“You came in here like that?” I crane my neck to see behind him, hoping to notice a detail I can use later, but except for the muscle, the short hallway is bare. “Are you brave or stupid?”

“Confident.” He slaps the door closed with the end of his cane.

“I don’t have a chair in here. Sometimes trained gorillas bring one to tie me to, but…” I indicate the end of the bed. “Take a load off.”

“I’ll stand.” He leans against the wall.

Two different men appear in the hallway on the other side of the glass. Their arms are at their sides, watching and ready. That’s four. Two can get in easily down the narrow hall. Even if I take them, the other two will be waiting on the other side.

Even with Massimo hobbled, my odds are shit.

“Is that what you call that?” I ask.

“Can we not with the witty rejoinders?”

“They’re all I got right now. It’s not fair to take you down when you have a gimp leg.”

“I appreciate that.”

“How’d it get that way? You weren’t in the parking lot.”

I assume he’s pausing to construct one of the witty rejoinders he asked me to stop, but he’s doing something more profound. He’s getting ready to tell the truth.

“My sister shot me.”

Quickly, I glance at the ceiling camera. The red light is off. We’re alone.

“Good for her.”

“She was aiming for my head.”

“You should teach her how to shoot straight, Massimo.”

“Women with guns,” he scoffs. “Another great idea from the guy who gave Sarah Colonia car keys.”

He’s all Sarah has, and he thinks she’s too much of a woman to fight him. He’s wrong. She’s too much of a woman to run away.

“You didn’t shut off the cameras to chat about your sister.”

“But I did.” He looks down and moves his cane a couple of inches, shifting his weight. “You’re going to let her get hurt for you.”

Sarah. Hurt. The volume of those words together is like a fire alarm in the middle of the night. The sound of every other thought gets swallowed into them. I can’t think about anything but the emergency at hand.

And yet, I can hear the littlest voice saying I’m too easily manipulated. Alarm is the privilege of people who can escape, and I cannot.

“Sarah’s a pretty good actress,” Massimo continues. I clear a path through the din to hear him. “She acts like she hates you. She acts like she’s still one of us. But I know.”

More alarms. Is he fishing? Even I’m not sure where her heart is. If the Colonia suspect she was ever more than a prisoner, she’s not safe with them.

“A woman’s heart is impossible to know.”

“You’re not getting how serious this is. This isn’t a joke, and you stalling isn’t going to keep her off the hollowing table.”

The screaming in my head will not be contained. In one move, I go from a crouch at the end of the bed to standing on the floor. He doesn’t even flinch. My quiet voice says this kid has something. The rest says what he has isn’t enough to run the Colonia.