Page 61 of Blood Orange Christmas
“Positions,” Dante says, already moving. “Nobody touches a glass. Nobody opens a door.”
“Who called them?” I ask.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, scanning the hall. “We move.”
Outside, the sirens split—one set at the front gate, one climbing the back road by the olive press, a third floating on the ridge like a promise to surround. Radios pop. In the courtyard, a dog barks twice and then decides to let the night handle itself. The house holds its breath.
“Get to the tunnels,” Dante orders, and the calm in his voice makes the room obey. “Now.”
Everything accelerates. Luca and Rocco pivot, funneling guests toward the inner salon, not to hide them but to keep them from being doors. Harrison seals the side arch and posts a man there who can count to ten before he pulls. Camilla pockets one phone, tosses me a second in a clear bag, and ghosts down the corridor toward the service wing. Gabriella catches my eye from the pass—steady, waiting. I nod once. “Kitchen’s done,” I tell her. “This is the only plate left to carry.”
We break for the family wing as a group—Dante, me, Harrison on the flank, two of our men ahead to clear corners without looking like they’re clearing corners. We pass the saints in the hallway. Their painted hands are still up, blessing or warning, I can’t tell which. The corridor smells like lemon and powder smoke.
Marco.
We hit his door and I’m through first. He’s asleep in a soft tangle, brave car wedged under his arm like a life raft. The nanny’s in the chair with a book open and her feet square on the rug. She looks up once, takes stock, and is already moving. “Shoes,” she says, and my body obeys like I’m eight and late for school. Dante lifts our son carefully, carefully, the whole of him gentled down to his palms.
Marco blinks and catches up fast because that’s who he is. “Is it time to go be secret?” he whispers, the way we practiced only in case of a fire.
“It is,” I say and press a kiss to the damp curls at his temple.
From the corridor, the radios clatter in two languages at once. “Carabinieri…aprite… warrant… stay where you are…” and the hard, flat reply of our outer ring.
“The padrone will meet you at the gate.”
“He won’t,” Dante says, mouth tight. “Not tonight.”
We move. The nanny slides in behind me like she was born to run quietly. Harrison takes rear, ledger nowhere, eyes everywhere. We duck through the laundry—steamers dead, starch stiff in the air—cut the butler’s pantry I know too well, and reach the seam in the paneling.
The panel gives. The narrow staircase breathes cold. I feel the house’s ribs around us. Marco buries his face in Dante’s neck and peeks out with one eye, like a knight riding behind a taller knight and pretending he isn’t afraid because he knows whose back he has.
“Right,” I whisper. “Under the main hall. Then the scullery passage, then the old ash chute.”
“You remember,” Dante says, and it feels like more than maps.
We move down into the dark in a line—men first, then me with Marco, then the nanny, then Harrison. The stone is damp beneath our shoes. The steam of our breath makes the beam of the light look like fog in a bottle. Above, boots thud, doors bang, voices get brave when they think marble will save them. The sirens slide into place, overlapping, a sick harmony.
At the first landing, a shot cracks—not near, not far—and the nanny flinches, then sets her jaw hard enough to make me proud. “Keep your head down,” I tell Marco. He nods and obeys. He likes rules you can do with your body.
The scullery passage is too low for Luca’s shoulders and too tight for lies. We snake through, knees bumping old pipe, shoulders brushing rough plaster. My hand finds the wall and learns each scar and nail like facts. The smell is iron, stone, and a ghost of flour.
At the ash chute’s grate, Harrison taps once, twice, thrice—an old knock that lets the outside man know the inside man is a friend. Rocco answers with two. He’s there with bolt cutters and a breath like winter. The grate drops on a soft curse. Cold air floods in. We are out.
The olive grove crouches like a squad of old men whispering. Frost whitens the ground where the trees don’t reach. The stars snap awake because the sirens have drawn all the light toward the gate. Down by the press, a blue wash paints the stone, then flickers, then steadies. Voices carry in lines. We’re not the only ones moving.
“This way,” Rocco says, already stepping into shadow. “The lower terrace, then the cut by the culvert. The ridge is dusted. Your tracks will sing.”
“We’ll make them sing a different tune,” Luca says, appearing from the dark like a joke you only want on your side. He hands me a rough wool shawl that smells like cedar—mine, grabbed from our room by a woman who never forgets a list—and tips a chin at Marco. “Little man rides with the captain.”
“No,” Dante says.
“Yes,” I say, and we meet in the middle. I tuck Marco closer to me, the shawl around both our shoulders, my free hand on his brave car so it doesn’t fall. Dante’s eyes hit mine for one brief, hot second. We agree to argue later.
We break across the terrace in a staggered line, men long-legged and quiet, me lighter than I feel. The cold is a knife. My legs are jelly and wire. Somewhere behind us, a loud voice announces a search warrant like it’s a prayer. A second voice asks if they want to do this tonight or after coffee. Somewhere farther, a car door slams wrong, followed by a shout that is all muscle and no plan.
Gunfire cracks once, then twice, then stutters into a chorus behind the laundry wing. I feel it between my shoulder blades before the sound reaches my ears. The nanny gasps, thenkeeps moving. Marco’s small fingers clamp my collar. “Is that thunder?” he whispers.
“Yes,” I lie, because thunder doesn’t chase boys, and the lie makes it so for the next six steps.
