Chapter 4 Oh! My Doom

Midnight

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Elena waited until the clock on the wall read 11:47.

She'd spent the last three hours lying on top of the covers fully dressed, shoes on, staring at the ceiling and running the plan through her head until it stopped feeling like a plan and started feeling like a prayer.

Rosa's words.

Guards change at midnight.

That meant right now, somewhere in this house, two sets of guards were doing a handover. Distracted. Moving. Gaps in coverage that would last maybe four minutes. Maybe less.

Four minutes was enough.

She slipped off the bed.

The room was dark except for the thin line of light coming under the door. She crossed to it slowly, avoiding the spot near the window where the floorboard had creaked earlier when she'd tested it.

C’mon young lady!. You've been preparing. You're not stupid. You can do this.

She pressed her ear to the door.

Voices. Then footsteps. Then nothing.

She counted to thirty.

Opened the door.

The hallway was empty in both directions. The wall sconces had been dimmed for the night, casting everything in a low amber glow that made the portraits of dead Romanos look even less friendly than usual.

Elena stepped out.

She kept close to the wall, moving toward the servants staircase Rosa mentioned. Not the main stairs. The main stairs were too open, too visible from the foyer below.

First floor. Side entrance. Rosa said the kitchen staff uses it. There's no keypad, just a bolt.

She reached the servants staircase without seeing a single guard.

Too easy.

The thought flickered through her brain and she pushed it away.

Don't jinx it. Just move.

She went down. One floor. Two. The temperature dropped as she got lower, the marble giving way to older stone. She could smell the kitchen. Garlic and something sweet from whatever Rosa had been cooking earlier.

The side entrance was exactly where Rosa said it would be.

A heavy wooden door. Old iron bolt. No keypad.

Elena's hands were shaking as she reached for it.

Okay. Okay this is actually happening. You're walking out of here and you're going straight to Lucia and you're going to sit on her kitchen floor and cry for approximately six hours and then you're going to write the most important story of your career and Salvatore Romano is going to rot in—

The bolt slid back with a sound like a gunshot.

She froze.

Waited.

Nothing.

Then she pulled the door open and the night air hit her face. Cool. Dark. With the smell of grass and the distant city.

Elena stepped outside and ran.

---

She didn't stop until she hit the main road.

Her lungs were burning, her shoes were completely wrong for running, and somewhere between the rose garden and the outer wall she'd scraped her palm on the stone but she was outside and the gate was behind her and the city lights were ahead and she could have cried.

She flagged down a car with her arms windmilling in a way that was not dignified at all.

Steeze? Screw it!

The car stopped.

The driver was a middle aged man who looked at her with the particular alarm reserved for women appearing out of nowhere on dark roads.

"Police station," Elena gasped. "Central precinct. Please."

Somewhere from the gym room upstairs. Salvatore watched Elena leave. He just stared out of the window. Undisturbed.

---

Officer Leo was exactly where she needed him to be.

She'd known Leo for four years. He'd slipped her documents, tipped her off about raids before they happened, told her things in parking lots that he'd never say inside a station. She trusted him the way she trusted very few people.

Which is why when she burst through those doors and saw his face she felt her whole chest collapse with relief.

"Leo." She grabbed the edge of his desk. "It's me. Elena. I was taken by Salvatore Romano. He's holding me at his estate outside the city. I need you to—"

"Elena." Leo was already standing. His face doing something complicated. "Come here. Come sit down."

"I don't want to sit down I want you to—"

"Elena." His voice dropped. His eyes cut sideways to the other officers in the room. "Come and sit down."

Something in his tone made her stomach turn.

She sat.

Leo pulled his chair close. Leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Elena," Leo said, sighing. "You did the right thing!, I'm glad you came."

“But you shouldn't be accusing a feared man like Don.”

"What are you talking about? I'm being held—.”

“It's okay,” Leo interrupted, stood up and walked around the desk. He put a hand on her shoulder, “it's alright, I'll take you home.”

Leo parked up his desk leading the way to his car. At least he had the decency to look ashamed as neither of them spoke the entire way. When the gates of the Romano estate appeared through the windshield Elena's jaw dropped.

No.

“Salvatore—"

No no no.

“Why did you bring me back here?” she asked, shaking her head.

Leo drove in—turned his engine off.

He pulled out his radio. "She’s here. Tell the Don she’s safe."

"No," Elena whispered, backing away. "Leo, no. You’re a cop!"

“Listen Elena,” Leo said scanning the place with his eyes.

We don't have anything on him, Elena. Nothing that would stick. Nothing that wouldn't get people killed trying to make it stick."

Elena stared at him.

"He kidnapped me Leo. He killed a girl in front of me. A nineteen year old girl and he just—"

"I know." Leo pressed his hands together. Wouldn't meet her eyes. "I know and I'm sorry. But if I walk into that house with a warrant, my career is over. My family—" He stopped. "I have a daughter, Elena."

“But—”

Just go back. Stay low. Don't make him angry. Give it time and maybe—"

"Go back." She repeated it like the words were in a foreign language. "."

"I'm sorry," he said again.

Elena got out and didn't respond.

---

The path from where Leo's car was parked to the front door felt very long at midnight.

The estate was quiet. Just the sound of crickets and her own footsteps on the stone. The lights in the upper floors were mostly dark.

Except one.

The ground floor east wing. Warm light spilling through a partially open door.

Elena kept walking toward the main entrance.

She was four steps from the front door when it opened.

She stopped.

Salvatore Romano filled the doorway.

He was in training shorts. No shirt. His chest rising and falling with the kind of breathing that came after serious exertion. A white towel hanging around his neck, one end gripped in his right hand. His hair was slightly damp. And in the low light from the entrance hall behind him she could see the sheen of sweat across his shoulders, his chest, tracing the lines of his abdomen down to—

Absolutely not.

Elenaa!!—

Stop. Stop it.

His eyes found her immediately.

He didn't say anything.

That was worse than if he'd shouted.

He just stood there in the doorway looking at her with an expression that was so completely still it made her skin prickle. Like the surface of water right before something large moved underneath it.

Elena lifted her chin.

"I went for a walk," she said.

Why did you say that. That was genuinely the most stupid thing you have ever said in your life.

Salvatore stepped outside.

He came down the two front steps slowly. Crossed the distance between them with that same unhurried certainty he carried everywhere, like the ground had no choice but to hold steady under him.

He stopped in front of her.

Too close.

Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off his skin. Could smell the salt and exertion on him mixed underneath with that cedar and smoke that her stupid brain had apparently already catalogued and filed somewhere it had no business filing anything.

She took a small step back.

Her back met the stone pillar just at the edge of the entrance.

Salvatore's hand came up and pressed flat against the pillar just beside her head. Not touching her. Just there. Cutting off the

idea of moving left.

Elena's heart was doing something embarrassing.

He's angry. He is clearly angry. This is not the time for your nervous system to completely malfunction.

Look at his face. Not his chest. His FACE.

She looked at his face.

That was somehow worse.

His jaw was tight. His eyes hadn't moved from hers since he walked out that door. Up close like this in the dark she could see a small scar at the corner of his left eyebrow she hadn't noticed before. She could see the exact moment his expression shifted from still to something with an edge on it.

"A walk," he repeated.

His voice was very quiet.

That tone. That is a very bad tone. Why does it also sound like that though. Why does his voice—

ELENA.

"The fresh air is important for—"

"Don't." The word was soft. Final.

"Don't do that. Make Excuses no more.”

She pressed her lips together.

A bead of sweat tracked down his collarbone. Down the center of his chest. Elena's eyes did not follow it.

They absolutely did not.

"I trusted the house to hold you," Salvatore said. "That was my mistake. I won't make it again."

"You can't just keep me here against—"

"I am keeping you here." He leaned in slightly. Just slightly. Just enough. "That's not a negotiation Elena.”

She could feel the warmth of him. The pillar was cold against her back and he was like a wall of heat in front of her and her brain was running two completely separate programs simultaneously and she hated both of them.

Program one: This man is dangerous. This man killed someone. This man has his hand on the pillar next to your head and there are no police coming and no Leo coming and no one coming and you should be terrified.

Program two: he has a really good—

SHUT THE FUCK UP PROGRAM TWO.

"So what happens now," Elena said. Surprisingly, her voice came out steadier than she deserved credit for.

Salvatore looked at her for a long moment.

"Now," he said, "you don't leave that room for the next three days."

"You can't—"

"Rosa will bring your meals. You'll have books. You'll have a window." His eyes didn't move from hers. "Consider it an opportunity to think about what comes next."

"And what comes next?"

He straightened. Stepped back. Gave her air again.

She almost wished he hadn't.

You did not just think that.

"That depends entirely on you," Salvatore said.

He turned and walked back toward the door. Pulled it open. Waited.

Elena looked at the gate behind her. At the dark road beyond it. At the city lights in the far distance that might as well have been another country.

Then she walked inside.

Salvatore closed the door behind them both.

The lock turned with a clack.

—