Page 223 of Caterina
I glance toward the panel. “I can restore partial power from here if nothing else is cut downstream. That brings cameras back to the safe room and maybe the exterior grid. Once we have eyes, we can direct movement.”
Nico checks his magazine. “I’ll go east, find the van, kill the jammer.”
Vito steps closer. “What do you need from me?”
“Keep them away from the basement. Anyone moving inside the house goes down before they get near that door. Check the hall closet for Andrew and any more of our survivors.”
Vito nods and turns to go.
“Vito,” I say.
He stops and looks over his shoulder.
“I have one alive,” I say. “I might need another.”
“Can’t let a guy have any fun around here.” He shakes his head and walks off.
I give Nico a look that means “same.”
He grins and disappears into the hedges.
I turn back to the panel and force my fingers to work.
Chapter Thirty Four
Caterina
The silence after Vito and Nico leave is somehow worse.
Before, Adrian was out there alone, and my brothers were here, standing between us and the door like a final wall. Now they are gone too.
Now there is only one steel door between us and whatever is happening above.
Nick stays near it, gun in hand, shoulders squared, body positioned so he can cover the entrance and still keep Lucia and the children behind him. Lucia sits with her kids, but the gun in her hand is at the ready as well.
Teresa has Cristiano held close, one hand cupped over the back of his head, her eyes fixed on the door Vito just disappeared through.
Erica is trying not to cry.
She is doing a very good job of it, honestly.
Better than I would be if I were pregnant, holding a one-year-old, and watching my husband walk out of a safe room into a house full of men with guns.
Emma has finally started to cry, though softly.
Erica presses a kiss to her hair and whispers, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”
It is not okay.
Nothing is okay.
But I understand the lie.
Sometimes you say the words for the child and hope some tiny part of you believes them, too.
I still have Vito’s gun in my hand.
The weight of it is familiar enough not to scare me, but not familiar enough to feel natural. I know how to shoot. Papà made sure of that. But knowing how to shoot and standing in a reinforced basement room, waiting to see if someone will come through the door, are two very different things.
