PART 2 — THE MAN WHO CAME LOOKING

Milwaukee smelled like wet brick and coffee the morning I arrived.

I rented a room above a bakery run by a sixty-two-year-old widow named Mrs. Pappas who asked no questions as long as rent was paid every Monday.

The room had one window.

One bed.

A chipped white sink.

A radiator that hissed like it resented being alive.

It was perfect.

Nobody knew me.

Nobody opened doors for me.

Nobody followed me through restaurants.

Nobody called me ma’am.

The first night, I slept diagonally across the mattress.

I woke at three reaching toward the empty space beside me.

That was when grief finally arrived.

Not dramatic grief.

Domestic grief.

I missed the weight of Nico’s wrist across my stomach.

I missed how he stole the cold side of the pillow.

I missed the irritated sound he made when I used peppermint toothpaste because he hated the smell.

I missed things that had no dignity.

And that made leaving harder than hatred would have.

I found work at the bakery downstairs.

Mrs. Pappas discovered I could use an espresso machine and put me behind the counter.

On my third morning, she watched me ruin a cappuccino.

“You have rich-girl hands,” she announced.

I looked down at them.

“They don’t feel rich.”

“Then they’ll learn.”

She was right.

By the second week, I had burns on two fingers and flour permanently beneath one nail.

I loved it.

People paid $4.75 for coffee and thanked me.

Children pressed their noses to the pastry case.

Old men argued about baseball.

Nobody had a gun beneath his jacket.

At night I read.

I slept.

I cried occasionally.

Then less.

I began hearing my own laugh again.

It startled me the first time.

Three weeks passed.

Nico didn’t come.

That hurt in ways I refused to examine.

A dark part of me had expected him within twenty-four hours.

Not because I wanted to return.

Because some humiliated, wounded corner of my heart wanted proof that his words had been a lie.

Day one.

Nothing.

Day three.

Nothing.

Friday arrived.

I stood behind the bakery counter watching rain bead across the windows and thought:

He said he’d forget me by today.

My throat tightened.

Mrs. Pappas slid a cinnamon roll toward me.

“Eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“That sentence has never improved anybody’s life.”

I almost smiled.

The bell above the bakery door rang.

Cold air entered first.

Then Arthur Bellini.

Every muscle in my body froze.

He wore a charcoal coat and black gloves.

No entourage.

No obvious weapon.

He looked older than he had three weeks earlier.

“Norah.”

Mrs. Pappas glanced between us.

“You know him?”

“No.”

Arthur flinched.

Tiny.

Almost invisible.

Good.

I took off my apron.

“Five minutes.”

Mrs. Pappas pointed at Arthur.

“If she doesn’t come back in five, I call police.”

Arthur gave her an expression that had probably frightened senators.

Mrs. Pappas picked up a rolling pin.

“Four minutes now.”

For the first time since walking in, Arthur almost smiled.

We stepped outside.

Snow had begun to mix with the rain.

I folded my arms.

“How did you find me?”

“Wasn’t easy.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“Nico taught you too well.”

Hearing his name hurt.

I looked past Arthur toward the street.

“What does he want?”

Arthur paused.

“He doesn’t know I’m here.”

I looked at him.

Something cold moved through me.

“Then why are you?”

Arthur’s face softened.

“Because I owed you an apology.”

“For what?”

He glanced toward the bakery window.

“You shouldn’t have heard that conversation.”

My jaw tightened.

“No. I’m glad I did.”

“Norah—”

“He meant it.”

Arthur looked at me for a long second.

“You think men always say what they mean?”

“I think men say the truth when the person they’re talking about isn’t in the room.”

Something changed in his eyes.

Approval?

Pity?

I couldn’t tell.

“He’s been impossible since you left,” Arthur said.

I laughed once.

“I’m sure changing locks is exhausting.”

“He didn’t change them.”

I said nothing.

“He hasn’t slept in the bedroom either.”

“Arthur.”

“He sits in the study until sunrise.”

“Stop.”

“He nearly put one of his own captains through a wall because the man suggested sending someone after you.”

“I said stop.”

Arthur did.

Snow dissolved in his dark hair.

I hated how badly I wanted to believe him.

I hated even more that he knew it.

“If Nico wants something,” I said, “he can come say it himself.”

Arthur’s gaze sharpened.

“You don’t want that.”

“Why?”

“He isn’t safe to be around.”

I almost laughed.

“That never bothered you before.”

“I mean it differently now.”

A car rolled past.

Black sedan.

Slow.

Arthur watched it go.

Then he looked at me.

“Have you been followed?”

My stomach tightened.

“No.”

“You sure?”

“No one knows I’m here.”

“I found you.”

Exactly.

I stepped backward.

Arthur noticed.

“I’m not here to frighten you.”

“Then you’re failing.”

He reached inside his coat.

I moved toward the bakery door.

“Easy.”

His hand emerged holding an envelope.

Cream paper.

My name written across the front.

Norah.

Not Nico’s handwriting.

I didn’t take it.

“What is that?”

“Something you need.”

“From who?”

Arthur smiled faintly.

“Your boyfriend.”

“He isn’t my boyfriend.”

“No,” Arthur said. “I suppose he isn’t.”

Something about the satisfaction in his voice chilled me.

I looked at the envelope again.

“What’s inside?”

“An address.”

“For what?”

“A place Nico doesn’t know about.”

That made no sense.

“If Nico gave it to you—”

“I didn’t say Nico gave it to me.”

The cold seemed to deepen.

Arthur extended the envelope.

“There are things about him you deserve to know.”

I stared at him.

Then at the bakery glass behind him.

In the reflection, I saw the black sedan return.

It stopped across the street.

The rear door opened.

A man stepped out.

My pulse jumped.

Arthur’s eyes moved toward the reflection.

His expression changed.

“Take the envelope, Norah.”

“No.”

“Take it.”

“Why?”

“Because we need to leave.”

“We?”

“Now.”

The man across the street started walking.

Then another appeared behind him.

I backed toward the bakery.

Arthur reached for my wrist.

I jerked away.

“Don’t touch me.”

“Norah, listen—”

A voice behind me said:

“She told you not to touch her.”

Everything inside me stopped.

Nico stood beneath the bakery awning.

No suit jacket.

Black shirt rolled to his forearms.

Rain darkening his hair.

A healing cut along his cheek.

He looked thinner.

Harder.

Exhausted.

For three weeks I had imagined this moment a hundred ways.

In some versions, I slapped him.

In others, I cried.

In one embarrassing version, I let him hold me.

In reality, I simply stared.

Nico looked at Arthur.

Arthur slowly released his hand.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Arthur said.

Nico’s eyes remained flat.

“Neither should you.”

The two men from the sedan stopped several yards away.

Nico didn’t glance at them.

That frightened me more than if he had drawn a weapon.

Arthur sighed.

“You’re making this ugly.”

“No,” Nico said. “You did that eleven years ago.”

I frowned.

Arthur’s face emptied.

“What are you talking about?”

Nico finally looked at me.

“Go inside.”

I almost laughed.

Three years of obedience rushed up my throat and died there.

“No.”

“Norah.”

“Don’t.”

His jaw tightened.

I had seen that expression make men leave rooms.

I stood still.

“You don’t get to order me anymore.”

Something flickered in his face.

Pain.

Then gone.

“You’re right.”

Arthur glanced between us.

“This is touching.”

Nico ignored him.

His eyes moved toward the envelope.

“What did he give you?”

“I didn’t take it.”

“Good.”

Arthur laughed.

“There she is. Loyal even after you threw her away.”

Nico’s gaze became murderous.

Arthur stepped closer.

“Tell her.”

Nico said nothing.

“Tell her why you’re here.”

“I came for you.”

“No.” Arthur smiled. “Tell her why you’ve been following her since Chicago.”

My heartbeat stumbled.

I looked at Nico.

“What?”

Arthur’s smile widened.

“Did you think you walked away alone?”

I remembered Luca beneath the awning.

The cigarette.

The way he had looked at my bag.

I looked at Nico.

His silence answered before his mouth did.

“You had me followed?”

“I had Luca make sure you got out safely.”

“Safely?”

My voice cracked.

“You knew I left?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

Nico didn’t answer.

Arthur did.

“Before she reached the elevator.”

My face went cold.

Nico turned toward him.

“Enough.”

Arthur’s eyes brightened.

“No, I think she deserves the whole thing.”

Something inside me began to understand that the betrayal I had been nursing for three weeks wasn’t the only betrayal in the room.

Arthur looked at me.

“Ask him about the camera.”

Nico went still.

“What camera?” I whispered.

Arthur smiled.

“The one outside the study.”

For a few seconds, the city disappeared.

No cars.

No rain.

No bakery.

Only a silver tray.

A mahogany door.

Water trembling inside glasses.

And Nico saying he would forget my name.

I stared at him.

“You saw me?”

His eyes closed for half a second.

That was enough.

“You knew I was standing outside that door.”

Nico said nothing.

My voice became smaller.

“You knew?”

Arthur laughed softly.

“There it is.”

I stepped back from both of them.

Nico finally said:

“Yes.”

One word.

It broke me more efficiently than everything I had heard through that door.

I shook my head.

“No.”

“Norah—”

“You knew.”

“Yes.”

“And you kept talking.”

His face twisted.

“Listen to me.”

“You looked at a camera, saw me standing there holding your stupid water, and you said you wouldn’t care if I disappeared?”

Arthur interrupted.

“He needed you to believe it.”

Nico turned on him.

“Shut your mouth.”

But I was staring at Arthur now.

“What does that mean?”

Arthur smiled.

Then three dark vehicles turned onto the block.

The men across the street moved.

Arthur’s expression finally changed.

Not fear.

Resignation.

Nico said quietly:

“It’s over.”

Arthur looked at him.

“You brought federal agents?”

My stomach dropped.

Nico answered:

“No.”

He looked past Arthur.

“You did.”

Men in plain clothes emerged from the vehicles.

Badges.

Commands.

Hands raised.

Everything happened fast after that, but the memory exists in fragments.

Arthur standing motionless in falling snow.

An agent pulling his arms behind him.

Mrs. Pappas watching from the bakery with her rolling pin still in one hand.

Nico looking at nobody except me.

Arthur laughing as the cuffs closed around his wrists.

Then, just before they put him into the vehicle, Arthur turned toward me.

“Ask him why Friday mattered.”

I stared at him.

Arthur’s smile disappeared.

“Then ask him what was inside the blue box.”

The car door slammed.

And Nico Moretti looked like a man who had just watched his last secret become impossible to keep.