The park near the East River.
Could it be?
They keep on babbling as my captor periodically glances back in at me, like he thinks he's going to catch me in the act of doing something. I'm not sure what the hell I could do in this situation. It's so damn dark and my head is still pounding and I'm so woozy it's taking everything in me just to sit up straight. I hear more words, something about cigars and borrowing a lighter, before someone yells to douse a fire before they blow us all to smithereens. I don't know… it's all beyond me… until I hear them say his name.
"Anything from Vitale?"
I don't know the voice that asks that… have never heard it before that I can recall. But it's the hulking man who responds.
"I called him on the girl's phone," he says. "Shouldn't take him long."
My phone. Of course. It won't take Naz long to track me using it, and it seems they're banking on that fact. I don't know what to do with that information, though, if I'm supposed to be hopeful, or if I should be terrified this is all a trap. I try to remind myself that Naz is smart, too smart to let them have the upper hand, but he's just a man… a flawed man… a man that probably doesn't even have a plan.
How the hell are we getting out of this one?
They talk some more. I don't know about what. Endless babbling that goes in one ear and out the other, as my eyes scan the small space around me. I see headlights again eventually as the car leaves, the door opening, my captor waltzing back in.
Ten.
Nine.
Eight.
I count in my head as I close my eyes, trying like hell to stay calm, to keep my heart from racing. It feels like it's going to give out on me any second. Each inhale brings about a swell of nausea as bile burns my throat. There's something wrong. I can feel it deep in my bones. I feel intoxicated, yet suffering from the worst hangover… dizzy and desperate, my head damn near explosive.
I don't know what the hell the man did to me to get me here, but it can't be good.
It can't be good for the baby.
I wrap my arms around my stomach, holding myself together one lungful at a time. Inhale. Exhale. Just keep breathing.
I remember those words.
Remember Naz repeating them.
You'll be okay… just keep breathing.
The man paces the room in the darkness, his hands shoved in his pockets, his knee buckling every few steps. He's in some pain, I can tell it, and he's getting nervous.
He should be nervous.
He's right, maybe… and maybe Giuseppe was right, too. A leopard doesn't change its spots. That's what he told me. That's what they all say. For everything that is undoubtedly different about Naz these days, a few things will never change.
Naz won't give up.
He won't give in.
He's not going to let anyone bully him.
He's not going to let somebody else win.
The old Naz will come for me.
I have no idea what the hell he's going to do to get us out of this, but I don't doubt for a second that somehow, he will.
He has to.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Just fucking breathe.
My eyelids are heavy from exhaustion. My body is screaming for me to lie down, for me to go to sleep. The offensive smell keeps haunting me, surrounding me, like it's seeping from my pores the same way it clung to him.
Him.
He continues to pace, muttering to himself. I don't know the man's name. Not that it matters, really. I probably wouldn't recognize it, just like I don't know the face. He's a stranger to me. He's in over his head, and I think he knows it, with the way his eyes keep darting toward the windows, with the way he seems to be jumping out of his own skin. I wonder if he's second-guessing this plan of his, if he's realizing just how stupid going after Naz is. I wonder if it's not too late to try to convince him that letting me go is still an option.
I wonder.
I wonder.
I fucking wonder.
But there's nothing I can do about it.
Because my mouth is dry, my throat is burning, and if I try to speak, I know I'm going to lose it. I'm going to lose the last shred of my composure, and he's going to know he's got me. He's going to know he broke me. He'd love nothing more than to hear me beg again, and I just can't give him that.
Don't let him win.
I don't know how much time passes. I blink and blink. Inhale. Exhale. Breathe. I think I pass out, because a second later I'm lying down, startled by a loud bang… loud enough to vibrate the concrete floor beneath me. There's a commotion outside. Someone shouts. There's rustling around the building, frantic enough that the chaos creeps through the cracks in the concrete, and I know it then.
I know it.
Naz is here.
My breath catches. I've got to keep breathing, but at the moment, I can't. Terror freezes the blood in my veins, everything blurry when I sit back up and stare at the door. The man does the same, stopping a few feet to the right of me, so still in the darkness it's like he's ceased to exist from the weight of this whole thing. I count in my head; I don't know what number I get to… I keep fucking it up as I stare and stare and stare.
The door swings open, and I nearly black out from the shock of adrenaline surging through me. My eyes meet Naz through the darkness as he calmly, casually, steps inside.
The fucker just walks right in.
A few seconds pass. I expect the chaos to follow him, but it doesn't.
Nothing follows him.
No one.
I don't know what that means; I don't know what the hell happened outside or what's about to happen in here. All I know is Naz is in front of me.