Page 23

I breathe through my nose, trying to control the panic. If I keep my wits about me, I might find a chance to escape. I count turns. Left, left, right. Straight for about a minute. Right. A sharp stop. The engine dies.

Doors open. Hands grab my elbows.

The air outside the SUV smells of hot concrete and oil and something faintly chemical. A warehouse. One of the big industrial ones east of the river, from the exhaust smell on the road in.

I pretend to stumble on the step down from the SUV.

Nobody steadies me. One of the men catches my elbow to shove me forward instead, which is better.

While I’m pretending to find my footing, I use my right foot to work my left sneaker off the heel. The hood is over my head. I can only hope nobody is looking at my feet. I kick the sneaker a half-step sideways and keep walking in my sock on the hot concrete, barely limping.

The sneaker is behind me on the ground somewhere near the threshold of a door.

It is a stupid breadcrumb. There are a thousand warehouses in LA and a woman’s sneaker on the concrete outside one of them does not mean a single thing to a single person on earth.

But I leave it anyway, because Vincenzo told me yesterday I was his, and I am starting to believe him. A man like him keeps what’s his.

They walk me a long way inside. A corridor. Another door. Another room.

Hands push me into a chair.

The hood comes off.

The room is small. Concrete floor. One lightbulb. One table. One other chair, empty. One door. A man in a gray suit stands against the wall with his arms crossed and his tie loosened. He is not Zidaru.

The door opens again and the man who got out of the SUV with the smile comes in. He pulls out the empty chair. Sits across from me. Rests both elbows on the table like a man about to have a reasonable conversation about a parking fine.

“Your cousin,” he says. “Give me her address.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He hits me.

With his open palm, across my left cheek. Hard enough to snap my head sideways. Hard enough that the taste of iron comes up at the inside of my lip where my teeth cut.

My cheek is on fire. My eyes are watering.

“Try again.”

I say nothing. I keep my eyes on the lightbulb above the table, trying not to weep.

I think about Vincenzo’s hand on my nape in the study. I think about his mouth on my shoulder in the dark.

Movement from the corner of my eye makes me glance at the man across from me. He’s leaning back now. Puts one hand inside the pocket of his jacket. Pulls out a phone.

My phone.

I didn’t see them pick it up. I had been so sure I’d left it on the sidewalk.

He scrolls.

Finds something.

He turns the screen around so I can see.

Elsie.

My throat closes.