Page 74 of The Voicemail

“You didn’t see me,” I say. “You watched me.”

His expression flickers, like maybe this one clarification got through to him. Then the door opens behind him. The change in the room is immediate.

Tomaso straightens. The men who dragged me inside go still. No one says anything. Footsteps move across the tile, slow and unhurried. I know without looking that this is the man they answer to.

Silvio Bianchi walks in through a hallway near the kitchen. He wears a gray suit that looks too expensive for the room, and silver cuts through his dark hair at the temples. He has the kind of face that belongs in a boardroom or a charity photograph, not a closed restaurant where I’m standing with zip ties cutting into my wrists.

He looks at me once, then at Tomaso. “Why is she standing?”

Tomaso’s jaw tightens. “She walked in a second before you did.”

Bianchi’s eyebrows lift slightly. “And we’re incapable of finding her a chair?”

One of the men drags a chair from a table and puts it behind me. I sit because another shove will knock me off balance, and I do not want anyone noticing how careful I’m being with my body.

Bianchi removes his gloves and hands them to a man beside him. His calm is not like Alex’s. Alex’s calm feels controlled, like violence held behind glass. Bianchi’s calm feels empty.

“Ms. Hart,” he says casually, like I’m not his hostage. “You’ve caused a great deal of trouble.”

“That’s funny, Mr. Bianchi, I was going to say the same about you.”

Tomaso makes a sound, but Bianchi lifts one hand and Tomaso stops immediately.

“Sharp,” Bianchi says. “Russo likes that, I imagine.”

Heat burns up my neck. I say nothing in response.

“Where is my file?”

Well. Straight to the point, then.

“I don’t have it.”

“I didn’t ask if you have it. I asked where it is.”

“I don’t know,” I lie.

He studies me for a long moment, then looks at Tomaso. “Did anyone search her?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“No file.”

Bianchi looks back at me. “That means you either hid it or lost it.”

“There’s a third option,” I say. “I never had it to begin with and this whole thing has been a colossal mistake.”

“I don’t make mistakes, Ms. Hart.”

His certainty is scarier than any threat could be.

Unfortunately, I still don’t know where the file is. Not for certain, at least. If I tell him that, though, he’ll probably just kill me right here. He’ll kill Maya too, without hesitation. So I lie some more.

“Fine. I hid it,” I say.

Tomaso goes still.