Chapter 6: Midnight Confessions
The leather seat of the sedan felt like a slab of cold marble against his back. Igino stared at his hands, turning them over in the dim green light of the dashboard. They were clean. Immaculate. He’d scrubbed them himself in the warehouse’s grimy sink, the water running pink then clear. But the ghost of the act lingered in the ache of his knuckles, a dull, familiar throbbing.
The warehouse. The problem, a dock foreman named Petey who’d gotten greedy, skimming from the top of the cosmetics shipment. Petey had been ready to talk, to make a deal with the wrong people. He’d been loud, pleading, his voice echoing off the corrugated steel walls. Igino had let him talk. He’d listened with the same detached focus he’d given Serafena’s mouse story hours before. Then he’d ended the conversation. Not with a gun. Guns were for outsiders, for show. This was business. Internal. His fists had done the work, efficient and brutal. Leo had held Petey upright. Marco had asked the final questions after, when the man could only whimper his answers through broken teeth.
It was handled. The shipment was secure. The message was sent.
Yet, as Enzo drove him back toward Manhattan, the city lights smearing the windows into ribbons of gold, Igino felt no satisfaction. Only a hollow, vast quiet. The kind that rang in your ears after an explosion. He usually craved this silence, needed it to settle the calculations in his mind. Tonight, it felt like isolation.
His phone glowed in the cupholder. No new messages. He pictured Serafena in her workshop, the hum of fluorescents, the smell of solder. My quiet. Her offer echoed, a soft taunt against the stark reality of his own. He shouldn’t go. It was the height of stupidity. He was a walking crime scene, the metallic tang of blood barely concealed by his cologne, the violence still humming in his muscles like a live wire.
“Change of plan,” he heard himself say, his voice rough. “Take me to West 16th. Between Ninth and Tenth.”
Enzo’s eyes found his in the rearview, a quick flash of surprise, then utter neutrality. “Yes, sir.”
He stood on the sidewalk outside her building, a pre-war walk-up with a faded awning. The neighborhood was alive—students laughing, a couple arguing behind a lit window, the distant pulse of music from a bar. Normal life. It felt like observing a documentary about a foreign species. He looked at his cufflinks, simple onyx squares. A dark, dried fleck was wedged in the seam of the left one. Petey’s contribution. He should leave.
Instead, he pushed through the heavy front door and climbed the three flights, his steps silent on the worn tile. Her apartment number was at the end of the hall, a homemade ceramic plaque with a cartoon light bulb glued to it. From behind the door, he heard a high-pitched shriek, followed by a thump and a burst of unmistakable laughter.
He froze, his hand halfway to knocking. Another shriek, this one more exasperated than scared. “Oh, come on! You little furry demon!”
He knocked. Three sharp, clean raps.
The noises inside stopped. A moment of silence, then a whispered, “Just a second!” More thumping, a scraping sound, then the door flew open.
Serafena stood there, barefoot on the scuffed hardwood, wearing mismatched plaid pajama bottoms and a faded NYU t-shirt. Her red hair was piled in a chaotic bun, strands escaping like tendrils of fire. In her hands was a kitchen broom, held like a broadsword. Her face was flushed, her green eyes wide with adrenaline and mirth.
“Igino?” she breathed, the broom lowering slightly. “What are you—oh God, did I text you? I was going to text you about the movie thing tomorrow but then the crisis happened and I totally—”
From behind her, a small, dark shape darted out from under the sofa and skittered across the floor, stopping just near her bare toes.
She yelped, leaping backward onto the nearby kitchen counter in one graceless, frantic motion, pulling her feet up. “He’s here! The freeloader is here!”
The mouse, a small brown creature with twitching whiskers, sat on its haunches, seemingly unconcerned. It looked from Serafena on the counter to Igino in the doorway, then scampered off into the shadowy space behind the refrigerator.
Igino stared. The tableau was so absurd, so profoundly disconnected from the last hour of his life, that the iron band around his chest loosened, just a fraction. He hadn’t realized he’d automatically shifted his weight, his right hand moving instinctively toward the concealed holster under his tailored jacket. He forced his hand to relax, to instead run through his hair.
“I was in the neighborhood,” he said, the lie feeling flimsy and necessary.
“At eleven-thirty on a Tuesday?” She was still perched on the counter, the broom now resting across her lap like a royal scepter. She blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Your work hours are weirder than mine. Come in, unless you’re scared of fearless rodents.”
He stepped inside, closing the door behind him. Her apartment was a warm, cluttered cave. Books stacked on shelves and floor. Technical manuals mingled with art books. A single lamp by a worn armchair cast a pool of yellow light over a desk covered in sketches—cityscapes, intricate wiring diagrams. The air smelled of lavender, old paper, and the sharp, comforting scent of fresh espresso. It was the exact opposite of his minimalist, silent penthouse.
“You’re battling your nemesis,” he said, nodding toward the broom.
“It’s a stalemate.” She slid off the counter, her feet slapping softly on the floor. “I can’t bring myself to kill him. He’s too smart. And I think the humane traps insult his intelligence. So we cohabitate. It’s tense.” She leaned the broom against the wall and looked him over, her smile fading into something more searching. “You okay? You look… really intense. More than usual.”
He was caught. He’d come here for a fragment of her light, to borrow some of that quiet. He hadn’t prepared a performance. “Long night,” he offered, his voice softer than he intended.
“Yeah,” she said, not pushing. “Well, you’re here now. I was just about to lose my mind, so you’re a good distraction. Coffee? Or something stronger? I have whiskey that my dad left here, but I think it’s for paint thinner.”
“Coffee is perfect.”
He watched her move around the small kitchen, filling a moka pot, clicking on the gas stove. She talked as she worked, a steady, comforting stream of nothing. “I think he’s nesting behind the fridge. Which, honestly, genius. It’s warm. I respect the hustle. I just wish he’d pay rent, you know? Maybe do the dishes.”
Igino found himself smiling. It felt strange on his face. He leaned against the doorframe, out of her way. His eyes caught on a framed photo on the fridge: a younger Serafena, her hair even wilder, standing with an older man in front of a vintage muscle car, both of them covered in grease and grinning.
“Your father?” he asked.
She glanced over. “Yeah. That’s Frank. Taught me everything about engines and bad jokes.” A shadow, brief and tender, passed over her face. “He’s the reason I’m an electrician. Said ‘sparks are cleaner than grease, kid.’” She brought two small cups of dark, fragrant espresso to the little drop-leaf table. “Sit. You’re looming.”
He sat. He took the cup, his fingers brushing hers. The warmth seeped into him. He took a sip, the bitterness perfect.
“So,” she said, curling her legs under her in the chair opposite him. “You never said what the logistical fire was tonight.”
He held the tiny cup between both hands, staring into the black liquid. “A problem of loyalty. It was resolved.”
“Sounds messy.”
“It was.”
She was quiet for a moment, just studying him. He felt seen in a way that had nothing to do with his status or his fear. She saw the weariness, the tension in his shoulders. “You know,” she said slowly, “you don’t have to talk about it. But you also don’t have to sit there like you’re at a board meeting. It’s just me. And the mouse, who is probably judging us both.”
He let out a breath, a real one, feeling something crack open inside his ribcage. “I think,” he said, the words measured, “I just needed to not be where I was.”
She didn’t ask where that was. She just nodded, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “Well,” she said, raising her cup in a small toast, “welcome to the war zone. Population: two humans, one tiny insurgent.” She grinned. “The coffee’s terrible, but the company’s okay.”
He drank his terrible coffee. He listened to her theorize about mouse-proofing her apartment with ultrasonic devices she could probably build herself. The nightmare images from the warehouse—the stark fear in Petey’s eyes, the sound of impact—began to recede, muffled by the soft glow of the lamp, the rhythm of her voice, the absurd, joyful normality of it all.
For the first time all night, the quiet didn’t feel empty. It felt like a reprieve. And he knew, with a cold, certain dread alongside a desperate, thrilling hope, that he would ruin everything to keep coming back to it.