Page 35 of The Rook’s Obsession

We’ve been driving for half an hour, maybe, before I say it. “I want to talk to Vincenzo.”

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “No.”

“I want to talk to him. I want to hear what he has to say.”

“You know what he’ll say. He’ll lie.”

“Maybe, but I want to hear it from him.” I turn in my seat to face Nick’s profile. His eyes are fixed on the road, but his jaw is tight. “I spent twelve years with that man. He trained me. He looked me in the eye every day and called me family. I need to hear him tell me it was all bullshit. I need to hear it in his voice.”

“You won’t hear it,” he counters through gritted teeth. “You know him. You know how he operates. He’ll tell you whatever version of the truth keeps you close to him. He’ll say it was a mistake, something he didn’t authorize. And he’ll sound convincing, because that’s what he does. It’s the only reason he’s still alive. By the end of the call, you’ll be doubting yourself all over again.”

Dammit. He’s right. I hate that he’s right. I hate it with a ferocity that burns all the way down to my stomach, because Vincenzo is exactly that good. I’ve watched him lie to powerful men with a smile on his face and sincerity in his eyes. I’ve witnessed him shaking hands with people he intended to destroy. Deception isn’t a skill for him. It’s his native tongue.

He continues in a slightly quieter voice. Almost like he feels sorry for being so blunt now that the words are out. “You’re a liability now. You know too much. You’ve done too much. And now you’re in the hands of people he considers enemies. He is never going to stop unless he’s forced to stop. A phone call isn’t going to change that. It’s only going to give him information he can use against us.”

I turn back to the windshield and stare at the road. It rolls past, indifferent. Trees, fields. A grimy little gas station. A billboard advertising a church. Since when do churches need advertising?

He’s right, damn him. Knowing it changes nothing about the crater inside me. Like a bomb exploded and hollowed me out.

Everything I thought I knew is gone. Doesn’t he understand that? It’s not just misplaced or rearranged. It’s flat-out gone. The foundation I built my life on was never real. Vincenzo, the handlers, the network of people I trusted enough to take orders from without question… it was all constructed. Designed to use me, maintained only as long as I was useful, then dismantled the moment I became an inconvenience.

The man called me family. He sat across from me at dinner tables in Rome and asked about my training, my progress. How I was doing, how I was feeling. He remembered my birthday, which he always counted as the date he found me and brought me to the place he referred to as home.

He bought me my first real weapon, too. A custom Beretta, engraved with my initials. I.R. Ivy Russo. The man gave me his name.

And then he sent eight men to pump me full of bullets and leave me the way you leave a crumpled candy wrapper on the side of the road.

How do you survive that? How can you build anything on ground that was never solid to begin with?

The answer is, you don’t. You stand in the wreckage, and you look around until you realize there is no one you can trust. No one whose words mean anything. Not Vincenzo, who lied about everything. Not Liam, the stranger who claims to be my brother. Not Nick, either, who says he loves a girl who doesn’t exist anymore.

I’m alone. The way I’ve always been, underneath the illusion I chose to believe.

“Hey.”

It’s Nick’s voice that finally pulls me out of my spiral. I didn’t realize how far down I’d gone until his hand lands on mine, warm and solid, and the contact is enough to jolt me back to the surface.

“I know what you’re thinking,” he tells me.

“Somehow, I doubt that.”

“You’re thinking you’re alone. That there’s nobody left you can trust. You’re thinking everything you believed in was fake, so why would anything else be real.”

Slowly, I turn my head to look at him. His accuracy is unnerving. “How do you know that?”

“Because I know what betrayal feels like. And I know what it does to a person.” He squeezes my hand, then lets go, returning both hands to the wheel. “But I’m real. This is real. Whatever you decide about your past, whatever you believe or don’t believe about who you were—what’s happening right now, between us, in this car, is real. You can make new memories, starting now. Starting with the ones you choose.”

For a long time, all I can do is stare at him. “That’s easy to say,” I finally murmur.

“I know.”

“I mean, look who I trusted for twelve years.” I can’t say his name out loud. Not right now, maybe not ever again. At least, not as long as I feel the way I do. “I would’ve died for him. I killed for him. He threw me away like I was nothing.”

My voice doesn’t crack, but it’s close. “Obviously, I’m a shit judge of character,” I conclude. “I never saw it coming. How am I supposed to trust anyone now? How am I supposed to trust you? What if I’m wrong again?”

He doesn’t answer right away. The car hums along the highway, and the silence is heavy, filled with a question that has no good answer.

“You might be,” he finally concedes. “Wrong again. I can’t guarantee you won’t be. Nobody can.”