Chapter 10 - Niko moved before the sound finished.
He pulled me down behind the counter as glass exploded across the pharmacy floor.
A gunshot followed.
Then another.
I pressed both hands over my ears.
The noise inside the enclosed room was not like gunfire in films.
It was physical.
It struck bone.
Niko fired once over the counter.
Someone shouted outside.
“Back room,” he ordered.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Eveina.”
“No.”
His eyes met mine.
Even there, with shattered glass falling and armed men outside, we found time to have the same argument we had been having since our wedding.
His instinct was to hide me.
Mine was to refuse invisibility.
“The box,” I said.
“What?”
“They came for the evidence.”
Another shot struck the wall.
Dust fell.
“If we leave it here, this was pointless.”
He looked at the metal box.
Then at me.
I understood the calculation.
He hated that I was correct.
“Take the notebook and letters. Leave the bottles.”
“Why?”
“Too slow.”
I shoved the notebook beneath my coat, added Alessandra’s letter, and crawled toward the back.
Niko followed backward, weapon raised.
The pharmacy had a rear exit into a narrow alley.
He unlocked it.
No one waited outside.
That worried him.
I could see it.
“Where are your men?”
“No one knew we were here.”
“Tommaso?”
“He knew the neighborhood, not the address.”
“So we’re alone.”
“Yes.”
“Excellent.”
Despite everything, the corner of his mouth moved.
“Still making jokes.”
“I’m terrified.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Your left hand shakes when you’re afraid.”
I looked.
It was.
He noticed everything.
That used to comfort me.
It might again someday.
Niko looked toward the alley.
“We move north 2 blocks. There’s a church. Public square.”
“And then?”
“We call Gennaro.”
“You don’t have your phone?”
“Jammed.”
I checked mine.
No signal.
Of course.
Niko went first.
We moved.
At the end of the alley, an engine started.
“Run.”
We ran.
A dark vehicle turned into the lane behind us.
I heard doors.
Men.
Niko grabbed my hand.
Not my wrist.
My hand.
Even now.
We reached the first intersection when a man appeared ahead.
Niko pushed me behind him.
The man raised a weapon.
Niko fired.
The man fell.
I stopped.
My body refused to process what my eyes had seen.
Niko turned.
“Eveina.”
The man was moving on the pavement.
Alive.
Groaning.
“I—”
“Look at me.”
I did.
“Not him.”
My lungs restarted.
“Move.”
We continued.
The church bells began ringing.
6 o’clock.
People were emerging from shops.
A woman screamed when she saw Niko’s weapon.
He concealed it immediately.
The car behind us stopped pursuing.
Too many witnesses.
We reached the square.
Niko entered a café and took the telephone from behind the counter after giving the owner enough cash to prevent argument.
He dialed.
“Gennaro.”
A pause.
“Santa Lucia church. Bring everyone.”
He hung up.
I leaned against the wall.
My legs were shaking.
Niko approached.
He stopped 1 meter away.
“Are you injured?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes.”
He examined my coat.
A thin line of blood ran across my wrist.
His face changed.
“It’s glass.”
“Let me see.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Eveina.”
I extended my hand.
He held it carefully.
His thumb moved beside the cut.
The intimacy of the gesture nearly broke me more than the attack.
People whispered around us.
No one approached.
They recognized him.
Of course they did.
Palermo always recognized its monsters.
Even when the monster was kneeling in a café cleaning his wife’s wrist with a napkin.
“Marco knew,” I said.
“Yes.”
“He knew about the apartment.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Niko’s mouth hardened.
“Someone told him.”
“Tommaso?”
“No.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.”
“Why?”
“Because Tommaso would have arrived with us if he intended betrayal. He enjoys surviving.”
Despite myself, I laughed.
Niko looked at me.
For a second, the fear left his eyes.
Then black vehicles filled the square.
Gennaro emerged from the 1st before it stopped properly.
He saw us.
His face transformed.
“Madonna.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
He ignored me and looked at Niko.
“What happened?”
“Marco.”
That single name erased every trace of humor from Gennaro.
Tommaso arrived in the 2nd car.
His suit jacket was missing.
He crossed toward us.
“Where is the evidence?”
I touched my coat.
“Here.”
Niko looked at me.
“You kept it.”
“Obviously.”
Tommaso nodded approvingly.
I pointed at him.
“Do not.”
He almost smiled.
We returned to the Santoro estate.
Not because I had forgiven Niko.
Because Marco had attacked us, the evidence required protection, and Stella’s apartment had become unsafe.
I made that distinction clear before entering the car.
“I’m not coming home.”
Niko looked straight ahead.
“I know.”
“I’m coming to the estate.”
“I understand.”
“They are different statements.”
“Yes.”
Gennaro watched the road with extraordinary concentration.
Tommaso looked out the other window.
Men trained by criminal organizations apparently became deeply interested in scenery whenever marital conversations occurred.
The mansion gates opened.
For the 1st time, I did not hear imprisonment in the sound.
I heard fortification.
Don Vittorio waited in the hall.
He saw me.
Then Niko.
Then the blood on my wrist.
“What happened?”
Niko removed his coat.
“Call every capo.”
Vittorio’s eyes narrowed.
“For what?”
“Marco tried to kill my wife.”
The word wife entered the hall like a declaration of war.
Don Vittorio became still.
“Explain.”
“Later.”
“Nicolò.”
Niko turned.
“Do not use my mother’s name for me tonight.”
Vittorio’s face lost color.
No one spoke.
Tommaso carried the recovered notebook into the library.
We followed.
The doors closed.
For nearly an hour, we reconstructed what we knew.
Alessandra’s miscarriages.
The contaminated supplements.
Marco’s unusual questions.
The hidden samples.
Niko’s recent fertility decline.
The medical clinic.
Marco’s connection to the supplier.
The attack.
Vittorio listened without interruption.
That was the first indication he truly believed us.
When Niko placed Alessandra’s letter on the desk, Vittorio did not touch it.
He simply stared at her handwriting.
“I thought Paolo did it.”
His voice sounded older than the house.
“You wanted to think Paolo did it,” Niko replied.
Vittorio raised his head.
“You were a child.”
“And she was your wife.”
The old man flinched.
Niko did not stop.
“She told you someone inside the family was poisoning her, and you selected the easiest person to blame.”
“I had evidence.”
“You had fear.”
Vittorio stood.
“Careful.”
“No.”
The room changed.
Every man present understood what was happening before I did.
This was not a son arguing with his father.
This was an heir challenging the Don.
Niko placed both hands against the desk.
“You spent my entire life teaching me that hesitation kills.”
Vittorio’s eyes darkened.
“And now you hesitate because the traitor carries your sister’s blood.”
“Marco is my nephew.”
“He tried to kill Eveina.”
“We don’t know he ordered—”
“He stood outside the pharmacy.”
Silence.
Vittorio looked at me.
I nodded.
“I heard him.”
The old man lowered himself into the chair.
Something ended inside him.
Perhaps denial.
Perhaps family.
Tommaso opened Alessandra’s notebook.
“There’s more.”
We all looked.
He had been reading while father and son fought.
“Alessandra recorded dates.”
He placed the notebook on the table.
“Visits from Marco. Visits from his mother. Deliveries. Symptoms.”
Vittorio’s face changed when he saw one entry.
“What?”
Niko asked.
Vittorio pointed.
“That date.”
“What about it?”
“My sister was here.”
Marco’s mother.
“She stayed at the estate for 3 weeks after her husband died.”
Tommaso turned several pages.
Alessandra’s symptoms began 5 days after the visit.
The room became colder.
“Is she alive?” I asked.
Vittorio nodded.
“She lives outside Taormina.”
Niko’s expression became lethal.
“No.”
I spoke before he could.
He turned toward me.
“We don’t go there angry.”
“She tried to destroy my mother.”
“We don’t know that.”
“She raised Marco.”
“That isn’t proof.”
Niko stared.
I stepped closer.
“You said you would tell me everything. Then listen when I tell you something.”
His jaw tightened.
“Revenge before evidence is how Paolo disappeared.”
That landed.
Vittorio closed his eyes.
Niko’s shoulders slowly lowered.
“You’re right.”
Every man in the room looked at him as though the ceiling had spoken.
“What?” he said.
Gennaro coughed into his hand.
“Nothing, boss.”
Tommaso examined the notebook with suspicious intensity.
I almost laughed.
This family considered a man admitting his wife was correct more shocking than gunfire.
We worked until midnight.
The plan was simple by Santoro standards.
Complicated by normal standards.
Marco believed the samples had been destroyed in the pharmacy attack.
We would allow him to continue believing that.
Tommaso would send one bottle anonymously to 2 independent laboratories.
A 3rd would remain hidden.
The notebook would be copied.
Niko’s latest blood tests would be compared against compounds found in Alessandra’s samples.
If they matched, we would have evidence of a pattern spanning 2 generations.
“And Marco?” I asked.
Niko’s eyes were dark.
“We let him think he succeeded.”
“How?”
Vittorio looked at me.
Then at Niko.
“The succession announcement.”
Niko became still.
“What announcement?”
Vittorio’s voice was weak but clear.
“I announce that because you have failed to produce an heir, I am considering Marco as successor.”
My stomach turned.
Niko’s face became unreadable.
“That gives him what he wants.”
“No,” I said.
Everyone looked at me.
“It makes him believe he’s about to get what he wants.”
Tommaso smiled slowly.
Now I understood why people feared lawyers.
Niko looked at me.
“You would be humiliated publicly.”
“I’ve survived worse.”
“No.”
“Niko.”
“They’ll say the marriage failed because you couldn’t conceive.”
“They already say that.”
His hands tightened.
“I won’t permit it.”
The irony struck me.
I laughed.
He stared.
“What?”
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Deciding what I can carry.”
His expression changed.
I approached until I stood directly before him.
“You want to rebuild trust?”
“Yes.”
“Then stop protecting me from choices I’m capable of making.”
His eyes searched mine.
“This will be ugly.”
“I married you.”
Gennaro made a choking sound.
Tommaso turned away to hide a smile.
Even Vittorio looked offended on his son’s behalf.
Niko stared at me for 3 seconds.
Then, unexpectedly, he laughed.
A real laugh.
Brief.
Exhausted.
Beautiful.
“I missed you.”
The words silenced me.
There were too many people in the room.
Too many wounds.
Too much unresolved.
I stepped backward.
“Don’t use emotional manipulation during strategy meetings.”
“I’ll make a note.”
Tommaso cleared his throat.
“I personally support whatever causes both of you to stop making the rest of us uncomfortable.”
“Tommaso,” Niko said.
“Yes, boss.”
“Continue.”
At 2 in the morning, the meeting ended.
I went upstairs.
My old room remained exactly as I had left it.
The bed was made.
My books remained on the shelf.
The wardrobe contained the dresses I had refused to take.
On the bedside table was nothing.
No flowers.
No note.
No attempt by Niko to occupy the space with apologies.
I appreciated that.
I changed clothes.
Then someone knocked.
“Niko?”
“Yes.”
“Come in.”
He opened the door but did not cross the threshold.
“I’ll sleep downstairs.”
“You have a bedroom.”
“Next to yours.”
“Yes.”
“I thought you might prefer distance.”
I looked at him.
He had been shot at.
Discovered evidence about his mother.
Challenged his father.
Planned a succession trap.
And he was standing in a hallway worrying whether sleeping through a wall would violate my boundaries.
“Your room is your room.”
“All right.”
He turned.
“Niko.”
He stopped.
“Did you mean it?”
“What?”
“That you missed me.”
His eyes softened.
“I have missed you every minute since Gennaro drove you through the gate.”
I gripped the edge of the door.
“Good night.”
“Good night, Eveina.”
He entered his room.
I closed mine.
For a long time, I lay awake facing the familiar wall.
Then I heard something from the other side.
One footstep.
Another.
Then silence.
Niko had approached the wall too.
I placed my palm against it.
Ridiculous.
Childish.
The stone was cold.
Several seconds later, a quiet sound came through.
A knock.
Once.
His knuckles against the wall.
I closed my eyes.
Then I knocked once in return.
Nothing more.
May you like
It was not forgiveness.
But it was not goodbye.
