Page 55 of Break For Me
"Who is this?"
Alessandro Falcone. The timbre is identical to the voice I heard through the cabin wall. Controlled. Measured. He answers unknown numbers the way most people answer loaded weapons.
"This is Dr. Adrian Sterling."
The silence that follows is dense. I can feel him processing the name.
"I have your husband. He’s alive. He has a healing jejunal anastomosis, a detached surgical drain, possible blast-related rib fractures, and early hypothermia. He needs a hospital within the next four hours."
"Where are you?"
"I don't know. North of Poughkeepsie. In the woods east of the Hudson. We’ve been moving downhill for two miles from a position where a kill team engaged us. I’m following a frozen creek bed south-southwest."
"Rocco?"
The name hits me in the sternum. A physical impact. I close my eyes. The clinical wall holds. The compartment holds.
"Your brother detonated a propane tank to cover our escape. He was separated from us in the blast." I pause. The pause is involuntary. "The Russians have him. They were asking for me, not for him. He’s alive because he’s leverage. They’ll keep him alive as long as they believe they can use him to get me back."
The silence from the other end is not processing. It is the silence of a man absorbing a blow. I’ve heard it in waiting rooms. The quiet that followswe did everything we could.
"I’m triangulating your signal now." Alessandro’s voice has changed. The control is intact, but beneath it is iron. A gear shifting. "Stay on the line. Keep the phone powered. I’ll have a team to your position within ninety minutes."
"He blew the building to save us," I say. I don't know why I say it. It is tactically irrelevant. But the words come out because the compartment is leaking.
"I know what my brother would do," Alessandro says quietly. "Stay on the line, Doctor."
The helicopter comes in low over the tree line.
I hear the heavy, percussive chop of rotors beating the cold air. It grows to a roar that shakes snow from the branches. Black. Military-grade. No markings. It sets down in a clearing sixty yards south of our position.
Men spill out. Four of them in tactical gear. Behind them, a fifth figure. Tall. Lean. No tactical gear—a dark overcoat, a suit underneath. Alessandro Falcone walks across the clearing with the bearing of a man crossing a boardroom. The incongruity is so complete it feels like a hallucination.
Behind him, a sixth figure. Younger. Smaller. Moving with a quick, wiry energy. Rory.
Alessandro reaches us. His eyes go to Killian first. Killian is lying on the frozen ground where I propped him against a tree. He sees Alessandro, and his face cracks. The feral hardness gives way to something raw.
Alessandro drops to his knees in the snow. His suit trousers soak through. He cups Killian’s face. His thumbs brush Killian’s cheekbones. He doesn't speak. The tremor in his hands says everything.
Rory is beside them, gripping Killian’s shoulder.
I step back. The scene is intimate in a way that makes my chest ache. Two men and a boy kneeling in the snow around a body I kept alive. Their grief and their relief tangled together. I am the outsider.
The tactical team moves to Killian. They lift him onto a stretcher. IV lines. Thermal blankets. Oxygen. The equipment I haven't had access to in weeks appears in the hands of professionals.
They load him into the helicopter. Rory climbs in after him.
Alessandro stands. He turns to me.
His face is composed. The tremor is gone. Whatever cracked when he knelt beside Killian has been sealed.
"Tell me about Rocco."
I tell him. The transmitter. The kill team. The siege. Garrett. The propane tank. The explosion. The tumble down the slope. The Russian voice askingwhere is the doctorwith a boot on Rocco’s chest.
I tell him everything except what happened against the wall of the shack. That belongs to a different ledger.
Alessandro listens. His face doesn't change. But something behind his eyes hardens. The way steel hardens in a forge.
