Chapter 7: What Sokolov Did Next
Three days passed.
Dr.
Bennett reinstalled the IV herself, with the expression of a woman who had decided that commentary was beneath her and action was more efficient.
She scheduled the defibrillator procedure for the following week.
She handed Luca a printed list of restrictions and watched him read it.
"Well?" she said.
"Less stress," he said.
"That's the summary, yes."
"I'm working on it."
She looked at him over the chart.
"The man who came in here four days ago was not working on it."
"No."
"And now?"
Luca folded the list and put it in his jacket pocket.
"Now I have a reason to."
Dr.
Bennett held his gaze for a moment.
Then she made a note in the chart and left without further comment.
Which, from her, was something close to approval.
On the second day, Marco brought news about Sokolov.
He came in the afternoon, sat in the chair beside the bed, and placed a single printed page on the blanket.
Luca picked it up.
It was a financial filing.
A shell company registered in Delaware.
The name meant nothing on its own.
The listed director's address meant everything — it was a property in Red Hook that Sokolov had used as a secondary office for four years.
"Volkov," Marco said.
"Sokolov moved against him last night."
"How?"
"Quietly.
The way Sokolov does things." Marco leaned back.
"Volkov is no longer in New York."
Luca set the page down.
"Confirmed?"
"His apartment was cleared out this morning.
His car is at JFK long-term parking." Marco paused.
"Our federal contact flagged it.
They're interested."
"Good." Luca looked at the page.
"And Sokolov?"
"Quiet.
No movement against us.
No contact." Marco's expression was measured.
"He's thinking."
"He's calculating whether I have more."
"Do you?"
Luca looked at him.
Marco nodded slowly.
"Right."
"He'll stay quiet for now.
The federal attention makes aggression expensive." Luca shifted against the pillow, careful of his shoulder.
"But he's not finished.
He's patient.
That's what makes him dangerous."
"So what do we do?"
"We give him something to think about other than us."
Marco raised an eyebrow.
"The Marchetti family has been looking for a reason to move on Sokolov's Greenpoint operation for two years," Luca said.
"We give them the reason."
"Anonymously."
"Of course."
Marco considered this.
"That starts a different kind of problem."
"It starts a problem that isn't ours." Luca looked at him.
"I need time, Marco.
A year.
Maybe two.
Enough time to restructure, reduce exposure, and—" He stopped.
"And?" Marco said.
Luca looked at the window.
"And figure out what comes after this."
Marco was quiet for a moment.
"You're thinking about getting out."
It wasn't a question.
"I'm thinking about what I want Emma to know about me when she's old enough to ask real questions," Luca said.
"And I'm thinking about whether the answer I have right now is good enough."
Marco said nothing.
"It isn't," Luca said.
On the third day, he went to Brooklyn Heights.
He brought Mr.
Buttons.
Rachel opened the door.
She was in her work clothes — she had gone back to the hospital that morning, a short shift, because Rachel Donovan did not stop moving when things were hard.
She looked at him.
At his arm in the sling.
At the bear.
She stepped back from the door.
He walked in.
The apartment was small and clean and smelled like coffee and the particular soap Emma had used since she was an infant — he knew this from the reports, and knowing it from a report and standing in the room where it was real were two entirely different things.
Emma was at the kitchen table with a coloring book.
She looked up when he came in.
Her face did the thing it had done in Maspeth — that direct, uncomplicated recognition.
"You brought him," she said.
"I said I would."
She held out her hands.
He gave her the bear.
She checked his ears immediately.
Satisfied, she set him on the table beside the coloring book and went back to work.
Rachel watched this from the kitchen doorway.
Her arms were crossed.
Not defensively — more like she was holding herself together and had chosen that as the method.
"Coffee?" she said.
"Please."
She poured two cups.
He sat at the table, across from Emma, who was coloring a picture of what appeared to be a horse wearing a hat.
"Is that a horse?" he said.
"It's Mr.
Buttons," Emma said, without looking up.
"But in a dream."
He looked at the picture.
The horse was green.
The hat was very large.
"Of course," he said.
Rachel set a cup in front of him and sat down at the end of the table.
She wrapped both hands around her own cup and looked at him.
"She told her teacher," Rachel said.
He looked up.
"This morning.
She told her teacher that her father came and got her." Rachel's voice was even.
"Her teacher called me."
"What did you say?"
"I said yes." She looked at him steadily.
"Because it was true."
He held her gaze.
Emma, coloring, said: "Daddy came."
The word landed in the room like something that had been waiting a very long time to be said out loud.
Rachel's jaw moved.
She looked down at her cup.
Luca looked at Emma, who was still coloring, completely matter-of-fact, as if the word were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Maybe, to her, it was.
"Emma," Rachel said carefully.
"We talked about this."
"I know." Emma selected a new crayon.
Purple.
"But he came.
So."
She said it with the complete logical certainty of a child for whom the facts were simply the facts.
Rachel looked at Luca.
He looked back at her.
"We need to talk," she said quietly.
"Not now.
After she's in bed."
"I know."
"There's a lot."
"I know."
"Three years of a lot."
"Yes."
She looked at him for a long moment.
Then looked at Emma.
Then back at him.
"You're staying for dinner," she said.
It was not a question.
"If you'll have me."
She stood up and went back to the kitchen without answering.
But she took a third plate from the cabinet.
Emma looked up from her coloring book.
She studied Luca's face with the focused attention she gave important things.
"Your face doesn't look scared anymore," she said.
He thought about that.
"No," he said.
May you like
"I don't think it does."
She nodded, satisfied, and went back to the horse in the hat.
