Page 102 of Masked Don

“Enzo.”

“You gave them to him.”

“I know.” She doesn’t look away. “That’s why it has to be me.”

I look at my father. He looks at his daughter for a long time, longer than I think he’s looked at her in years.

“She’s an Accardi,” he says finally. “Let her be one.”

At eleven-thirty, the address comes. Old Santini warehouse, Newtown Creek. Exactly where the dot has been sitting since a little after seven.

At eleven-forty, I put my gun in the glove box of the car and leave it there.

The blue dot hasn’t moved in more than four hours. It sits on the edge of Newtown Creek like a heartbeat. I watch it the whole drive into Queens. As long as it’s there, she’s there. As long as she’s there, she’s breathing.

She did that. She took the leash she let me keep, and she put it in our son’s hands, and she made it a map.

I park where Luca told me to park. I get out with my hands empty.

I walk in alone.

CHAPTER 40

STEVIE

The warehouse is the worst place I’ve ever been.

It’s vast and rusted, half the lights dead and the other half too bright. Rainwater has puddled under the broken skylights. The air smells like rot and creek water and diesel. Somewhere in the dark, something drips, steady as a clock.

In the middle of the concrete floor, under the best of the lights, Luca has built a stage.

There’s no other word for it. Three phones on tripods, all angled at an empty patch of floor marked with a strip of tape. A ring light. A laptop on a folding table, its screen a grid of little boxes full of older men in good suits. Some at kitchen tables. Some in the backs of cars. An audience.

“Isn’t it great?” Luca says, when he catches me looking. “Wedding videographer setup. Nine hundred bucks. Best money I ever spent.”

Matthew stopped crying an hour ago. That’s the worst part. He’s just quiet now, curled in my lap on the cold floor with his face in the rabbit, and he won’t look at anything. I’ve been singing under my breath for hours. Every song I know. Some I don’t.

“Mama,” he whispers. “Is Daddy coming?”

“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. “He’s coming.”

“Is he lost?”

“No, baby. He knows exactly where we are.”

Luca drags a folding chair across the concrete, the scrape loud enough to make Matthew flinch, and sits down in front of us, too close, the way he always used to.

“You keep telling him that,” he says. “It’s cute. He can smell the lie on you, you know.”

“Don’t talk to my son.”

He leans in until I can smell the whiskey on him, and he drops his voice so his men can’t hear.

“Here’s how it goes, so you’re not surprised. He kneels. He begs. I let him beg for a while, because the old men need to see it. Then I put one in him while you watch.” His eyes slide to Matthew. “And then it’s just you and me again, Stevie. Like old times. Only this time, if you run, I don’t chase you. I chase him.”

Every drop of blood in my body turns to ice.

For the first time since the cabin, I’m afraid in a way I can’t hide, and he sees it, and he smiles like I’ve handed him a present.