Cellie's POV / Demetrio's POV
Cellie:
The penthouse was the specific opposite of comfortable.
Nino sat across from me. I sat across from the window. The window sat across from the city. The city did not have opinions about any of this.
I had tried Demetrio's phone six times. All six had gone to voicemail and I had left a message on the last one that was fifty percent his name and fifty percent instruction to answer his phone that I was not proud of but meant entirely.
Manuel had been taken.
Alexei wanted to trade him for me.
Demetrio was somewhere in the city being Demetrio about it, which meant he was either planning something or executing something or both simultaneously, and I was here in his penthouse being managed by a soldier who kept telling me to sit down and whom I kept telling to let me use his phone.
"If you don't let me call him," I said, "I am going to start with the vase on the left and work my way around the room."
Nino looked at the vase.
