Chapter 52: Meeting

"Are you sure they were on this flight?" Joss checked her watch for the millionth time, then looked up anxiously at the stream of passengers coming out of the airport terminal. "I don't see them."

In contrast, Lia sat next to her, composed. "Dad and Mom said they were coming on this flight, Miss Joss. They'll be here." Perfect trust, perfect confidence in her beloved parents.

Joss smiled at Lia as she stood, trying to get a better view over the heads of the oncoming passengers. She wished John were here, he was taller—but they had decided that since she had spoken to Lia's parents before, she should meet them here at the airport. And when Harold had called earlier with two numbers, well…that rendered the whole discussion moot. She wasn't going to expect to see him until morning—if he wrapped up the numbers with Harold before morning, he'd likely crash at his apartment rather than coming home. Although Joss would miss him lying next to her in bed that night, she was also relieved; she was deliberately wearing loose clothes to hide the growing bump—she was now about two months along—between her hips.

She simply didn't know how to tell him she was pregnant. With his baby. She'd just about gotten up the nerve to tell him, that first night with Lia in the house—but then he'd told her as she was bandaging his hands that he'd had second thoughts about having children, and she'd lost her nerve. She just didn't know how to tell him. Many times she'd told herself she was being stupid, that he loved her and once he got over the shock, he'd love the baby too; told herself to just tell him, and he'd be okay—but every time she was face to face with him, she felt reluctant to ruin the comfortable relationship they had by telling him she was pregnant, and so here she was, more than halfway through her first trimester and she still hadn't told him yet. Taylor kept looking askance at her, but she just shook her head and refused to discuss it with him.

She put all of that aside now as she craned her neck to look at the next stream of passengers. Lia had shown her the social media page her mother had started, and although Lia's father's work in diplomatic security meant that photo opportunities were few and far between, she knew what Lia's mother looked like, and she was scanning the crowd for a slim Indian woman.

But it was Lia who spotted them first. All of a sudden she shouted "Dad! Mom!" and was off like a shot. She moved fast for such a small girl—something Sam had told Joss a couple days ago when John had taken Taylor and Lia both to the gym with them. Sam had decided, on her own, that Lia needed to learn some self-defense, and started teaching Lia. And to her surprise, and Lia's, they'd found Lia had a natural aptitude for it. Already accustomed to watching other people for any sign that they might be out to harass or bully her, now she simply put those observational skills to good use; Sam had told Joss she didn't have to teach Lia what to look for in an opponent ready to strike, she simply had to teach Lia how to avoid being hit—and how to hit back.

Joss felt the back of her eyes sting as she watched Lia fly into the arms of a woman who looked so much like her that Joss would have known she was Lia's mother even without having seen the photos on social media. The tall, fair-skinned, dark-haired Italian man behind her looked like Lia, too; he had Lia's stubborn chin, her rounded cheekbones. He wrapped both arms around Lia and her mother in a quick, fierce hug, then turned decorously to Joss although his eyes weren't quite dry and his voice was suspiciously husky. "You're Ms. Carter?"

"Call me Joss." He had a nice handshake, firm but not overbearing, enough pressure to indicate confidence in himself but not so hard that it would indicate any disrespect toward her. "It's good to finally meet you, Mr. Riante."

"Please call me Carlo." He spoke perfect English with only a hint of Italian accent. "And it is I who owe you, so much, for taking care of our Emmy."

"She's a wonderful girl, and I've enjoyed having her with us the past month." Joss grinned. "I have Taylor, and he's a great kid, but he's a boy and there were times when I wished I'd had a girl to do girl things with. Lia's been indulging me." In fact, she'd had a blast over the last month. One of the things she'd enjoyed was taking Lia shopping for things she wanted—Aunt Savi had taken Lia shopping previously and gotten only the simplest, most necessary items of clothing; jeans or pants for school, plain dark t-shirts in both short and long sleeves, plain dark sweaters, none of which were particularly pretty, or even comfortable for warmer summer weather.

With Joss taking her shopping, and with access to her parents' money, Lia could finally indulge in bright colors, looser fabrics, flowery prints and pretty dresses, and sandals instead of the plain dark sneakers she wore all the time. Just the other day they'd come home with a bright peach dress that even Taylor had commented looked good on her and caused her to blush. Joss secretly wondered how much Mr. Riante had been sending Avi and Savi, that they hadn't been able to afford to get nicer clothes for Lia, but that was something she kept to herself. It was none of her business, after all. All she could do was make sure Lia's stay with her was comfortable and Lia herself was happy.

"I'm sure you must be tired, and hungry, from your flight. Would you like to grab a bite somewhere first, then come home and we can talk about what's been going on, or would you like to talk first and then go out to eat afterward before you go to your hotel?" It was absolutely impossible for the Riantes to stay with them while they were in New York, the apartment was simply too small. And Lia would want to spend time with them alone; she hadn't seen them since she was ten, after all. Harold had discussed finding a temporary apartment for them among some of his properties, but Joss knew that would be difficult to explain. So the Riantes had made arrangements for a hotel, and Lia would be staying with them for as long as it took to get this straightened out. Privately, Joss wondered if the Riantes would rather take Lia home to Italy with them; it had been nearly a decade since the attempt on Lia's life by the terrorists, surely they wouldn't still be looking for her—or would even recognize her if they saw her again.

"I'm hungry, Mom. Can we eat first?" Lia piped up, and Lia's parents smiled indulgently at her.

"Yes, let's eat first, get acquainted. It'll make serious conversation later so much easier if we break the ice first." Shalini Riante shook Joss's hand, smiling. "And again, please accept my sincere thanks, along with my husband's, for being so willing to take Emmy in and give her a home with you. We had no idea that life with my sister and her husband would be so difficult for her—I knew they didn't like her because she's Carlo's daughter, but I hoped they'd be able to put all that aside once they got to know her and treat her like their own daughter—especially as I know my sister is unable to have any children of her own, and that's difficult in traditional Hindu marriages. Especially as traditional as hers was—our parents arranged her marriage, though she was eighteen when she first met Avi Muhtar, and our parents did tell her if she really didn't like him, they would not force her to marry him." She shook her head. "I still can't believe they forced Emmy to get married. By proxy, no less, and without our knowledge or our permission." She sighed. "We'll discuss that later. First, dinner. I am a bit hungry."


There was an excellent steakhouse not that far from the airport, and the food was excellent. Joss tried not to eat much, feeling slightly guilty—after all, Mr. Riante was picking up the tab—but with her pregnancy progressing as it was, she felt like she was constantly hungry and was having to deliberately stop herself from eating too much, afraid John would notice. She'd used Lia's presence with them as an excuse to not go to the gym with him, and that had been helped by the steady stream of numbers he and Harold had been getting lately—and Lia's presence was also a good way of ducking out of the midnight surveillance runs John and Harold invited her on. Sam had also been running interference for her, and as of yet she hadn't spilled the beans to John and Harold—although Joss had been bracing for that, had even expected it, to a certain extent.

But talk during dinner stayed on lighter topics; Carlo's work at the Italian embassy (what he could say about it; there were some sudden stops and pauses as he tried to keep the conversation from drifting onto a classified path. Shalini then took up the thread of the conversation, talking about her work with the poor of India, her medical work especially with the women. "It's not like it is here. Hindu women have very low status in India. Even Muslim women in India tend to have a little more freedom that some of the mostly conservative Hindu families. The general thinking among Hindu conservatives is that women are the root of all evil and have to be strictly controlled by men; there are even some who don't sleep in the same bed as their wives because of an interpretation of the Book of Manu that says if you spend too much time with a woman you will be corrupted by her. They don't sleep in the same bed as their wives every night except for the obligatory requirements to have a child; girl children are generally not favored and there's nearly an epidemic of conservative families giving their girl children names that mean 'worthless'."

Joss shook her head as she polished off the last of her steak. "I can't imagine that. It's terrible."

"Part of what motivated us to send Emmy to America was because we didn't want her to grow up with that submissive mindset. I never wanted her to think of herself as 'inferior' to anyone, or needing to be dependent on anyone. In fact, Carlo and I had previously discussed sending Emmy to his family in Italy just to get her away from that conservative viewpoint, but that simply wasn't the way things happened." She sighed. "My brother Mahesh Rao lived with Carlo and I. He adored Emmy. He picked her up from school every day and bought her candy, toys, all kinds of things on their way home. Spoiled her rotten." Her smile belied her words, a smile that turned sad as she spoke again. "Then came that day in July. I was working at the clinic when wounded started coming in—the untouchables, the Shudra, the lower casts of Indian society, mostly, because the Brahmin and Kshatriya—the upper castes of Indian society—would have gone to hospitals or private doctors. And then one woman told me which subway line had been hit hardest, and my heart almost stopped—it was the same one my brother took to bring Lia home in the afternoons. I called the school and they said that Mahesh hadn't come to pick Emmy up yet, and they would keep her at school until I came to pick her up.

"So as soon as all the emergency patients were stabilized, and we'd been joined by some foreign doctors willing to work with the poor, I went to get Emmy, took her home, and we waited for news of Mahesh." She swallowed. "The police came. They told us that he'd been on the train platform at one of the stations when a bomb went off, but he wasn't killed by the explosions—he'd been shot, once, at close range, in the back. An execution. And they suspected that he might have seen who set the bombs, might have been able to identify the extremists who set off the bombs, and that was why he was killed."

Joss shook her head, at a complete loss for words. "I'm so sorry," she said, finally, not knowing what else to say.

Shalini smiled crookedly. "Thank you." Then she went on. "We had the funeral, but kept the casket closed and we told everyone he was a victim of the train explosion. Didn't tell anyone he was shot, executed, possibly because he could identify the radicalists. And we suspected that perhaps Emmy might have seen something, coming home as she did every day with Mahesh, so we kept an eye on who might be watching her as we picked her up from school for the next week. And then one afternoon I picked Emmy up from school, and we were walking through the market when I heard a bullet whiz past my ear. Missed me by bare inches, and it hit the stuffed animal Lia was carrying—a pink stuffed unicorn, a gift from Mahesh. Emmy loved that unicorn—she screamed when it exploded. I grabbed her, pulled her to me as I looked for the shooter…and there was a man walking toward us with a gun out." She stared into thin air, reliving that afternoon. "I had started carrying a gun with me, at Carlo's insistence, and he had taught me how to use it. I shot the man who'd just shot at Emmy—and I hit him. The police converged on us, took him into custody, and took us home.

"Later that night after everyone left I got a phone call from a strange man. He spoke English, was American, I think. But he told me the Mujahideen had tried to recruit my brother into their organization, due to his position within the Italian embassy, and Emmy had been present during one of those recruitment attempts. They were now afraid she might be able to identify them and they were going to hunt her down and kill her. He told me he knew my sister and her husband were emigrating to the US, and he told me to get Carlo to expedite papers for her to leave with them. Said if I didn't Emmy wouldn't see her next birthday." Her lower lip trembled. It was the hardest thing Carlo and I had ever had to do. We argued about it all night. We knew Avi and Savi didn't like Carlo, and didn't like Emmy because she is Carlo's daughter, but we honestly didn't see any choice. We couldn't deal with the thought of losing her to a terrorist's bullet.

"I called the embassy the next morning and put a stop on Avi and Savita's travel papers. Then I called them and explained what I'd done and why. I guess this is, in a way, my fault—I didn't give them a choice, I literally forced them into it—told them they wouldn't be able to leave India until they agreed to take Emmy with them. I tried to soften the blow by offering them a generous stipend for her care—I think that was what finally did it, the two thousand a month I offered. And as soon as Emmy's travel papers came through, they left for America with her." Carlo sighed. It was the hardest thing we'd ever done, and we knew they didn't like her, but it was all we could think of to save her life. Emmy, I'm sorry, I know this has all been hard on you, but we did what we thought we needed to in order to save your life."

"It's okay, Dad," Lia said quietly. "I understand. I remember how jumpy everyone was after Uncle Rao died, and really, it hasn't been that bad with Uncle Avi and Aunt Savi. They just don't understand me, and the way things are in America."

"And then they tried to marry you off, without your consent or our permission. That is really the unforgivable part in all this." Carlo put down his napkin. "All right, if we're all done, let's go have a serious conversation about what we're going to do about all of this."

Joss drove back to her house, with Carlo in the front seat and Lia and Shalini in the back, quietly digesting what she'd learned. Fortunately, the little family was too busy chattering away in a mix of English, Italian and Hindu for her silence to be really noticed or missed; and one look at Lia's happy, animated, laughing face in Joss's rearview mirror told her how much the girl had missed her parents. They should take Lia home with them when they go. She's missed them terribly. Then another thought intruded. She only has one more year here in high school. Maybe they'd prefer Lia to stay until she finishes school—if that's the case, maybe they'll allow her to stay with me and Taylor. A wistful smile. I've really enjoyed having her around. I wonder if the baby's going to be a girl or a boy—I love Taylor, but I think I'd really like a girl this time. I'll find out in another few weeks.

As they got out of her car a muted roar split the quiet of the street, and just up ahead of her she saw John pull the big purple GTO into an empty curbside spot. She gave him a quick critical once-over as she watched him get out—no tears, no blood. His suit was clean, and she could introduce him as 'head of security for a financial mogul' without the Riantes suspecting anything.

"Hi, John," she greeted him with a smile as he walked up, standing up on tiptoe to give him a quick kiss. "Good day at work?"

"Same old, same old," he said with a smile as he returned the kiss.

"John, this is Carlo and Shalini Riante, Lia's parents," she said, rather unnecessarily because he knew about them already, but they didn't know him and introductions had to be made. "Carlo, Shalini, this is my boyfriend, John. He's head of security for a banking and financial firm in the City."

"Carlo Riante, Lia's father." Carlo reached out to shake John's hand.

Joss heard the faint, high-pitched whizz of a silenced bullet, and her body was in motion before she even fully processed what she was hearing. "Everybody down! Taylor, get everyone in the house now!" Taylor reacted instantly, pushing Lia down; Carlo Riante did the same with Shalini even as John and Joss both spun, looking at the big black SUV in the street behind him. John had reacted faster than all of them; he had his Sig in his hand, and he reached behind his back for another one, which he tossed to Joss even as they both ran down the front sidewalk, between two parked cars and out into the street, and fired simultaneously at the taillights of the black SUV that was now accelerating down the street. The hail of bullets shattered the back window and took out the SUV's taillights, but didn't stop the vehicle; it accelerated around the corner and vanished into the night.