Page 28 of Blood Orange Christmas
“I’m not a child,” she says.
“I know exactly what you are.” I point the light down. The stairs cut into the hill are narrow and chipped smooth by a hundred years of boots. Cold breath rises from the dark. Old oak. Damp stone. Wine asleep and something that is not wine. Iron, thin and recent.
“I told you not to open this door,” I say.
“I didn’t,” she answers. “Your mole did.”
I should send her to her room with a guard and a key. I should walk into the cellar alone with Harrison and come back with a list of names and a clean story for the guests. She is here. She will not go. If I push her now, she will go fast and in the wrong direction.
“You and Marco leave at first light,” I say. “You go to a safe house that is not mine, under a name that is not yours. I will give you a number you never call unless you have to. Someone I trust will drive. You will not tell me where you are. You will not send a letter. You will not come back.”
She tilts her head. The light catches the curve of her cheek and the scar on her wrist that I touched last night. “No.”
“You do not understand how close you are to being useful to the wrong person.”
“Closer here or closer on a road where the mole can count every turn?” She steps closer to me so I have to look at her. “You told me to leave. I thought about it all night until morning. Whoever brought me here can find me again wherever I go. You know that. You knew it when you told me to run.”
“You were never supposed to be here.”
“I’m here now.” Her voice is steady and clear. She is not shouting. She has the stillness that cooks have when the oil is hot and the line is long. “Do not tell me to leave my son’s father because your schedule is crowded.”
Harrison clears his throat once. It is the sound he makes when emotion starts to fill a space that should be reason. I lift a hand without looking at him and he fades back two steps. I keep my voice low.
“I can keep you safe if you follow my plan.”
“You can keep parts of things safe,” she says. “You cannot run your war and run my life. Choose one.”
“You are not my war,” I say.
She laughs once, without kindness. “Then stop moving me like a piece on your board.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and breathe. The air tastes like oak and bad decisions. “This isn’t a board, Serena. It’s a fire.The dinner is the weapon. That message was not a joke. I amprotecting a room full of men who will burn a country to keep a bottle on a shelf. They will use you to distract me. They will use Marco because they do not understand the word ‘no’ unless it is followed by something that makes their ears ring.”
“So move the dinner,” she says. “Change the room. Change the plan. You told me last night you prefer lines of sight and honest locks. Make one.”
I want to be angry. It would be easier than this. I settle for a colder thing. “If you stay,” I say, “you obey me when I say move. You answer my people when they say inside. You do not argue with Harrison. You do not joke with Luca. You do not open doors. You do not close doors I am opening.”
“I am not a soldier,” she says.
“You are a mother,” I say. “Act like it.”
Her eyes flash. “Do not use my son to win an argument with me.”
The fight sits on our tongues. I taste it and let it go. If I push harder, she will push back, and the hallway will fill with words neither of us can take back.
“Light,” I say to Harrison. He comes down one step and passes me a second flashlight. He does not look at Serena. He does not have to. He knows she is the reason I am not already below.
I work the beam along the jamb. The fresh break is clean, not a pry done by a drunk. This was done by someone with time and a template. I slide the light down the stairs. Dust lies in a puzzle. Two sets of prints, one wide, one narrow. In and out. No scuffle. No second thoughts. The narrow set slides once on a damp patch near the third step. The toe marks are shallow. New shoes. Thewide set is steady, heels heavy. The person who led the way knew how to walk in the dark.
“Rocco,” I say. He appears at the landing, breathing even, coat open.
“North wall is quiet,” he offers.
“Find Camilla,” I tell him. “I want the delivery manifests for wine for the last six months. I want every cork stamped at the press counted by a second set of eyes. I want the names of every driver who has touched our gate since yesterday. Every bottle of Barolo from that producer is to be boxed and sealed. The crest has a cut in the R. Pull anything with that mark, even if it is not Barolo. Box it. Photograph it. I want the corks tagged. We will open them after the summit in a room that burns.”
“Done,” Rocco says and is gone.
“Keys,” I say to Harrison.
