The first time I see Marco Leone, he’s chained to a table and still manages to look like the one holding the leash.
The interrogation room is colder than the hallway. That’s the first thing I notice, the way the air hits my damp collarbone and raises tiny bumps along my skin. Then the second thing: the folder on the metal table with my name stamped across it.
FERRARO, ALINA – WITNESS / FIANCÉE.
Not a joke, apparently.
“Ms. Ferraro.” The man in the suit who brought me here—Special Agent Something, I didn’t listen when he introduced himself—gestures me inside. “Sit.”
He sounds like he’s talking to a dog. I don’t sit. My legs lock in place because the man at the other side of the table has lifted his gaze, and it lands on me with the weight of a hand around my throat.
Pictures don’t do him justice. The news grainy shots, the courtroom sketches—none of them capture how alive he is. Dark hair that would curl if he let it, jaw rough with late-day stubble, a tailored suit turned slightly tragic by the chain looping from his cuff to the steel ring bolted into the table.
He looks me over once. Not the cartoon leer I’d braced for, more like an assessment. Height, build, exit routes. When his eyes finally come back to my face, one corner of his mouth lifts.
“You’re late,” he says.
My pulse jumps. “Excuse me?”
His voice is low, a little rough, like he’s swallowed sand and whisky. “My fiancée was supposed to arrive half an hour ago. I was beginning to think you’d stood me up.”
The agent between us exhales hard. “This isn’t a joke, Leone.”
“I know.” Marco’s eyes never leave mine. “That’s what makes it interesting.”
I should say something rational. Something like there’s been a mistake or I’m not your fiancée, I don’t even know you. Instead, my mouth decides on, “I missed my boyfriend’s band rehearsal for this. Believe me, I’m not thrilled either.”
It’s not even true. I don’t have a boyfriend. I have student loans, a stack of translation work, and a spider plant that droops accusingly every time I forget to water it.
Marco’s eyes flick down to my hands on the strap of my bag. No ring. “He plays badly, then.”
I blink. “What?”
“If he played well, he’d have a real gig, and you’d be there instead of here. So he plays badly.”
There’s a strange sense of vertigo, like I’ve stepped into a conversation already halfway through. The agent clears his throat again, louder.
“Ms. Ferraro, sit down,” he says, sharper now. “We’re on a clock.”
I’ve spent my adult life avoiding authority figures with badges, moving quietly through universities and archives and language labs. My instinct is to obey, to make myself smaller, less of a problem. But the name on the folder in front of Marco—my name—pins me in place.
I sit, because standing feels like retreat. The chair screeches. The sound bounces off cinderblock walls and settles between us.
The agent snaps open the folder, flips past a few pages, and slides a document across the table toward me. I recognize the formatting: federal witness agreement. I’ve translated similar things into Spanish and Russian for linguistics exams, not life.
