Lily waits in the living room with their sailing bags while Claire explains where everything is in the kitchen. I'm standing with the doctor, dressed in my running gear, nodding as she shows me the absurdly large pantry and its neatly labelled glass jars of flours and grains and pulses, when there comes another knock at the door.
“Kyle!” Lily exclaims.
A moment later, Kyle Rhode swaggers into the sun-soaked kitchen swinging a picnic basket with one hand and Lily with the other. Out of evening wear, he looks more like a car mechanic than the heir to the company that controls NYC. The bruises under his eyes are dark, his hair unkempt, and he wears linen coveralls that are fraying at the elbows and knees and have smears of oil ground into the fabric. His grin is stunning.
“Not to worry, Mrs K, I’ll keep her fed,” he declares. He sets his picnic basket on the table and Claire and I peer inside to examine the pre-sliced quiche within – tomato, spinach, aubergine, mushroom, fabricated egg, not too shabby. “Made it myself,” he adds. We both nod in approval.
He holds out his hand to me. “Kyle Rhode. It’s a pleasure. Welcome to Shelter Island.”
“Thanks for having me,” I reply, shaking. His hand is large, calloused, strong from practical work. I’m suddenly less annoyed at him for interrupting my running plans.
He smiles. “You can stay as long as you’d like.” He seems to mean it.
Yes, definitely less annoyed.
Claire and Lily leave for sailing, and Kyle leads me out to a bench at the edge of the pond in the Japanese garden. Water burbles and spills from the lion’s mouth and light reflects off the ripples in the pond and the willow trees rustle in the slight breeze, setting a wind chime hidden within the boughs singing. Sweet autumn sunlight drenches everything. It’s delightful. Bone-deep warmth washes through me, chasing away the last of the dressing room’s chill. I can almost relax.
Kyle unearths the quiche, hands me a piece and asks, once I’ve inhaled half the slice, “How are you?”
I shrug. “Recovering.” Now faced with food, I realise I’m still starving despite having breakfasted. Between the illness and medically induced coma, my stomach is practically eating itself. I finish the slice, barely tasting it, and get another. Hah – if I had gone for a run in this state, I would have made it half a kilometre and collapsed. Partway through my second slice, I start to taste the quiche. “This is good.”
Kyle chuckles. “Thanks.” He leans back on the bench, face turned to the sun. He has olive skin that glows with good health despite the dark circles under his eyes, and well-formed muscles under the grungy coveralls. He also has dimples.
Stop staring.
Atlas watches me in amusement from his den of willow leaves. Above the statue, to the left, a curtain twitches in an upper window of the Russian house.
“You won’t see my parents while you’re here,” says Kyle. “At least not until after Halloween. They have their hands full securing the sectors and Queen Bee for the day. They’re sorry they can’t be better hosts.”
“That’s okay. Anywhere’s better than the dressing room.”
“Fair enough.” He glances at me. “Do you want to stay? I can organise for you to be sent to the Bronx if you’d prefer to be nearer your family.”
I don’t say, If Dad wants to see me, he can come get me himself. Instead, I ask, “Could you make that a trip home instead?”
“Sorry. Only the Colonel has that power.”
Of course he does. “Then don’t worry about it. I’m fine here.” It comes out more bitter than I intend it to. Kyle pats my knee, his large hand briefly curling around me, strong, warm, and seriously, Lys, not the time.
He releases me and my knee feels cold. “I’m sorry about your mother.” He seems to mean that too.
My chest tightens. I stare at the red bridge, taking a moment to reply. Deep breath. “Thanks.” My voice stays steady.
Kyle, bless him, changes the subject. “Another piece?”
“Please.”
We eat the rest of the quiche in silence, watching the birds squabble in the bath and hop from shrub to lantern to railing in search of food. High above a hawk circles in the pale blue expanse, round and round and round, occasionally beating its wings in easy strokes to maintain height. I slip down on the bench, legs stretched out in front of me, rubber heels of my sneakers digging into the gravel, and lean my head against the backrest. It’s not particularly comfortable but I sigh nonetheless. Exhaustion drags at me.
“Coffee?” asks Kyle.
“Yes.”
“Milk? Sugar?”
“Never.”
“A woman after my own heart.” The heir of the Daniels and Rhode Company gets off the bench and heads inside to make me coffee. How . . . lovely. The Rhodes have raised their son right, even if their company does have mafia roots.
Dad told me that D&R’s colourful is past common knowledge here, but the company has done enough good for New York that people are willing to let it slide. Something about the founders of the Risorgimento, New York’s mafia coalition, helping the D&R founders get their start as a construction company. The company really thrived after the Risorgimento assassinated a few key public works officials in the fifties and replaced them with people more than happy to use D&R as their main contractors.
Then, in 1989, one Alexandros Konowal took issue with living in a mafia city and had his Oikosites murder everyone in City Hall and burn down the Risorgimento houses on Staten Island, along with every other house on Staten for good measure. People fled. The Marines came. The leftover mafia were rounded up and shipped across the country to the newly built Labyrinth prison. New York City and Long Island’s combined population went from nine million to eight-hundred-thousand in a matter of weeks before the travel ban came slamming down.
This is when the clever men of D&R cut a deal with the government to employ the remaining populace – mainly those too poor or ill to flee – and create a self-sustaining economy within the walls. With some initial material input from the US government and an international recruitment drive for useful experts, D&R put its plan into play. The Marines took over the Bronx; the Village was given to the executives; the Daniels and the Rhodes took over Orient and Shelter Island respectively; and Staten Island and Manhattan were left to decay. D&R sliced up Long Island into different sectors for production and R&D – Farming, Desalination, Military, Construction, Medical, Eco, Waste Treatment, Power, with Domestics buried underground – and overhauled Queens and Brooklyn into a civil housing district.
And, in the last thirty years, despite the martial law and travel ban and the persistent, violent civil unrest, NYC has become a centre of municipal innovation. Not one anyone would like to travel to, but hey, their patents have been very useful.
So, while I find the Rhodes’ extravagant Russian house is garish and oozing with self-important, I also kind of get it. As Kyle would say, fair enough.
I am still watching the hawk circling when the sliding door of the cottage opens and closes. Kyle wends his way along the gravel paths back to the bench, unloads a pitcher full of water and two glass on to the bench, and passes me a massive terracotta mug. The coffee inside is as black as an oil slick. He sits down and throws an arm over the back of the bench. His fingers are an inch from my shoulder. He drinks his coffee black, too. He smells of lavender, lemon, and motor oil.
Seriously, stop. I fix my gaze on glowering Atlas.
“Thanks,” I say. I take a sip and blink in surprise. It’s good, much better than what Claire gave me this morning, but using the exact same coffee grind. Kyle winks at me and the urge to giggle wells up in my throat. Oh, hell no.
“Do you know a guy named Carter?” I blurt out. And damn, if that didn’t work like a cold shower.
“Who?”
I grip the mug tighter. Above, the hawk wheels away. “Carter. Tall, blonde, scar along his jaw, friend of Shade. He took care of me while I was in the dressing room. He also told me help was coming . . . and then you guys showed up.” Out the corner of my eye, I watch for Kyle’s reaction. It is small, a slight deepening of his frown, a thinning of his lips, all the while watching me. I wonder what he sees.
“I’ll speak to Damien. He’s the one who got the tip off about you.” He pauses. I wait. He speaks again. “I get why you wouldn’t trust us yet, Alyssa, but we’re on your dad’s side, not Shade’s. You’re safe here.”
“That’s what Dad said about our house in the Village,” I say quietly.
Kyle opens his mouth, closes it, considers, then heaves a breath. “That night was a disaster,” he mutters. He sends me a wry grin. “Sorry, no welcome-to-the-neighbourhood parties for you this time, okay?”
I try to laugh but my heart’s not in it. “Rude. So who is Damien and what was the tip-off?”
“Damien is our team’s surveillance officer. One of Shade’s crew had a guilty conscience and told him we’d find you in the Met. You were the only one in the whole building when we got there.”
Wait, Shade and Carter just . . . left me there? What if F.L.A.R.E. hadn’t come? Would Carter have come back for me? Or would I still be there, rotting in that dreary room, possibly dead from a fever?
I shiver and take a long draw of coffee. Full of food and caffeine, I feel twitchy now. My toes curl inside the sneakers. I need to move, to burn through all the horrors of the dressing room and reliving it with Doctor Walsh. I need to run, or kick something, or lift heavy weights until my muscles are on fire. I tap my fingers on the mug and wonder how to get out of this impromptu picnic without offending one of the most powerful people in the city.
“Well, I should thank the rest of the team at some point for saving me,” I muse.
“Of course. Damien and Jason don’t live on the island. You might see Jason around, but Damien is tied up with work at the Eco offices. I’ll send your thanks along. But last I saw, Cleo and Fudo were in the gym if you wanted to talk to them now.”
I whirl on him and almost spill my coffee. Kyle sits back, startled. He’s pretty even when he’s shocked. I ignore this.
“You have a gym?”