Chapter 4
Chase arrived at 8:12.
Katarina had counted every minute by the hands of the kitchen clock. For 3 years, the ticking had sounded like a countdown, although she had never known what it was counting toward.
When the door opened, she was already standing in the center of the living room with her hands clasped over her abdomen, as though she were holding something fragile between her fingers—something that might break before she found the courage to release it.
“You said you needed to talk.”
Chase dropped his jacket over the arm of the couch with the ease of a man returning to a place that belonged to him.
“I’m here.”
“Sit down, Chase.”
“I prefer to stand.”
Katarina inhaled through her nose.
The words she had rehearsed for hours in the bathroom possessed a different weight when spoken in front of him. The living-room light was too yellow and too warm. The apartment smelled of the sweet cedar cologne she had learned to associate with fear.
Even so, she spoke.
“I do not want this anymore. I do not want us anymore.”
Chase stared at her for 3 seconds. Then he released a short, joyless laugh and ran a hand through his hair with his customary vanity, as though the conversation were a minor inconvenience.
“Say it again.”
“I am leaving, Chase.”
“Say it again while looking at me, Cat.”
Katarina looked at him.
His hands hung loosely at his sides, and that was what froze her. They were too loose.
His chin shifted by half an inch as he calculated something behind his eyes, adding variables Katarina knew by heart.
She had seen that calculation before.
It always ended on her body.
“I am leaving tonight.”
The 1st slap struck the left side of her face with the force Chase reserved for occasions when he believed she needed to be reminded who controlled the house.
Katarina staggered against the coffee table.
The 2nd blow came from the back of his hand, striking the opposite side more quickly, like punishment for having been too slow to fall.
She tasted iron. Her vision flickered for 1 full second.
“You are not going anywhere.”
“Chase—”
“Who is he?”
“There is no one.”
“Who is he, Katarina?”
He seized her by the hair and pulled until she rose onto the tips of her toes.
His eyes were red, not from alcohol but from something older—a rage that had existed inside him before Katarina entered his life.
She struck his chest with both fists closed.
He laughed. The short, nasal sound fell into the quiet room like a stone.
“You became brave.”
“Let go of me.”
“Who is he?”
Chase threw her against the living-room wall.
The bag resting on the armchair flew with her. Katarina’s temple struck the corner of a framed picture. The frame fell before she did, and the glass shattered against the wooden floor with a crash that sounded too loud for such a well-insulated apartment.
Katarina tried to rise.
Chase kicked her once in the side of her torso with the sole of his shoe.
It was hard and calculated, like everything he did. There was no visible loss of control. The movement was almost surgical.
The air left Katarina’s lungs in a sound she did not recognize as her own.
“You are mine.”
Chase crouched in front of her and gripped her chin between 2 fingers.
“Say it.”
Katarina remained silent.
He tightened his grip until the bones of her jaw pressed against her teeth.
“Say it, Cat.”
“Yours.”
“Louder.”
“Yours.”
Chase released her, stood, and walked toward the kitchen as though he had completed an administrative task.
Katarina heard ice falling from the dispenser and the clink of cubes against glass.
During those 4 or 5 seconds while his back was turned, something inside her understood that this was the final open window of her life.
Windows did not remain open forever.
She rose.
The right side of her body screamed, and her head pounded. She seized the bag from the floor and ran through the front door without a coat or properly secured shoes. She was still wearing socks.
She pulled the door shut with hands that continued shaking.
A glass broke against the wood on the opposite side, and the sound echoed through the empty hallway.
Katarina descended 7 floors using the service stairs.
On the 4th flight, her right ankle—the same ankle from Monday, the same one concealed behind the traffic excuse she had given Vittorio—gave way. She collapsed against the cold concrete wall, scraping her palm across the plaster.
She sat for 2 seconds.
The stairwell smelled of dampness and old paint.
She breathed, rose, and continued.
Katarina emerged onto the rear street.
The night was cold in the way Philadelphia could become cold on a Sunday in November, with a dry chill that cut through cloth and traveled directly into the bones.
She forced her shoes onto her feet and walked 3 blocks toward a lighted corner. Her steps were uneven on the wet pavement, and the yellow streetlamps reflected across the asphalt.
She opened the transportation application on her telephone. Her hands shook so violently that she selected the wrong field twice before she managed to type an address.
The 1st destination she entered was Joanna’s home.
She deleted it.
The 2nd was the address of her cousin Renata, who lived in another state. It made no sense.
She deleted that as well.
The 3rd address emerged without conscious thought because her body had already decided before her mind did. For weeks, some part of her had stored the location like an instinct.
Servino Holdings basement garage.
The car arrived in 4 minutes.
The driver looked at Katarina once through the rearview mirror and asked no questions. She thanked him silently from somewhere behind the eyes she kept closed for the entire journey.
The service entrance to the basement stood on the opposite side of the main street. Katarina knew the route because she had once watched Donato use it on a morning when she arrived too early and waited in the lobby.
The electronic barrier recognized the car as a registered vehicle. With the calm ease of a man accustomed to moving through those corridors, the driver lowered his window and gave Katarina’s name to the camera.
The barrier lifted.
“You may get out here, miss.”
“Thank you.”
Katarina stepped from the car.
It climbed the ramp, and the sound of the engine diminished until the silence absorbed it completely.
She stood between 2 concrete pillars beneath a yellow light that produced a low, continuous hum. Her bag fell at her feet, and her body no longer obeyed any instruction she attempted to give it.
Katarina leaned her back against a pillar. Its surface felt cold and rough through her blouse.
She slid to the floor, drew her legs against her chest, and buried her face between her knees. The basement smelled of damp concrete and old gasoline.
For the 1st time in 3 years, she cried without makeup.
She did not know how much time passed.
The cold from the floor climbed slowly through her back like a rising tide. The sound of her tears seemed louder than it should have.
Eventually, a car descended the ramp. Its headlights passed briefly over the pillars around her.
Katarina did not raise her head.
She assumed it was night security. A guard would politely ask her to leave, and she had nowhere else to go.
That would have been the simplest part of the night.
A car door opened and closed.
A man’s expensive leather shoes moved across the polished concrete with measured, unhurried steps.
They stopped approximately 1 meter away.
“Katarina.”
She did not raise her head.
He did not say her name a 2nd time.
Vittorio came 2 steps closer and, with the same calm he had used when pulling out her chair at Il Padrino, sat on the floor beside her.
Vittorio Servino—wearing a black suit, Italian shoes, and the lion ring—sat on the cold concrete floor of the Servino Holdings garage with his back against the same pillar supporting Katarina.
He did not touch her or speak.
He waited.
It was the waiting that finally broke her.
Katarina lifted her head slowly.
The yellow light exposed her entire face, leaving no shadow to spare her. Vittorio saw the purple swelling beginning at her temple, the cut in her lip, and the marks layered across her neck—Saturday’s beneath Sunday’s.
She felt him see everything and record each detail without requiring words.
When he spoke, his voice was lower than she had ever heard it.
“Who?”
Katarina opened her mouth to invent a staircase, traffic, or the ashamed and polite explanation she had rehearsed for anyone who might eventually ask.
The invention did not come.
“Chase.”
It was the 1st true word she had spoken to another person in 2 years and 8 months.
Vittorio closed his eyes for 1 full second.
When he opened them, there was no rage in his face—none of the kind Katarina recognized.
There was a different stillness, deep and controlled, like the surface of a river concealing a current.
In that moment, Katarina understood without explanation that somewhere in the city, a man’s remaining hours had already been counted.
“How long?”
“2 years and 8 months.”
Vittorio nodded once, like a man receiving a number and storing it permanently.
May you like
“Where are you hurt?”
“My ribs. My head. My ankle.”
