name is. Do you think you can get that through your thick skull?”
The speaker’s voice had the velvet slide of a con, a man with a smile he never let you see, only felt. “I have plenty of capacity for learning, Mr. Moretti. Here’s what’s next.”
Jade nudged the volume higher.
“We have questions. About the girl, about your side business, about what’s really going on with the project in New York.” Victor paused, maybe savoring the moment. “But here’s the difference: I’m not sentimental about it. I don’t want you dead. I want you to go home. Call it a professional curiosity.” The sound of a lighter clicked on the other end, the faint hiss of smoke. “You’re going to meet me tomorrow morning, 10 a.m., lobby of the Four Seasons downtown. You bring Jade, and you bring Marco if he can stand up. We talk, everyone walks. Painless.”
Jade straightened in her chair, the heel of her palm flattening against the table. She didn’t like it. Dante doubted she’d ever like it.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “You want to chat, you do it on the phone. Otherwise, go to hell.”
Victor’s laugh was slow, bored. “If you don’t show, I’ll put your faces on every television between here and Buffalo. Then I’ll call Caruso, and your problems get much, much worse.” The smile in his voice was real this time. “Or you can take my deal and keep pretending you’re in control for one more day.”
The call ended. Jade let the phone thunk onto the countertop. Marco moaned, shifted, pressed the heel of his hand to his eyes.
Jade looked up at me. “So what do we do?”
I licked my teeth. “I hate this,” I said. “But I think we have to go.”
Chapter 13: Jade
Iwanted to say no. Actually, I wanted to say fuck no and toss the burner out the window. I wanted to tell Dante he was out of his mind if he thought I’d stroll into a hotel lobby with two targets on my back and no clue who held the gun. But I didn’t. Because, unfortunately, he was right.
Victor had us boxed in. No safe house. No new IDs. No ratline south—at least not unless we figured out who the hell he worked for and why he wanted a face-to-face. And if he was bluffing about the TV thing, fine. But if he wasn’t? The second our faces hit the screen, Caruso would have us in pieces before dinner.
I paced the living room—twelve steps from the window to the wall, maybe thirteen with that last kick I gave the baseboard. “You know it’s a trap, right?”
Dante leaned against the fridge, arms crossed, that carved-from-granite look he gets when he hates the plan but can’t see another way out. “Yeah.”
“Cool,” I said. “Just checking.”
Marco burped softly from the couch. “If it’s a trap, do I still have to come? I feel like cannon fodder, and I’m not emotionally prepared for that.”
Dante didn’t even glance at him. “If you can stand, you’re coming. I’m not leaving you here, Marco.”
Marco yanked the blanket over his head. “You’d think I’d get a medical pass—or at least a wheelchair.”
“Not happening,” Dante said. “You and I stay close. Five feet, max. We go in together, we go out together. Nobody splits up, not even for the bathroom.”
Marco snorted. “What if I have to puke?”
“Hold it,” Dante said, and for a split second, he almost smiled.
