Page 81 of The Voicemail

Inotice the office door isn’t latched right after the guard outside shifts his weight for the third time. Every time he moves, the latch clicks softly against the frame instead of settling into place. It isn’t open, but it isn’t closed either. I could push my way out, but I don’t stand much chance in a fight with my hands tied.

The office is small. A desk, a filing cabinet, a dead computer monitor, and one tiny window set too high to reach without climbing on the chair. I look at the chair, then at the door. The man outside coughs.

Not yet.

Somewhere farther down the hall, Tomaso and Bianchi are arguing. Bianchi’s voice stays low, but Tomaso’s keeps rising, which is both terrifying and potentially useful.

“She’s not a package,” Tomaso snaps.

My stomach tightens. I press my bound hands against it before I can stop myself, then pull them away again, because I can’t have anyone notice that reflex.

“She is whatever I need her to be until Russo gives me what belongs to me,” Bianchi says.

“She’s mine.”

The way Tomaso says it makes my skin crawl, but I lean closer to the door anyway.

“You’re confused,” Bianchi says. “It was fine when we still had time, but now you’re a liability. That fucking bitch will be dog meat if she doesn’t give me what I want.”

A chair scrapes hard against the floor.

“Don’t talk about her that way.”

“I’ll talk about her however I like.”

There’s a silence after that, thick enough that even the guard outside my door stops moving.

Then Bianchi says, “You are attached to a woman who would throw you into traffic if it bought her ten more seconds to run.”

He isn’t wrong. The guard outside shifts again, and the latch clicks.

I stand slowly, keeping my hands close to my body so the zip tie doesn’t bite into my wrists. My shoulder aches and my cheek throbs. My head has that floaty, sick feeling that probably means I’m dehydrated and running on nothing.

I go to the desk, desperate for something useful. A letter opener sits on top, thin and silver, beside a stack of invoices. I pick it up with my tied hands and test the point against my thumb. Sharp enough. Not knife-sharp, maybe, but it can do damage with a little force.

The voices in the hall move closer. I sit fast, keeping the letter opener tucked between my wrist and my sleeve.

The door opens. Tomaso steps in alone. His eyes go straight to my face, then my hands, then the room around me, like he expects to find evidence of mistreatment in the furniture.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks.

I stare at him. “You mean after you helped drag me here?”

His jaw tightens. He closes the door behind him, but not all the way. The bad latch catches crooked, and the little gap stays. He doesn’t notice.

“I tried to keep Bianchi calm,” he says. “He’s reasonable, but he can be impatient when people steal from him.”

“I didn’t steal from him.”

“You took his file.”

“I picked up a folder that fell out of a crate at my job. I didn’t know it was so important.”

“It’s very important,” he says gravely.

“Apparently more important than Maya’s life.”

His expression flickers, like he knows exactly where she is. I could coax it out of him if I try hard enough.