Chapter 20: The Pier

Cassio's POV

I kept my word and stayed out of the hall.

It was the hardest thing I did that week.

My driver and I sat in the car at the end of Mancuso's street, where the road ran down to the harbor.

I watched the clock on the dashboard, and I watched the front door of a building I had wanted to burn for three years.

At nine twenty a gray sedan came around the corner too fast and stopped beside me.

Fabio Lanzetta got out of the driver's seat with a baby carrier in both hands.

Silvia climbed out of the other side, white in the face, with a wet raincoat over her arm.

"We have him," Fabio said.

"Where's Viviana?"

"She was inside when we left, keeping Edoardo busy. We came through the side door while he was still talking."

I looked at the baby.

He was asleep with his fist against his cheek.

I felt nothing but the clock.

"Take him to my house," I said to my driver. "Both of them. Lock the gate."

"Rinaldi," Silvia said. "The hall has a back door onto a slip. There's a launch."

I was out of the car before she finished.

I ran down the side lane with my hand pressed flat over my stitches.

The slip came into view between two warehouses, a strip of concrete that ran into the black water.

A motor launch idled at the end of it.

Edoardo stood in the stern with one arm locked around Viviana's waist and a pistol under her chin.

She was fighting him with her whole body.

He dragged her down the last steps and into the boat, and a man I didn't know cast off the line.

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