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She nods. You’d have to be made of steel to resist the smells of the North End.

We duck into a small pizza shop, one of dozens in Boston's Little Italy. We order two slices. I enjoy watching her eat hers as much as I enjoy eating mine.

“God, that's delicious,” she whispers. Good. A little more each time. Her appetite's coming back.

I wonder if that means she feels safe.

“If they're watching the signal,” she says, “they're going to notice we're not actually going anywhere.”

I nod. And they are fucking watching that signal.

She shrugs, wiping her hands delicately on a napkin, then taking it to the corner of her mouth. “So we should go somewhere.” She looks at me, waiting. I don't give her more. After a moment, she makes a sound, low and not quite a laugh, and nods at a café across the street. “Coffee and a cookie.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“That corner's too tight. There's only one exit. That's the problem with the North End.”

A lot of these shops are so small I have to turn sideways to walk in, then duck so the low ceilings don't hit my head. She looks at the café, then back at me. She nods down the block. “Fancy cannoli. The place on the end.”

I look—two exits, sightlines clear, corner table available by the door. “Aye, as long as they have something that’s not cannoli.”

“You don't like cannoli?”

I shrug.

I let her lead for exactly half a block, and then I'm beside her again. She doesn't comment on that either, smart enough to know it wasn't a concession. We take the corner table. She faces the door without being told to. I turn my chair out, and she watches me do it.

I pull the black box from my pocket and set it on the table between us.

“Now?” she says.

“Now we let them see us sitting still for twenty minutes. Then we move again.” She looks at the tracker, then back at me. “Explain to me why we don't just take that thing and throw it in the middle of the fucking ocean.” She looks away for a minute, as if she let that slip without meaning to.

“This right here is my bait on a line. We need to throw it. Wait for the bite.” I make a motion as if reeling in a catch, then reach for the coffee cups. She wraps both hands around her cup and looks out the window. I watch her notice every person who passes on the street the same way I do, as if it's natural and she doesn't even realize she's doing it.

“You were going to cut left back there,” she says quietly as the waitress comes over with a tray of cylindrical pastries dusted with powdered sugar. “It wasn't because of the rotation, was it? It was the man in the gray jacket.” I don't say anything. I'm surprised she noticed. I shouldn't be though. She notices everything.

“Don't think he's following us,” she says. “He went into the pharmacy. You saw him first, didn't you?”

I shrug. “Drink,” I tell her. “Eat. We've got ground to cover.” She turns from the window, sips her coffee, and takes a bite. I reach for the small pastry and pop the entire thing in my mouth. She grins, then schools her features and looks away. The outside is crispy, and the inside is filled with sweet cream. It’s delicious.

“Handy if you need to leave fingerprints somewhere,” she says with a smile, gesturing to the powdered sugar all over my fingers. I shrug, throw cash on the table for our bill, and we head out.

We're two blocks out when I see the gray jacket again—same side of the street, same pace as before, not even looking at us. That's how I know. A man on a genuine errand looks where he's going. This one looks at nothing in particular, which means he's trying to pretend he's not looking at us. I don't break stride, don't say anything.

We take the next block at the same pace, the same rhythm, and I make my plan. The narrow, old streets of Boston are filled with alleys. I eye one with a dumpster and nothing else. There.

“When I move,” I tell her in a low voice, “you keep walking. Twenty steps, then stop and face the street. Don't come in.”

“What are you going to⁠—”

“Twenty steps, Valentina. Then you stop.”

The blood races in my veins. My hands are clenched into fists. She goes quiet and gives me an almost imperceptible nod.

The tracker's in my pocket, live, and I'm about to go off-script from whatever Seamus is watching, but there's nothing for it now.