Page 16 of Mistletoe & Mayhem
Pierce
The world splits open with sirens, red and blue pulses clawing at the inside of my skull. There is no warning—one moment Laura is in my lap on the kitchen floor, the next I’m wrestling her upright and shoving her—hard—under the butcher block as our window explodes inward, shards singing past my ear, a crystalline shriek against the sirens’ banshee chorus.
Outside, men in black tactical gear swarm the street. Not for us—for the Stasio’s soldiers who’ve been watching the house for hours. Laura doesn’t scream, not even when the glass bites her arm. She just stares at me with this bottomless, black-eyed gratitude. I don’t think—just grab her hand and sprint, skidding across the linoleum with socked feet. The front door is suicide; through the letterbox, I glimpse a SWAT officer tackling one of Dominic’s men, the blue strobe making monsters of them both. So I go back through the kitchen and I tear open the back door as if I could will a new reality into existence.
He’s there. A man. Not SWAT, not NYPD, not even mafia—something smoother, silkier, like a hotel concierge dressed for a funeral. He has a face that dissipates in the mind as soon as he turns, neither old nor young, neither dangerous nor benign. He offers a preternaturally calm “Miss Stasio,” and hands Laura aheavy black duffel as if he’s delivering room service. The gun at his hip is for show; the smile at his lips is the real weapon.
“Frida’s regards,” he says, and before I can even process the name, he’s ushering us down the alley, his gloved hand never quite touching Laura’s back.
I don’t have time to ask if she trusts him—Laura is already following his glide, her mouth slack from shock. Even in crisis, her body refuses to be told; she’s not wearing a coat. I peel off my sweatshirt and hurl it over her head, feeling savage and insufficient in the face of everything she’s endured, but she pulls it tight and nods once, as if this is all she needs from me.
The front of my building is nothing short of chaos, a melee of flashing lights and police tape, and through it all, the smooth man guides us to a low, black Tesla, its windows glossy with condensation. He opens the door, bows, and says, “Time to vanish.” His voice is dust on velvet. Laura swings into the back seat with zero hesitation, and of course, I follow.
The Tesla is dark inside, and there’s another man at the wheel, equally forgettable, probably equally expensive. The car is moving before the doors close, silent as a coffin on rails, and I have to fight the compulsion to check behind us; I already know no one will see us leave.
“Clothes,” says the driver. “Change quickly.”
At first, Laura laughs, a breathy half-sob, but then he tosses a wad of something soft and black into the back seat. “Change,” he says, and this time it’s not a request.
I glance at Laura, but she’s already got my off, her bra fastened so fast it’s nearly hanging off her shoulders. There’s a moment—our eyes meet in the midnight glow of the dashboard—that almost feels obscene, but she gives me a look like, It’s not the first time you’ve seen me naked, and as always, she wins. I strip my ruined shirt and pants, hands shaking so badly I nearlyfumble the zipper, and I’m grateful for the darkness; she doesn’t see how broken I’ve become.
The clothes are heavy, stitched with pockets and untraceable fabrics, military without the politics. We change like children in the backseat, elbows knocking, and for the first time, I see a ragged slice across Laura’s left bicep, another along her ribs, but still—unbelievably—her hands steady as she cinches her belt. She’s not made of flesh and bone, not anymore. Whatever her father did to her, it left her impervious, except when it comes to me.
The Tesla glides out of Manhattan like a thought, swerving past roadblocks, past unmarked cars boiling with cops and feds and, at one point, a cluster of men in balaclavas that raise their arms to signal our exception. I know the city; I know how it folds time. But tonight, its streets are knotted at every turn. Yet the car never slows, never hesitates. Frida’s people navigate the city like they’ve memorized its pulse, slipping through streets and alleys that shouldn’t exist, always three steps ahead of whoever might be following us.
We don’t speak for twenty minutes. Laura just sits, cradling her arm, her face unreadable except for the constant, haunted glimmer in her eyes. The questions pile up in my mind. Are you hurt? Can we trust Frida? Will your father find us? But Laura’s profile is carved from marble in the passing streetlights, and I know better. She wasn’t raised to be soothed. Whatever softness she once had was beaten out long ago, replaced with something harder, something that doesn’t need my fumbling reassurances.
Instead, I do the only stupid thing I’m good at: I reach across the seat and take her hand. It’s cold. Almost as cold as the first time I kissed her, behind the cathedral on Fifth. She squeezes back, a tiny tremor betraying everything she will never, ever say.
After a long time, Laura breaks the silence. “What’s next?”
“We’ll drop you at Teterboro. Private jet. From there, no one can follow.”
She looks at me, and I see the animal behind her eyes: incredulity, relief, a kind of wild, primal hope. “You’re sure?”
The driver’s lips twitch. “No one’s ever found Frida’s people. Not when they don’t want to be found.”
The car hums down the Jersey Turnpike, cruising at two hundred kilometers an hour with the silence of a loaded gun. I watch the world flick past in staccato, the sodium streetlights painting Laura’s face in pale, metastatic patches. There’s a kind of necromancy to it—every time the light catches her wounds, I see the old Laura flicker through, bared and unburied. She never once turns away.
We reach the airport in under fifteen minutes. No security, no fanfare; the Tesla slides onto the tarmac and deposits us like cargo at the foot of a waiting jet. The smooth man ushers us out, squinting against the wind. My teeth start chattering, but Laura seems immune. Danger and our lost years have hardened her, but I plan to change that.
The jet gleams in the darkness, a white vision with only one window lighted. As we climb the steps, I realize my hands are wet, the blood reminding me of every past mistake, every small cowardice. I can’t stop thinking about her father, about the way he looked at me at our one and only meeting, like I was a corpse with a ticking expiration date.
Inside the jet, it’s warm. Luxurious. There’s jazz playing somewhere, low and sad. Frida is in one of the leather seats, legs crossed, eyes shining with the all-seeing glint of someone who owns every room but refuses to admit it.
“Sit,” she says, motioning to the couch opposite. “You made good time.”
Laura doesn’t answer, just slumps into the seat and closes her eyes. Frida gestures for me to sit beside her, and I do, bone-tired, my own fear melting into the plush.
Frida pours two glasses of prosecco—Laura’s favorite, I realize, a detail only a true predator could remember—and sets them on the table. “To the end of family holidays,” she says, raising her own glass. “From now on, you make your own traditions.”
I can’t even force a smile. “Will he chase us?” I ask, the “he” needing no clarification.
Frida tilts her head, birdlike. “He’ll try. But your departure will be... communicated.” She taps her phone once, and somewhere, in some unseen corner of the world, a text wings its way to Dominic Stasio. “He won’t find you,” Frida says, “not unless you want to be found.”
“Where are we going?” Laura whispers.
“Someplace no one owns, not even your father. British Virgin Islands. A nice place to disappear.”
