TWENTY-TWO

in my cell for hours. Or at least I thought it had been hours; I didn't have a way to measure time. Instead, I was stuck staring up at the concrete ceiling, wondering if anyone was ever going to get me out.

In my observations, I had noted several things about the cell. There were twenty four bars stretching across the front of it. In the mattress, there were thirty six springs, two of which stuck up at odd angles, digging in to the base of my spine. There were six cobwebs, though no visible spiders, I noted with relief, and a total of nine cracks in the walls. I'd all but run out of things to count by the time Pedro returned, handcuffs jingling.

"Am I going home yet?" I asked without looking away from the ceiling.

"Well." There was a click as the door unlocked and slid open. "There's good news and bad news."

I rolled over on the lumpy mattress and sighed. "Bad first."

"You're not going home."

"Ever?"

"Yet."

I sighed. "And the good news?"

"You get to speak to your lawyer before we interrogate you," Pedro said grimly. His tone did not convey that the news was good. Nor, I was sure, did my own expression.

"I told you, I don't have a -"

"You do now."

My eyes snapped behind Pedro to where Arturo was stood. It was as though he had appeared from nowhere, looking entirely out of place in the dingy prison. His suit was pristine and his shirt crisp; he could have been on set for an Armani modelling campaign. Quite different, I was sure, to how I looked.

But the second I saw him I didn't care. Everything else faded away as I reached my hands through the bars, desperate to touch him, to prove he was real.

"Arturo." It was all I could do to whisper his name with relief when he grasped my hands in his own. He reached through the bars and tucked my hair back, swept my body with his gaze. He was checking I was unharmed. When he'd finished his search, clearly satisfied with the results, he turned to Pedro.

"Leave us," he commanded, gesturing between himself and me. As if he was the cop, the person with the power.

"One minute," Pedro warned. "That's all."

Arturo nodded and the other man left the room. No doubt he was only stood around the corner, listening.

As soon as he was gone I could hold back no longer. "What the hell is going on?" I demanded, pulling my hands back behind the bars and folding them. "This was never supposed to happen! I was never supposed to be the one in prison -"

"Florence -"

"You were never supposed to let this happen!" I accused. "You were supposed to protect me, you were supposed to be all high and mighty and in control so nobody could touch you and blah, blah, bl-"

"Florence," Arturo cut me off sharply. His expression was completely neutral, not even a slight crease worried his brow.

"Why are you so calm?" I jabbed a finger at his chest and he merely glanced at it as though it was a little bug he could swat away.

"If you'd let me explain." He pushed my hand away but I continued to glare at him. He cocked a brow as if daring me to say more but I wasn't finished yet!

"Oh wait, I know why you're so calm!" I raised my hands up to the heavens. "You're Arturo fucking Lucchese, what is it you say again? Oh yeah, the capo di tutti capo, the boss of bosses, right?!" Now it was my turn to raise a brow. "You're always calm, you don't care about anything! And god forbid you show any damn emotion!"

Arturo simply watched me silently as my rant slowly burnt out, his expression never faltering from its usual serene mask. When I fell silent, he took a deep breath. "Are you finished?"

"No," I spat, more out of spite than anything else. I knew that what I'd said had been unfair, and I knew that Arturo didn't deserve my harsh words, but panic had momentarily inhibited the part of my brain that knew better.

"Florence, please, we have limited time here." He reached through the bars to grab my shoulders and immediately I was putty in his hands. Something about him saying please made my chest ache with longing; Arturo pleading in any way, shape or form was a rarity. He simply didn't express anything other than certainty and demands. "Listen to me, can you do that? For one minute, just listen. Sí?" I nodded. "You might have gathered that the man you shot went to the police to report it. We didn't expect him to take legal action, obviously, because of his affiliation with the Genovese mafia."

"So why did he? Why was he trying to abduct me in the first place?"

"Jesus," Arturo breathed. He closed his eyes and took a moment to calm himself. "If you'd just listen. We were wrong about him involving the cops, clearly -"

"Clearly," I echoed venomously. He shot me a glare and I quickly closed my mouth.

"As I was saying." Another deep breath. "Your family may have some involvement in this. We believe they are demonstrating their power by playing on my weakness."

"Which is me?"

"Yes, Florence. Having you isolated and away from me makes me...unsettled."

"Unsettled," I repeated disbelievingly. "You couldn't have chosen a more emotive word."

Pedro leaned his head around the door at this moment and announced, "thirty seconds."

Arturo curled his index under my chin and turned my head away from the door, towards him. "Florence, I will get you out of here," he swore, tracing the line of my jaw lightly with a finger. I tried not to think about how much I'd missed his touch. "I've a lawyer who's capable, trustworthy. Speak with him before you speak to anyone else. Okay?"

"Hmm," I sighed, distracted by his hand that was gently running through my hair, root to tip. He removed it and placed it instead under my chin, tilting it up.

"Florence, can you do that for me?" he requested firmly.

"Yes."

"I need you to promise me." My eyes fluttered closed as his thumb brushed across my cheekbone. "Promise me you will speak to him before anyone else, Florence."

Both his hands fell away from me and suddenly the whole room came back into focus. Pedro had returned and was marching towards my cell. I glanced frantically to Arturo, desperate to reach him through the bars, but he stepped away silently and kept his expression neutral. "Promise," he demanded.

"I promise!"

I expected him to move towards me one last time once I'd given him what he wanted, but he remained planted two meters away. "I love you," he said firmly, expression granite-like and eyes unreadable.

"I lo-" I began, but he'd already gone.

I was sat in the interrogation room waiting. It had been ten minutes since Pedro had permitted me through, kindly pointing out the three security cameras in the room and offering me a tea or coffee. I'd taken coffee, though I couldn't manage a single sip. I was too nervous.

Apparently, I was waiting for my lawyer, though he was already running late. When the clock hit exactly twelve minutes past, the door opened with a short warning siren and through it stepped someone I immediately recognised.

Mr William van Der Bilt. My boss.

"Florence," he greeted me kindly, laying out a leather brief case on the table. "How are you doing?"

I couldn't reply. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make a single sound come out of my mouth. I was frozen. I stared at my boss - grey hair, round glasses, kind face - but all I saw was Arturo, and the words liar flashing in brilliant red.

"Miss Genovese?" he pressed.

"You work for Arturo." There. I'd managed to say something. Something I hoped desperately to be untrue.

Mr Van Der Bilt pulled out the plastic chair opposite my own and settled into it, bridging his hands into a steeple. I recognised that look immediately; it was a business look. "Arturo has employed me to take on your case, yes."

I shook my head. "No."

"Excuse me?"

As everything inside my head came together, as all the pieces joined like a puzzle, I felt the urge to be physically sick. It began with a feeling in my stomach, the kind you get on a rollercoaster when your gut bottoms out, a sinking feeling so intense that I moved my hands to cover it. Then came the ache in the back of my throat, the feeling of stupidity, embarrassment, hot and keen and pressing like a burning lump of coal that made my eyes water.

"Is everything alright, Miss Genovese?"

"No."

It all came flooding back to me in a rush.

"Van Der Bilt lawyers, one of the finest firms in New York," Sofia had informed me as she drove me around the city in search of a job. "I had a quick look on the internet before we set off and saw their ad." How could I have been so stupid? So naive? How didn't I see the convenience of the situation before? "They won't turn you away." Her certainty should have been a give away.

I should have known.

Arturo had set all of this up. The success I thought I'd earned, all of it was a lie.

"Now, I think we should begin by taking a simple statement detailing your version of events..." Van Der Bilt droned on, but I couldn't concentrate on anything he said.

All I could think about were the obvious signs I'd missed, every conversation or moment when I should have seen it coming. "Work for me, then", Arturo had immediately suggested when I told him I wanted a job.

Should have known.

"What happens when they start asking you to take down my men, Florence?" he'd asked. "What if it's me they want to put behind bars?" So of course Arturo had done what Arturo always did; he got his own way, and made sure of it. He'd never have risked the possibility of me jailing his own men. He'd never have allowed for such bad publicity.

Should have known.

When I'd refused his offer, he'd simply gone behind my back. Because that's what he always did, that's what he did to everyone. He manipulated and controlled everyone around him, he never allowed situations to transpire that didn't favour him.

Should have known.

It fucking hurt. It felt like someone had punched me in the chest, like I was in an air lock in space and suddenly someone had opened the door. This whole time he'd been lying to me. And maybe I should have seen it, but part of me had thought, he wouldn't do that. Not to me. Not his girlfriend. Not the woman he was supposed to love.

Silly, naïve little girl. I could hear his voice in my head, mocking me, as the realisation hit again and again: he didn't trust me. He never had. And if he didn't trust me to work, what else did he not trust me with?

I remembered the moment he had burst in at Lucas' house. How did he know where I was? And at the restaurant with Sofia? "She turned up around an hour ago." Lucas had said to Arturo when he arrived. "I know." But how did he know? How could he possibly know?

"You really think," Arturo had mocked when I questioned him, "that I have time to follow you around?"

He had made me feel foolish when all that had come from his mouth were lies. I wondered how he did it, next - did he have a tracker on me? Was it in my phone? Or did he just employ several men to follow me, like he'd sworn he didn't? All of this time he'd been feeding me bullshit lies, about my job, about my life, and I'd just believed him because...what? I loved him? He loved me? None of that seemed real anymore when I was sat in a prison interrogation room.

"Miss Genovese, your cooperation is of the utmost inportance," Van Der Bilt warned me.

I was hit by a second wave of nausea when I thought about Sofia. Was she in on it? She must have known she was sending me to work for Arturo's lawyers; she must have known. She knew they would employ me, and she never told me; she had fronted the lie just as much as her brother. That thought alone stole all the air from my lungs.

Maybe none of this would have been so bad if it wasn't like a private joke; if Arturo and Sofia hadn't colluded against me. If somebody had been honest.

I lurched up from the table suddenly, sending my plastic chair skidding back across the room. "I...I need some alone time," I choked out. "I need some time...to think."

The fact remained that Arturo had had the chance to tell me he was tracking me. He had the chance, and he lied. He manipulated. He played with my life like he played with anyone else's who got in his way. Maybe if he'd told me the truth, maybe if he had explained, then I could see past all of this. But the fact remained that he hadn't.

Of two things I was absolutely certain about Arturo: he didn't play by the rules and he didn't care who got hurt.

He didn't care if it was me.