Chapter 6 - Safe House
The air in the abandoned subway maintenance station was thick with rust, brake dust, and stagnant grease. Julian kicked open the padlocked door of an old electrical switching room, illuminating the space with the small tactical flashlight he had retrieved from an emergency cache hidden in the tunnel wall.
Emma stumbled inside, shivering uncontrollably. The room held a battered cot, a metal footlocker, and shelves of canned goods and medical supplies—a safe house prepared years in advance.
""Sit,"" Julian ordered, his tone brooking no argument.
He tossed her a dry wool blanket from the locker. Emma wrapped it tightly around her shoulders, huddling on the edge of the cot, watching as he stripped off his ruined shirt. The bullet graze across his ribs was ugly—a deep, angry furrow four inches long that wept dark blood down his hip—but it had missed the vital organs.
Without asking, Emma stood up, took the bottle of antiseptic and the roll of sterile gauze from the open footlocker, and stepped up beside him.
""Don't move,"" she said quietly.
Julian watched her through narrowed eyes as she soaked a cotton pad with iodine. When she pressed it against the wound, his entire body went rigid, muscles rippling across his broad chest and scarred abdomen, but he didn't make a sound.
""You're lying to me,"" Emma whispered, keeping her focus entirely on binding the wound. ""I grew up in an orphanage outside Florence until Salvatore adopted me when I was six. I remember the cold rooms. I remember the nuns.""
""You remember what you were told to remember,"" Julian replied, his breathing shallow and controlled. ""My father, Cesare Rossi, had enemies inside his own council. To keep his true heir safe from Victoria's family—the Donatis—he gave you to his most trusted lieutenant. Salvatore was ordered to erase your name and raise you far away from the bloodline.""
Emma tied off the gauze with sharp precision, pulling the knot tight enough to make Julian hiss softly through his teeth. She stepped back, her hands shaking slightly.
""Then why did he bring me back to New York? Why put me in your kitchen?""
""Because Salvatore got greedy,"" Julian said, pulling a dry black sweater from the locker over his head. ""He ran out of money running gambling dens in Atlantic City. He made a deal with Victoria: he would place you inside my house as a maid, let her frame you for my assassination, and in exchange, Victoria promised him twenty million dollars and safe passage to South America.""
Emma stared at the cracked concrete floor, the truth tearing through the fragile reality she had built over twenty years. Her father—the gentle, weary man who had read her poetry and tucked her into bed—had turned her into a disposable pawn.
Suddenly, a soft chime rang through the small room.
Julian’s eyes snapped to the steel table. Inside the metal footlocker, an old encrypted satellite phone was vibrating against the tin casing.
He picked it up, hit speaker, and held it between them.
""Julian, darling,"" Victoria’s smooth, crystalline voice drifted from the speaker, completely untroubled. ""I assume you survived the plunge? You always were ridiculously stubborn.""
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Julian didn't answer, his face hardening into carved stone.
""Don't bother looking for Salvatore in Queens,"" Victoria continued, her tone dripping with mock pity. ""He outlived his usefulness twenty minutes ago. His body is currently floating past the Brooklyn Navy Yard. And as for Emma... tell her that her real mother says hello.""
