Page 56 of Possession

I am.

I’m not the person he knew.

“I never got real answers,” he tells me. “From the DiMaggios, I mean. It was them, wasn’t it?”

I hear the words. I know what he’s asking me. The DiMaggio family is our primary rival. He thinks they captured and sold me. Maybe they did, but I don’t remember. I’m still mostly cut off from the past.

Vitali’s eyebrows tug together. “Lucas said you don’t talk much.”

A low growl escapes me.

“Roman, I didn’t know he was with you. How could I have known? I hadn’t seen you in four fucking years and you showed up out of nowhere looking like you’ve been—” He cuts himself off and looks away. A muscle feathers in his jaw. He looks at me again. “I was only talking to him.”

When I still don’t reply, Vitali huffs out a breath and walks to his desk, where he snatches up a tumbler with about an inch of amber liquor in it. He tosses it back and grabs the crystal bottle, pouring.

“Are you angry with me?” he asks.

His back is to me. It helps. Looking at his face, everything got locked up again. Now the words loosen.

“Yes. About Lucas.”

He sets the bottle down. “And the rest?”

It surprises me. It never occurred to me that Vitali would feel in any way responsible for my capture.

“No,” I tell him.

His back is still to me, so I have no idea how my answer affects him. I don’t think he wants me to know. He’s always kept a lot to himself.

He asks, “Are you going to tell me what happened?”

My mind goes blank, like there’s nothing there, like nothing happened at all.

Vitali turns to face me again. For a second, there’s a whole mess of emotions in his eyes, but then he blinks it all away.

He says, “Then I’ll tell you what I know. Liam Crowley is a mid-level Irish mobster. We have him on the run, but we’ll get him. Oscar Crowley, his cousin, was heading their family’s New York branch. Gambling mostly. Prostitution too. They have no apparent connection to the DiMaggios.

“With Crowley on the run, he hasn’t been able to clean up the shitshow at the stadium. It’s swarming with cops and feds. It’s a fucking circus. All the cameras were off, obviously, and the place is gonna be a mess of blood and fingerprints. If anything crops up on you or Lucas, we’ll deal with it, but all they have at the moment is a description of you. You haven’t been identified, and we’ll keep it that way.”

I feel completely disconnected from everything he’s saying. These sorts of concerns don’t feel real to me.

Vitali studies me some more. Then he says, “Isaac, the doctor who saw you last night—he was the one in your room—wants to see you, run some tests—”

I turn to leave.

“Wait! I’ll tell him no. Jesus, Roman—wait.”

I stop.

“Look,” Vitali says. “This is obviously going to take some figuring out. I just … Roman … I’m really fucking glad to see you.”

My throat tightens. My chest hurts. I don’t know how to respond, so I don’t.

“Fuck,” I hear Vitali mutter roughly. He clears his throat. “Are you hungry?”

I’m not actually sure. I feel more sick than hungry, but it could be from lack of food. Fuck, Lucas must be starving. I have to get food for him. I should have done it last night. I have to find clothes for him too.

I turn to face Vitali. “I need food and clothes for Lucas.”

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