My surroundings dim. There’s a film of cold sweat on my palms. Beneath my skin, a million little worms start to buck and crawl.
Whenever Lazaro brings a new victim, it always starts like this. Adrenaline surges through my veins and makes me want to vomit. Sometimes, I wish my brain and body would just switch off.
I call them victims even though most of them are bad men. They’re thieves and criminals and killers with resumes as varied as a box of crayons. But they all die the same way.
At my hand.
“Who is she?” I ask.
My husband’s lips rise at the corners as he stares at the woman on the screen. “A little Casalese mouse. We might get to keep her for a while.”
I frown. What does that mean? And that strange nickname… He never calls the people he brings here any special names.
He extends his hand. “Let’s go meet her.”
He must feel how sweaty my palm is in his cool and dry one, but he doesn’t say anything about it. I’ve never figured out if he’s only pretending not to notice my discomfort, or if it genuinely doesn’t register with him. I’ve cried, I’ve screamed, I’ve begged—nothing. His soft smile never leaves his face as he gives me my commands. It doesn’t budge even when he tells me what he’ll do to me and Lorna if I don’t obey.
The skirt of my long flower-patterned dress rustles around me as Lazaro and I descend into the basement. The soles of my expensive flats are thin. I can feel the biting cold of the concrete through them. The woman on the floor must be freezing.
She comes into sight, and my heart pounds out an erratic beat. Her face isn’t visible beneath a veil of long blond hair. She’s wearing a pair of jeans and a button-up blouse that’s ripped in a few places.
Where did they catch her and how? Was Lazaro the one who got her?
Sometimes his victims are brought to us, and other times he plays the role of both hunter and executioner. It’s the latter role that he’s famous for among the criminal circles. The men of the New York underworld know that if they get on Stefano Garzolo’s bad side, he only needs to say the word, and my husband will come for them. And that’s enough to keep most of them in line.
The woman stirs. There’s a small movement, followed by a pained moan. She’s not bleeding anywhere as far as I can see, but she must have been sedated.
Lazaro moves with purpose. He grabs her wrists and pulls her hands over her head. She begins to struggle sluggishly, but its fruitless. Lazaro is strong. It doesn’t take him more than thirty seconds to tie her wrists together with a thick rope. When he’s finished, he lifts her by her waist and links the rope on a metal hook hanging from the ceiling. The woman sways, suspended by her arms. At last, her hair falls away from her face, and I see her narrowed hazel eyes.
I press my palm over my mouth. My God, she’s just a girl. No more than eighteen. Around Cleo’s age. A current of nausea slams into my gut and tosses it from side to side.
She starts to pant, but she’s still pretty out of it. Her head lolls from side to side.
“Why is she here?” I ask quietly. There has to be an explanation. Everything Papà does is to keep our family safe, so she must be a threat.
Lazaro shrugs. “It’s just a job.”
“A job?”
“Someone wants her. She happened to be in our territory. A favor was called, so we took her, and now me and you get to play with her for a bit. Someone’s picking her up tomorrow evening.”
My breathing turns uneven. Picking her up dead or alive? Either way, “play” is Lazaro’s code word for torture. Is this somehow connected to what Tito was telling me earlier? “But what did she do?”
“Nothing. She was born with the wrong last name.”
There is no gravity to his words. No indication he realizes the horror of what he just uttered. My husband doesn’t care about why someone ends up in his basement, but I do. I need reasons—excuses—for what we do to these people. I use the crumbs he gives me to justify my actions.
He was a rapist, and now he’s getting what he deserves.
He stole money from the clan, and he could have killed Tito if the shot had landed where he’d intended it to.
He cut the cocaine with enough levamisole to give the buyers seizures.
But this reason is so flimsy it can’t even be used by someone as practiced in mental gymnastics as me.
Suddenly, a scream pierces the air. The sedative must have worn off. The girl starts bucking so hard I’m afraid she’ll dislocate her shoulders. A vein in Lazaro’s neck ticks. He’s not worried anyone will hear her. The basement is soundproofed, and the neighbors know better than to stick their nose in his business. But Lazaro hates when they scream for no reason.
“Quiet now,” he says, pulling out a syringe.
The girl’s screams turn into whimpers. “No, please. Please don’t stick me with that,” she says in a subtle Italian accent.
My husband smiles at her the way he would at a delivery boy. All friendly and good humored. “Are you done? If you promise to be quiet, I’ll put the needle away.”
The girl’s eyes flit from the syringe to my husband to me. She holds my gaze for a second, confusion flickering across her expression. I don’t look like a killer, especially when I’m dressed for a bridal shower. She’s probably wondering what the hell I’m doing here.
“I won’t scream,” she says in a shaking, pleading voice. Her chest rises and falls with her rapid, shallow breaths, and once again, I’m struck by how young she is. Not a single wrinkle on her face, not a hint of a gray hair.
This girl doesn’t seem like the type to hurt anyone.
I shut my eyes as horror swells inside my belly.
“Please, this is a mistake,” she says, trying to keep her voice calm. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m just a tourist. I’m in New York for two weeks with my friend.” Her lips wobble. “Is Imogen…”
Lazaro sticks his hands into the pockets of his slacks and leans back against the wall. “Your friend is dead.”
The girl’s features contort.
Lazaro’s smile grows, and he shakes his head, as if he’s in on some secret joke. “Trust me, out of the two of you, your friend’s the lucky one.”
It takes her a second to process his meaning, but when she does, silent tears stream down her cheeks. “I don’t understand,” she babbles. “Why is this happening?”
“It’s not your fault,” he says calmly. “Don’t blame yourself. There really was nothing you could have done.”
It’s like he’s trying to mess with her. This is part of the punishment, I realize. Whoever asked Papà to capture this girl wanted her to suffer.
My husband turns to me. “I’m going to go change. You two can use the time to get to know each other.”
The girl and I both watch him leave up the stairs, and then it’s just us. The back of my throat starts to ache. I know what’s coming. She’ll beg. They all do.
“Please, you have to help me,” she croaks out. “He’s wrong. He’s got the wrong girl.”
I take a step toward her. She flinches away, obviously not knowing what to expect from me. She’s got a dusting of freckles across her button nose and plump cheeks.
“He’s never wrong,” I say. My mouth is so dry that my tongue feels like sandpaper.
She must be thirsty too.
“Do you want some water?” I ask.
She nods.
I grab a bottle of water from the mini fridge and bring it to her. She gulps the water down while I do my best to pour it into her mouth. Up close, I can smell her. Lemon-verbena, mint, and dust. She even smells like innocence. This girl is not a threat. She doesn’t deserve to feel excruciating pain.
I look away as a shudder cascades through me. Images flash inside my head like an old slide show. Lazaro’s bliss-filled eyes when they take their last breaths. The way his pants tent at the crotch. The proud look he gives me while I’m shaking on the floor with blood all over my hands.
“Please help me,” she begs.
There’s a dull pain in my throat. “I don’t have a choice.”
I wish I did. I wish I could stop being so afraid.
“There’s always a choice. You can choose to help me.” Another tear spills down her right cheek and drips off her chin onto her shirt. “I can see you’re a good person.”
My teeth dig into my bottom lip. A good person? If I was one, I’d find a way to be brave.
Lazaro told me what he’d do if I stop.
He’ll kill Lorna, and he’ll torture me.
He knows me well enough to know my desire to protect our innocent housekeeper would keep me in line.
But this girl is innocent too.
She holds my gaze, her young eyes shining with desperate determination that feels all too familiar… Cleo. She reminds me of my little sister.
She might be someone’s sister too. A daughter. Maybe a mother one day.
How can I take that away from her?
And that’s when the realization slams into me.
I can’t.
If there’s even a small chance I can get her out of this, I have to take it.
My lungs expand with a deep breath. It’s the first one I’ve taken in weeks.
“You don’t want to hurt me,” the girl says in a hushed voice.
No, I don’t. I think I’ve always known it would come to this one day. I held on for as long as I could, but I can’t do it anymore.
I’m going to get her out of here.
Which means I need a plan, and I need it fast.
My surroundings come into sharper focus as I come to terms with what I’ll have to do.
Lazaro must be neutralized.
I prowl to the drawers along the wall and start flinging them open one by one.
“What are you doing?” the girl asks.
“Helping you. Be quiet.” I find a knife and tuck it into the back of my skirt. It’s not hard to find weapons down here, but it would be nice if there was a…
Gun. I pick it up from the bottom of a drawer and check to see if it’s loaded. I’ve been to the shooting range three times. Papà thinks it is a basic skill everyone in the family should know, even the girls. I thought it was progressive of him, but that was before he married me to a sadistic killer.
“What are you going to do with that?” the girl asks.
“Shoot him.”
She swallows. “And then? How do we get out of here?”
That’s a great question. If we can get past Lazaro, she can escape out the back entrance. It’s never guarded when Lazaro is around. No one is crazy enough to try to attack Garzolo’s main executioner in the comfort of his home. If she runs across the backyard, she can cross through the narrow wooded area and end up outside the neighborhood, on the side of the road.
And then what? No, she needs a car. But Michael, the guard at the entrance of the neighborhood, is on Lazaro’s payroll, and he’ll sound an alert if he sees some unknown woman driving one of our vehicles.
He won’t if it’s me who’s driving. I can say I’m going to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner. That will buy us an hour at least. Is that enough time for me to get the girl to safety?
I swap the knife tucked into my skirt with the gun and rush over to start cutting the rope binding her hands. She’s breathing hard, but there’s a spark in her eyes now.
“Do you have anyone in New York who can help you?” I ask.
“No. My friend was the only one who came with me, but if I get my phone back, I can call someone.”
“They’re going to be after us quickly,” I tell her. “You need to be far away before they realize you’re gone.”
My thoughts race. I’ll put her in the trunk and get as far away as possible, but she needs to flee somewhere farther than where a car can take her.
“I need to get to the airport,” she says, as if sensing my thoughts. “I need to get home to—”
“Don’t tell me,” I interrupt. If I’m caught, it’s better I don’t know where she went. “Do you have your passport?”
“It was in my backpack,” she says. “But I don’t have that anymore.”
The backpack on the counter must be hers. “I know where it is.” I finish cutting through the rope, and the girl staggers into me.
“You’ll be okay,” I mutter, even though I have no idea if that’s true. “I’m going to knock him out when he returns, and then you need to follow me upstairs. We’ll grab your things and take the car out. You’ll get in the trunk. I’ll drive directly to the airport. From the moment I drop you off, you’re on your own.”
Relief and anxiety dance across her face. “Okay.”
The gun’s cold, but it burns through the clothes on my back. I take it into my hand and motion for her to move behind me.
The minutes that we wait for Lazaro to return are agonizing. My guts move so loudly I’m afraid he’ll hear them as soon as he opens the door to the basement. But I also know that my husband will never expect this from me. In his eyes, I’m powerless. Hardly a threat. I can use that to my advantage.
Finally, the door opens with a muffled creak. We’re standing out of sight, so when he gets to the bottom of the stairs, it’s his back I’m looking at. There’s no time for hesitation. I can’t allow him to process the fact that the girl is no longer tied up. My finger presses against the trigger, and just as he whirls around, I shoot.
