Page 158 of The Savage

‘So you met The Toad,’ I say coldly. ‘Then what?’

Palinski folds his hands. ‘She romanticised him. Power. Fear. Money. Men who moved the world with a phone call.’

Yelena shakes her head violently. ‘That is not⁠—’

Palinski doesn’t look at her. ‘He was married. He had no intention of leaving his wife. He visited when convenient. Promised things he never intended to give.’

Her eye burns with rage now. Hurt. Something feral.

‘He used you,’ I say.

She snarls, lunges against her restraints but the guards hold.

‘But she proved useful,’ Palinski continues. ‘Very useful.’

My stomach tightens.

‘He convinced her she was better off staying where she was, collecting information. Blackmail. Confessions. Financial sins. Sexual ones. Priests talk more than politicians when they think God is listening.’

Sofiya’s face doesn’t change. Her eyes sharpen.

‘She extorted them,’ Palinski says. ‘On El Topo’s behalf. Sometimes for my people. Sometimes for Ivanov.’

Ivanov.

Rafa’s presence shifts beside me. Dangerous. Coiled.

‘She grew close to Ivanov,’ Palinski goes on. ‘Learned to do his work in Italy. Quiet work.’

‘Spying,’ I say.

Palinski’s eyes gleam for a heartbeat. ‘Tell me you would not do the same.’

‘Oh, we would,’ Cesare says easily. ‘Difference is we take the vow never to harm women or children deadly seriously.’

Rafa steps forward. His voice is so soft it raises the hair on my arms. ‘And you,’ he says, eyes locked on Yelena, ‘took a vow of piety. Then you shot my mother in the chest.’

The colour drains from her face until she looks carved from wax. Her eye flies to Palinski, panic tearing through the fury. ‘Pyotr,’ she gasps. ‘Proshu. Pozhaluysta.’

She babbles then, rapid Russian, voice cracking, begging.

Sofiya translates without hesitation. ‘She says she was ordered. That refusing wasn’t an option. That she was promised protection.’

Rafa doesn’t look at Sofiya. His eyes never leave Yelena. ‘Protection,’ he repeats. ‘I’m sorry to say, nothing is going to protect you now.’

Palinski watches us all like this is a chessboard and he’s already moved the pieces.

Silence presses in and we all accept that this is where it stops being history.

And starts being payment.

* * *

Giada

I don’t realise I’m stepping forward until I’m already there.

Renzo stiffens beside me, a low warning in his chest, but I keep going. I need to hear it. I need to know what they meant to do with me.