by S. Massery
“I’m not here to hurt you, Hadley,” he says. He gets closer, pushing right in next to Elizabeth, and goes to his knees in front of me. “I’m actually a friend.”
I shake my head. “How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t.”
Elizabeth grunts. “You could prove it.”
“Are you on her side?”
She rolls her eyes. “This is clearly your first time dealing with a woman.”
“Besides you,” he says. “My charm worked on you.”
“I think my charm worked on you,” she answers.
“Someone please tell me what the hell is going on,” I snap.
He sighs. “I can’t tell you much, Hadley. But I can tell you that I knew Griffin a long time ago. We were friends once.”
“He’s not my favorite person at the moment.”
He winces. “I’ve been keeping an eye on things, and I figured it would be best to warn you. Someone is going to take you,” he tells me.
Elizabeth sets the bag on the ground between us and digs around until she finds a small metal chip. It glints off of the sun.
“We can’t stop it,” he says. “The only way I see this playing out is… unfortunate.”
“Why can’t you stop it?” I ask. “I’ve already—”
“Il Fantasma won’t hurt you,” he says. “He’s looking to make Griffin suffer, and he wouldn’t hurt you until Griffin is standing in front of him. And the only way for Griffin to find Il Fantasma is for the ghost to want to be found.” He shakes his head.
“How do you know this?” I ask.
Elizabeth smiles. “He’s good at strategy. Most of the time.”
“Who’s going to take me?”
“We don’t know,” Elizabeth says. It seems she’s just as in this as he is, and that… that freaks me out. She isn’t a regular nurse—she can’t be, talking like this. “But now that you’re on the mend, it will happen soon. We just need you to keep your head up, Hadley. Don’t provoke them.”
I shiver. “I know.”
“You don’t have a provoking personality,” he says to me. “But I have a feeling you might try to put on a bravado if you think you’re safe.”
Damn, it’s like he’s seen into my soul.
“You aren’t going to be safe.” He reaches out to touch my arm, and I twist away. “You’re going to be a hostage. No matter what sort of promises I make, please remember that.”
Elizabeth helps me to my feet. “Do I at least get to know your name?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
I start nodding. Yep. Along with every other crazy thing that’s happened, this seems to be the least of my worries. Elizabeth shoots him a look, and then he’s walking away from us. In only seconds, he’s over the grassy dunes and gone completely.
“So,” I say, rubbing my arms. “That your boyfriend?”
She blushes. “No.”
“Your red cheeks say otherwise,” I mutter. We start the trek back to the house, and I breath in the salt air. Everything is always sharper after an anxiety-induced panic attack. Not that I have many of them.
She laughs. “We’re just… acquaintances.”
“Yeah? Acquaintances that sleep together?”
“You’re bad,” she says, elbowing me. “You must be feeling better.”
I go quiet. Yeah, I do feel better. Not one hundred percent, but better than I did during the chemo, and… maybe better than I did while we were in Paris. Amsterdam. Those cities seem tainted by the cancer, and I silently vow that I’ll get back there.
“I’m going to live,” I say to her. “It seems like a monumental thing.”
My whole life stretches out in front of me again. For a week, that road was closed for construction. And now… I don’t even know where it’s going. It snakes off into the darkness. I guess it’s just one more thing I have to figure out.
“You’re not very worried about being abducted,” she comments. She puts the metal chip in my palm, folding my fingers over it. “He didn’t explain, but this will help us track you. Just in case.”
“Are you like two fairy godmothers?”
Her face lights up. “I like that,” she says.
“Make sure to tell mystery man that he’s a godmother now.”
Elizabeth laughs.
“Are you even a nurse?”
We get back to the beach in front of our house, and she pulls out the blanket. We both sit on it, burying our feet into the sand. “I was a nurse for a while. And then I was something else. Now, I’m whatever I have to be.”
“Vague,” I comment, eliciting another laugh from her. “But, okay. Sure. As long as you were a nurse, I guess it’s all water under the bridge. You’re good with an IV needle, and that was my main concern.”
“You’re handling this well,” she says again. “Are you okay?”
I sigh, picking up a handful of sand. It’s almost pure white, soft as powder. The U.S. side of the Atlantic doesn’t have this. “Why worry about something that may not happen?”
She starts nodding, but I think she’s just picking her battles. I don’t want to focus on the what ifs. I want to focus on getting off this damn island.
“I’m still furious at Griffin,” I comment. It’s halfhearted. “That he left me here. I feel like a kitten he left in a box on the side of the road.”
“I don’t think he meant harm,” she says.
“What is this, if not a gilded cage? The ocean is my keeper.” The sand falls through my fingers. “And you’re saying someone else will come along and put me in a smaller cage. Nope. I can’t think about that.”
My throat tightens, so I go back to ignoring the possibility. What would Santos do? Keep me in a hotel room? The kind of luxury a hostage gets is probably access to a toilet. A clean blanket.
“You’re letting the fear get the better of you,” she says.
I look over at her. “It would be better if I knew how to defend myself. Properly, I mean.” The classes I took a lifetime ago at the YMCA seem like child’s play.
She sucks her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, contemplating my words. “You’re right,” she finally says. “You want to be a threat?”
“I want to not die.” Man, how I’ve changed in twenty-seven days. Wasn’t I just asking Griffin to let me die? Those words are a distant dream.
She starts nodding. “Okay, Hadley. I can teach you.”
20
GRIFFIN
It’s been six weeks of agonizing nothing. Not a whisper.
Paris is a hell of a lot safer now that I’ve threatened everyone I can think of, and some I never would’ve approached. No one had information. Everyone had heard of Il Fantasma, but no one could tell me a damn thing.
After the first two weeks, Dalton went back to the states. He couldn’t justify being away from work for so long, and I didn’t blame him. It left me to descend into a darker part of myself.
The Angel of Death had returned to France, and he wasn’t healing people. He was on a mission. Blood didn’t stop him. Me. I keep forgetting that we’re the same.
It’s easier to separate him from me. The Angel and Griffin. Two different entities, encompassed in the same body. But that’s the rubbish excuse. The Angel is the darker side of me, and every time I slip into it, it’s harder to crawl back into the light.
An alarm starts playing on my phone, and I stop mid-stride to check it. My phone doesn’t light up or make noise. Not normally, anyway. On the screen is a reminder. If you’re stuck, go back to H. Asshole. —D.
I laugh. I’ve been a shitty…
Well, I’m not sure what I am to Hadley, except maybe an enemy at this point.
I text Smith, asking him to get the plane ready for tomorrow afternoon, and then I continue down the street. I have one last person to visit.
One who may be able to help.
Ernesto Baliva moved to Paris only last year. He was one of my bigger clients—the Baliva family is huge and pro
ne to injury. He informed me of the move to Paris when I was last with him, prying a bullet out of his nephew’s femur bone.
He’s been good to me, and he’s infamous for having his finger on the pulse of Europe. To say he’s a powerful man would be an understatement. Bothering him was the last thing I wanted to do, even if he should’ve been the first person I logically went to.
I knock on his door.
His nephew—one of them, anyway—yanks the door open. “It is an ungodly hour—” He stops and blinks, his mouth gaping like a fish. “Holy—”
A hand reaches out and tweaks the boy’s ear. “Twice you’ve used God’s name in vain,” Ernesto booms. “Go.”
The boy scrambles under Ernesto’s arm and away, back into the house.
“Good to see you, old friend,” Ernesto says. He reaches forward and hugs me, slapping my back. He doesn’t sound surprised in the slightest as he says, “Your visit is unexpected, however. We have no need for you.”
I step back. “I actually came for your help.”
He grunts. “Alright, Angel. Come in, and tell me how I can be of service.”
Ernesto pushes the door open wider and steps back, letting me slip past him. The house is pure Italian: the smells from the kitchen make my mouth water; the footsteps overhead belie the emptiness of the first floor. It’s late—later than it should be, given the circumstances. Night fell a while ago, yet the whole house seems awake.
“Come,” he says, after he closes the door behind me. I follow him down a narrow hallway to his office, and he flicks on the lamp on his desk. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for someone,” I say. “I didn’t want to bother you—”
“The Ghost,” he interrupts. “He originated in Italy like my family, you know. There are rumors—loud rumors—that you’ve been looking for him. I wondered if you would turn up on my doorstep, asking me about my old friend.”
I made a mistake coming here.
At my expression, his face darkens. “Sit.”
I pull out the chair in front of his desk and sink into it. He circles around and perches on the edge of his chair, leaning his forearms on the dark wood desktop.
“What will you do once you find him?” he asks.
“He hurt someone I love,” I say. A split second later, I realize what came out of my mouth. Love. “Care about,” I amend.
He chuckles. “No, Angel, I think you meant love. It’s okay. Women have a way of weaseling their way in.” He leans back. “So, is this revenge?”
“We’ve been hunting him for a long time,” I say. “We thought he was dead until recently… and he’s been hunting me, too.”
Ernesto watches me. “The Ghost goes by many names. Are you sure you haven’t met him under another?”
I don’t even know what he looks like.
“I’m going to share with you a bit of history,” he says. “And perhaps you’ll understand why I am hesitant to help you.”
My heart drops into the floor.
“I grew up in a small southern town a few miles southeast of Rome. My father was a poor man, a farmer—as many in the district were—but he yearned for more for me and my siblings. He sent us to school in Rome, where we grew up under the eye of the Pope. Because of his sacrifice, we had a blessed upbringing.” He pauses for a second, looking down at his fingers. “We returned home to see our father, our mother, only to discover that fever had taken her in the middle of the night two weeks prior.”
I suck in a breath.
“He moved us as far away from her memory as he could. We went to the North. Venice seemed like a fantastical place—people on gondolas, streets made of water instead of stone, and so many American tourists. We lived just outside of the city, and my brother and I made the journey into the heart of Venice everyday to make money. We learned how to pick pockets. We learned how to con people out of money. Imagine that, Angel. People gave us money because we cried. We sold stories and people bought them.
“And imagine, for a moment, how that power felt to two boys. We were barely fifteen and seventeen, ready to take on the world.” His face shutters closed. “And imagine how easily it would be to influence those boys.”
I’m waiting for the punch line.
“One night, a man saw through our lies. He told us he could turn us in, or we could help him.” He shakes his head again, almost like he can’t believe he’s saying the words out loud. I have a feeling they’ve been locked inside of him for far too long. “We helped him. He brought us into a darker world. Violence. Drugs. Sex.”
“It was him?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, closing his eyes. “Yes, we worked for Il Fantasma for a short time. When my brother and I came to our senses, we fled. He came after us only once, and it was a warning. He cut off half of my index finger, and part of my brother’s ear. He told us to leave Italy and never return.” He holds up his left hand as proof, and I swallow my disgust for Santos.
“We fled to Germany. I met my wife—an Italian, if you can even consider such luck—and with my siblings, we built our business. Only recently did we make the transition to Paris. The city welcomed us with open arms.”
“And then Il Fantasma followed you to France,” I say.
He glares at me. “This is my territory, Angel, and I will not be strong-armed out of it.”
“So you’ll help me?”
“I cannot help you on a revenge mission,” he says. “That would be suicide for my business—especially if you fail.”
I exhale.
“But,” he says, and I straighten in my seat. “You’ve been kind to me over the years. I can tell you that he had a son who lived outside of Paris. Our family left him alone because there was never a sign that the Ghost was visiting. In fact, it seemed that they were at odds with each other.”
“Thank you,” I say. My heart has started to pick up speed. This is the lead that I’ve been searching for. He’s been under my nose this entire time. “And thank you for sharing your story.” I stand up, but he holds up his hand.
“I have one last piece of advice,” he says. “You have the girl sequestered away?”
I drop back into the chair. “I do.”
“She isn’t safe.”
“How do you know?”
Ernesto smiles, but it’s faint. Worry lines are etched around his eyes. “I have heard whispers about you and him. An old feud rekindling. And feuds bring out the worst in people.” He watches me. “You used to hear the whispers in the air, too.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I only relied on people like you to keep me informed.”
He runs his hand down the front of his shirt. He’s as fit as his sons, even though he must be nearing fifty. “You can see my position on this,” he says. “And you can see how it would benefit me if Argo Santos was out of the picture… permanently. If you end this, I will make things right for you.”
My stomach twists at the thought of Hadley, and how she will take the news that I plan on killing yet another man. In this moment, I am divided. I could just go back to the island, sweep her away, hide out. Santos’ interest in me would die soon enough.
But I can’t say no to Ernesto. I can’t pass up the opportunity to bring Santos down. The Angel of Death is taking over, and I welcome the change with open arms.
I stand and extend my hand. “Deal.”
21
HADLEY
“Good,” Elizabeth grunts. “Again.”
I punch the pad in her hand. We’re both covered in sweat, and it’s glorious. The sun is shining. I’m feeling stronger. I actually put on some muscle. I have stamina. Every morning, before it gets too hot, we run along the beach. For the first week, we mainly walked. And then we started jogging for a minute, walking for two. Now, I can jog almost half a mile. I can sprint alongside Elizabeth.
And what she’s been teaching me? Mind blowing.
There’s a right way to throw a punch. There are many wrong ways to throw a punch. Similarly,
there are a few ways to disarm someone that will result in you holding the gun, or the gun on the floor. The goal is to do it before they pull the trigger.
I get fake shot a lot, but then I start to get the hang of it. With less frequency, Elizabeth yells, Bang! And it makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something.
The tracker hides in my shoe. Together, we pulled the sole up with pliers and placed it where I wouldn’t feel it, then glued the sole back down. Every time we go out on the beach and leave my shoes behind, panic spins in my stomach.
“I have some errands to run today,” Elizabeth says. At this point, she’s less nurse and more friend. I’m not sure when that happened. I look up and down the coast, but it’s unusually empty. “Did you start that book I brought you?”
I grin. “It was an exciting escape,” I say. “Did you bring the second one in the series?”
She laughs. “No. You finished the first already?”
“What else am I going to do?”
“Fair point,” she says. We grab our water bottles and head back into the house. “I’ll swing by with it tonight. Try not to self-destruct until then.”
“Thanks,” I say.
She locks the gate behind us and starts rinsing the sand from our feet. Once we’re clean and dry, she winks at me. “You’re getting better.”
I shrug. “Yeah, but not fast enough.”
“Have you thought about what we talked about?”
I follow her toward the front door. “Yeah, I don’t really believe you. It’s been quiet. No one knows I’m here.”
She shrugs. “There are ways of finding out information.”
I grab her arm. “What does that mean? Is Griffin okay?” Even saying his name spikes an unnamed emotion through me. The fury has been lessening since Elizabeth started hanging out with me. I’m more in control.
“He’s…” She shakes her head. “He’s fine. He’s obsessed.”
I exhale. I can deal with obsessed—it means that he wants to come back to me. I think.
She pats my hand, and I release her arm. “I hope everything works out.”