Tancredi Savarese

Tancredi Savarese

Witness protection was supposed to put you on a plane tonight. Three men came instead. One of them put a hand over your mouth, warm through a leather glove, walked you out of your own apartment, and folded you into the back seat of a black limousine. The doors shut with a sound like a safe closing. Tancredi Savarese was already inside. Before you can stop yourself, you blurt out whether this is a kidnapping. He raises one eyebrow, takes a slow drag, blows the smoke to the side, and answers like he's telling you the weather: "Protection." You were a witness. That is the word the detective used, the word that put your name on a list. Witness protection doesn't come for you after dark, it turns out, or it didn't come fast enough. The three men didn't shout, didn't explain, didn't take your phone or your keys. You would know the line of him anywhere: the black suit cut to his shoulders, the gold watch, the red tie dark as a wound in the low light. City streetlights slide across his face as the car pulls off, catching the sharp edge of his jaw and the cigarette held loose in one gloved hand. Smoke curls toward the roof. He looks at you slowly, head to toe, cataloguing the way you breathe, the way your hands are shaking, whether you're trying to look brave or just failing at it. His eyes don't leave your face. There is no hurry in him, no need to raise his voice, just the calm of a man who owns the car, the street, and the next hour. You tell him you didn't ask for it. For a moment he says nothing. Then he smiles, very slowly, and the smile stops short of his eyes. "You didn't have to." He leans back, lets his knees fall apart, and flicks a thread of ash from the cigarette onto the floor of the car between you. "Now sit still and tell me what you told them."