Chapter 30 30

Chapter 30 30

GEORGIA

I met Rhys at the bannister when I arrived, still pacing back and forth. He seemed to have aged a hundred years overnight: dark bags under his eyes, his skin acquiring a dirty shade of brown and he is hair unbrushed and scattered.

"You still haven't had anything to eat have you?"

"My situation is more complicated than you think. I don't know if it is because you don't understand what mafia life is..I can't eat or drink or even sleep."

"Then you will die before the mafia council sentences you to die," I said, placing the bag of chicken beside him. "Or before Vanya's men can find you."

"Why are you talking as if this is nothing?"

"Well, that is because Vanya is not a good man. He's a criminal, a rapist, and a human trafficker. The world would be a much better place if more people like him were dead. He has gotten a well-deserved end regardless of the circumstances around it."

Rhys looked at me like a man who had been pulled through a storm and left to dry. He held the food bag like it might explode. He did not reach for it at once. He stared at it as if it were a small promise he did not trust.

"Thank you," he said again, softer this time.

"You need to eat," I told him. I had to sound firm because he kept wobbling on the edge of something that would swallow him. "You need to stay. If you do not eat, you will fall asleep in the wrong place and someone will take that chance."

He swallowed. The sound made the room feel smaller. Outside the rain hit the roof in a slow, patient drum. The city felt like it was waiting for an order.

"I will go back to the council if I must," he said. "But I do not want to go unready. I do not want to be the man they parade and say is guilty."

"Then listen to me," I said. I sat on the arm of his chair and leaned so my voice would not be lost in the noise of him. "Go. But make them wait. Ask for two weeks' grace. Make them think you are ready but not yet. Use the time to make them afraid of what happens if they take you now."

He laughed, small and brittle. "You speak as if you have a strategy for everything."

"Because I do," I said. "Because I have a job and a lot of people who still believe that printing the truth means something."

He watched me then. The light in his eyes was not the war leader light. It was a man who had been given a map he did not know how to read. "You will go back to work?"

"I will," I said. "I will go back. I will write. I will show them the pieces that do not fit. I will make sure people see the hands that moved the pawns."

He frowned. "I told you to stop. You are the one who makes trouble."

"Yes," I said. "But this trouble sometimes has teeth that bite those who deserve it. If I stay home and hide, the story will not be told. If I return and write, I can control the shape of it. I can make sure the paper that holds your name also shows the cracks in what they say."

He closed his eyes. For a moment he looked like a child who had been forced to wear a suit. "You will be followed," he said.

"Then let them follow," I said. "They will see me in the open. They will think I am vulnerable. They will not expect that I will pull threads. I can find people who will help me. I can make calls. The paper is large. The readers are many."

He opened his eyes. He seemed to decide something. He reached and took a small bite, then another. The food did not have time to be warm before he swallowed it.

"You will have guards," he said. He did not ask. He ordered.

"I can defend myself," I said. "I have been defending myself since I was a child."

"You have not been shot at since you were a child," he said. "Not everyone has the luxury of believing they are only words."

I watched the man I loved and the man I had married crumble into the man who wanted to keep me safe with other people's guns. He was not only a capo. He was also a human who feared the sounds of footsteps in the night.

"Fine," I said. "Two guards. But they will not be your men. They will be plain. They will be eyes, not flags."

He hesitated. "It will not be simple to find the right eyes."

"Then make the call," I said. "Make the call and let them be on standby. I will go back to the office tomorrow."

He put the food down. "Tomorrow."

I did not sleep. I never slept the night before I went back to work. I packed a bag with the essentials and left it near the door like a warning. The guards arrived even before dawn. Two men in plain clothes, faces I could not remember later. They smelled faintly of cigarettes and old cologne. They carried themselves like people who had learned to keep still for long hours.

"Do not make a scene," one said. His voice had no colour. "We are here to watch and report. If you need anything, tell us."

I told them nothing that night. I sat with my laptop and wrote a draft in the dark. I wrote the outline first. Then I wrote pieces of what I knew. Then I stopped and read it and deleted whole paragraphs. I felt like I was shaping a blade that might cut the wrong hands.

When morning came I took a long look at Rhys. He stood at the window and watched the rain paint the world grey. He looked as if the city had written a poor poem on his skin.

"Bring it back clean," he told me. It was not just about the article. It was a prayer and a command.

"I will," I said.

The trip to the office felt like returning to another skin. The guards sat in their car outside. They watched everyone. They watched me. I felt watched for the first time in a long time. It was a strange sense to have. It made me lean into my work like a lifeline.

Janice kissed my cheek in the newsroom like a mother who had been told her child had been in trouble and had come back. Kathleen pretended she had not noticed the papers saying Rhys had killed Vanya. She laughed too loudly and said that maybe I should marry a mafia man if I wanted peace. Her voice was honey and knives. I smiled because I had no energy for the battle that polite people always think is funny.

"Do not act like a martyr," Janice said to me when she took me aside. "You should be careful. Some men will look for you. Keep your head down."

"And if my head is where the story is?" I asked. Janice looked at me and blinked because she loved me like someone who had known me before I wanted to be brave. She handed me a mug.

"You are making choices," she said. "But remember, you do not have to do everything alone."

I felt the office as a living thing. Papers breathed. People moved like cogs with coffee. Kathleen teased me and then, when it was time for a break, she rearranged her chair and sat with a little dramatic groan. It was a small thing and then it turned bigger because she fell when the chair broke under her. She cried out and clutched her arm. People rushed over expecting a scream. Her arm was bruised. She said she was fine and smiled like a woman who had rehearsed pain for a long time.

"Are you sure?" I asked, helping her up.

"Of course," she said, but the way she laughed when the men sat with pity in their eyes made me watch everyone like a hawk. People loved drama when it did not involve them.

At noon I stepped out for lunch. The city smelled like roasted meat and rain. I moved through the crowd with a careful rhythm because even small things felt like heavy things now. I wanted coffee and a sandwich. I wanted the small normal acts that had been stolen by men who liked to shout names.

Then I saw him. Dimitri Volkovich.

He was leaning against the corner of a building, hands in his coat, face like a man who had been carved and polished. He wore the smile of a man who had practised being kind to people who would later need favours. My stomach dropped. I felt the old fear rise like bile.

He saw me and straightened. "Georgia," he said. The word had the crispness of a coin.

"Mr Volkovich," I said. My greeting was polite because that is the rule of the world we live in. Politeness is a soft knife.

He offered his arm. "You look tired," he said. His voice had the way that honey slips into the mouth and stays. "I will be returning to Russia soon. My assistant will come to pick you up tomorrow. There are things I may be able to help with. Do not let strangers tell you to be careful for no reason."

My mind flicked to Rhys and his warnings. Rhys had said Stay away from Dimitri. He had said the man wore the mask of a saint. He had said people who smiled too cleanly held knives behind their teeth.

"Thank you," I said. I wanted to be civil. I wanted to not fall into traps that men set like nets across fields.

"Do you have time for coffee?" he asked. "It would be good to talk."