I sit in the interrogation room. I've only seen these in movies before.

Metal folding chairs sit across from one another. Industrial flooring, a nicked wooden table, and one flimsy spotlight surround me.

Lucas Black sits in one rickety chair, facing me. "So we meet again."

The cuffs dig into my wrists as I try to scratch my chin. "So we do."

I can't even bring myself to find any indignation or anger at my arrest. All I feel is the complete opposite; nothingness, an empty, purposeless void yawning open inside my chest.

"Do you know why you're here, Mr. Cavalli?" says a faintly familiar voice as a woman wearing a red dress and a pair of heels click into the room.

I glance up. Dark brown hair. Blue eyes. Red lipstick. Classically beautiful. She looks nothing like an FBI agent, but who am I to judge? That could be the very reason they picked her for the job. "Do I know you?"

"I asked you first." She leans against the doorjamb, an expensive designer purse hanging from the crook of her arm.

"You were in Monte Carlo, weren't you?" I study her, trying to remember.

"I may have traveled there in the last week or so." She shrugs. "What's it to you?"

The woman looks at me like I'm an insect specimen on a slide beneath a microscope: with disgust and some curiosity. Does she know me at all?

I roll my shoulders back. "I'd like to know who I'm going to be interrogated by."

"Delilah Sutherland," she says. Lucas plays with his phone, typing out a text. "I'd shake your hand, but that seems like it would be too humiliating for you."

"I'm surprised you care about the dignity of criminals, Miss Sutherland." Lucas slams his phone facedown on the table, his face flushed. "Please, either tell me where Agent Santos is or get out."

She only smiles. "Testy, aren't we? He's on his way from a bakery in Queens."

"Queens?" repeats Lucas. "What is he doing there?"

Delilah just studies her French manicured nails. "It's classified. Are you going to interrogate him or not?"

"I'm waiting for the cops to show up," he says with an eye roll.

Delilah takes a seat next to Lucas. "Officer Petrarch?"

"The one and only." Lucas drums his fingers on the scarred table. His phone chirps and he picks it up. "Oh, good, he says he and Rafael are on their way."

Minutes later, two people in uniform enter. One of them is vaguely familiar to me, and I realize who it is: one of the suppliers at a meeting a few months ago. Or, I guess, an agent disguised as a supplier.

"Officer Petrarch, this is Antonio Cavalli," Lucas says, gesturing toward me. "Delilah Sutherland, Rafael Santos."

"Now that we've all met," Officer Petrarch says. "Let's get this over with. Everyone clear out, please. I have some questioning to do."

LucasBlack, Delilah Sutherland, and Rafael Santos file out of the room. The single lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickers as Officer Petrarch takes a seat.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Cavalli. May I call you Antonio?" Officer Solana Petrarch is a slight, dark-haired woman, with wavy hair undone and loose over her shoulders. It's at odds with her neatly pressed and ironed police uniform.

"If you must," I say.

"Very well, then. Antonio, are you aware of why you're here?" she says, drumming her fingers on the wooden table.

"Because I'm a criminal, I would presume," I say, fighting the urge to give a sardonic smile.

"Yes, but there's more to it." She pulls a folder out of her briefcase and slides it across the table, opening the manila file. "Are you aware that you have been harbouring the daughter of a renowned mafia leader?"

I bark a laugh. "That's the whole reason I was harbouring her."

"And Katerina Steele - wife of the business magnate, Alexander Steele..." she says. "Did you or did you not kidnap her?"

"The Steeles assured me they were not alerting the authorities, Officer Petrarch," I say blandly. "Are you to tell me that they lied to me?"

"Don't act like you're shocked by deception," she replies, flipping a pen in one hand before setting a recorder on the table, its blinking red light reminding me that my words are being immortalized. "You lead a life of crime, after all."

"Is this how you talk to all your suspects, Officer Petrarch? Because I have been charged with nothing so far, and I believe your line of questioning will keep it that way." I lean back as far as I can in my metal folding chair, with my hands cuffed to the table. The metal digs into my wrists, making me wince.

Officer Petrarch smirks. Then she types something into her phone. I read her texts upside down. Lucky's, the usual. A food order. Make it a double. Is she planning on sharing?

She turns the phone facedown. "Didn't your parents teach you it was rude to spy on others' private communications?'

"It's a text message, not a love letter," I say. "And, no. My parents taught me many things, but that was not one of them. Picking locks, yes. Cracking safes. How to beat a man bloody until he gave you information. How to kill a man. How to break a man's spine while keeping him alive. How to fire a gun-"

"Thank you, Antonio, you have been surprisingly verbose," she says, her eyes studying me. "But what I'd like you to really open up about is Christina Martell. Where is she?"

My head hangs low, staring down at my cuffed hands. I pull at the cuffs until my wrists whiten, then release them and watch the blood flow back into my hands. I feel like a horse trying to pull of its bridle. "If I knew, I wouldn't be here."

"That's hardly an answer, Mr. Cavalli. What about Katerina Steele? Where is she?" she demands.

"Safe and soundly returned with her family," I respond. And she will be. Within the next twenty-four hours.

Ten minutes of pointless questioning goes nowhere, as expected. Lucas Black walks in, carrying two paper bags stained with grease. "I'm not your DoorDash guy," he gripes.

Solana rolls her eyes, standing and reaching for the food.

Then he pulls out his gun and knocks Solana Petrarch unconscious. The blood and bruises staining his face tell me that either Rafael really enjoyed punching his friend a little too much, or he just found a really good makeup artist. The former would be cheaper, so I assume that's the truth. Considering his stiff movements and the way he cringes as he undoes my cuffs, it's real.

"Let's get out of here." We exit the police precinct with hurried movements, leaving through a back door.