Chapter 11 #2
“Tell him I said hello.” I hung up and leaned back in my chair. I had eight days until the auction. Eight days—at the most—until Scava would come looking for Gia and me. Eight days to figure out how Roman was involved.
A clanging sound stole my attention, and I stood.
We were locked in the house. No one was here but us, no one knew about this place but Roman, and he didn’t know where I was.
I’d left my pistol in the SUV, but checking Salvatore’s desk drawers, I found one there along with some ammunition.
I loaded the handgun and opened the study door, listening.
Another sound came, this time from the kitchen.
I walked that way, scanning the large, open space as I went, the ghostlike lumps beneath the dustcovers eerie in the darkness of night.
The kitchen light was on. I could see it from beneath the door. Just before I kicked it open, I heard Gia mutter a curse from the other side.
I opened the door and shook my head. She stood beside the counter, sucking on the tip of her finger. She froze too, her gaze falling from my eyes to the pistol I held. I put the safety on and tucked it into the back of my jeans, then cleared my throat. I scanned her from head to toe.
“I found the clothes in the closet.”
She wore an oversize lavender sweater that fell off the shoulder and a short, hip-hugging black skirt.
On her feet she had on a pair of calf-length sheepskin boots that accentuated her slender, toned legs.
She’d wound her long dark hair up into a messy, wet bun, and her face had been scrubbed of all the dirt from the last few days.
Gia shuffled her weight to her other foot and stuck the tip of her finger back in her mouth. “I guess I forgot how to use a can opener.”
She looked so different than she had in the cabin. Everything about her seemed changed, now that she had proper clothes, a shower, a freedom of sorts. She looked confident. And fucking beautiful.
I cleared my throat. “There’s probably a first-aid kit somewhere, knowing Salvatore.” I started opening cupboards and drawers to search for it, doing anything possible to not look at her.
“Salvatore?”
I stopped. I’d given too much away. “My brother.”
“And his wife, Lucia.”
I looked at her sharply. “How did you know?”
“She likes to write her name in her books,” Gia said with a smile. Then that smile vanished. “You’re not lying, are you? She wasn’t…a slave…”
I thought about Salvatore and Lucia’s relationship, how it had started, how it was meant to be, how it had turned out. “No.” Simple answer. “They’re married and have two kids, a third on the way. They love each other,” I added, confused why I added that last part.
I knew what lay beneath my anger over how things had been way back when, how I was last in line, the one who would only inherit upon the death of my two older brothers.
I always knew, I just had never admitted it—not to myself, not to anyone—but I was jealous.
I’d always been jealous, especially of Salvatore.
“Here it is,” I said, finding the kit, unable to meet her gaze until I got the expression on my face under control. Too much fucking emotion in this house. Too much memory.
I held it out to her, and she took it, an awkward silence between us. I looked at what was on the counter. She’d cleaned the space and found pasta, an unopened bottle of olive oil, and a can of tuna. A pot of water rumbled to a boil on the stove top.
“Think tuna fish is still good after seven years?”
I shrugged a shoulder. “I guess we’ll find out.”
“The pantry’s stocked. Mostly expired food, though,” she said, sticking the edge of a bandage in her mouth to tear it open.
I took it from her and stripped off the wrapper, then took her hand, ignoring the almost electrical charge upon touching her, denying its pull, and held the bloodied finger under the water to clean it. After drying it, I wrapped the bandage over it. “There.” I released her as quickly as possible.
“Thanks.” She cleared her throat and busied herself with the pasta.
“You didn’t stay in your room.” I picked up the can of tuna and opened it.
“I was hungry. And don’t worry. When I heard you talking, I walked on by and didn’t go into the room you don’t want me to go into.” She rolled her eyes.
I peeked into the pantry to check it out. She was right. There was a lot of food, most of which would have to be thrown away, but it’d do for a couple of days. At least while I figured out what I was doing.
Reaching into a cupboard where dishes were stacked, I took two, washed them, and set them on the counter.
“Do you know what information Mateo had on Victor Scava?”
She glanced at me but returned her attention to the pot when she answered. That’s how I knew she was lying. Women tried to look busy when they told lies.
“No. Not specifically.”
I sniffed the tuna. “I don’t think I want to take a chance with this.” I dumped the can with its contents into the trash can. Gia kept her gaze on the pasta. I washed my hands and dried them, then turned to her. “You don’t mind?”
She gave me a nervous glance. “No, you’re probably right.”
I took her wrist, squeezed a little, and made her look at me.
“What information did Mateo have on Victor Scava?”
She studied me, her expression cool, hiding any pain she felt behind her clever eyes as she weighed her options.
“He’d worn a wire and recorded some conversations.”
“Why did you lie when I first asked you?” I softened my grip and turned her arm over to look at the soft inside of her wrist, so small and delicate, then returned my gaze to hers.
I squeezed again, hurting her.
She flinched.
“Why did you lie?”
“I don’t know.”
We locked gazes while water boiled over in the pot. “Do you have access to the recordings?”
Her jaw tightened, and I twisted her arm behind her back, standing so close our bodies touched, hers small and soft, mine wanting.
“Yes.”
I waited, twisting again so that she cried out.
“You’re hurting me!”
“Where?” My voice came clear and calm compared to her panicked cry.
“At the library where I volunteer.”
“You volunteer at the library?”
“I like to read.”
“Where exactly?”
Water spilled out from under the lid of the pasta, hissing as it fell to the stove top.
“Mateo saved the file on one of the computers. A public computer. No one will find it.”
I smiled. “Clever.”
“You’re really hurting me.”
As if I needed a reminder. Hell, she was the one who needed one. “I told you I would.”
She didn’t have a comeback for that. I released her, and she stepped back, rubbing her arm. I turned down the burner.
“Did you listen to the recordings?” I asked.
She shook her head. “He’d only done it the day before he disappeared.
I found out the next morning when I went in for my shift and found an envelope tucked under the keyboard at my workstation with my name on the front.
I recognized Mateo’s handwriting and looked when I got a chance.
It was a scribbled note with a file path.
That’s all. I didn’t have time to download it. ”
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“Omission is lying.”
“This is a fucked-up situation. I don’t know left from right, and you go from torturing me to…to…” she gestured around the kitchen. “To fucking playing house.”
“We’re not fucking playing house.”
“No fucking joke. My brother is dead. He died because of what was on that recording. Excuse me if I don’t give it up without a second thought to a man I called Death!”
I backed off, filled a glass with water from the tap, and drank, forcing myself to breathe, to calm the fuck down. “What were you going to do with the file?” I finally asked.
She shrugged a shoulder. “Depended on what was on it. I guess turn them over, get Victor arrested, sent to prison.”
“That’s naive.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
I know she tried to sound hateful, clever, but she didn’t. She just sounded sad and a little lost, actually.
I shook my head and took the pot of pasta off the burner.
“Don’t lie to me again,” I said without looking at her.
She stood back while I drained then plated the pasta and poured olive oil over it. After wiping down the kitchen table, I carried them over and set them down.
“Utensils are in there.” I pointed.
She looked as though she wasn’t sure if the conversation was over or not.
I went into the living room and found a bottle of wine, picked it up, and took it and two glasses back into the kitchen. Gia was sitting by then, silent, her gaze on me.
“Hope you like red.” After rinsing the glasses, I sat at the table, poured the wine, and started to eat.
Gia ate too, each of us silent, the clanking of forks and knives on the plates the only sound breaking the heavy silence.
“What now?” she asked when we’d finished. “I don’t want to hide.”
“I need to listen to those conversations. Where’s this library?”
“Philadelphia.”
“We’ll go tomorrow. Does Victor know about the recordings? Does he know that you know about them?”
“I don’t think he knows there’s a copy. I know he had a flash drive he destroyed. He’s dumb enough to think that’s the only copy. When he questioned me, he didn’t ask me outright about it, so I think Mateo told him I wasn’t involved and knew nothing.”
“Don’t underestimate him.” I didn’t think Victor was a stupid man. An asshole, but not stupid. Although arrogance tended to give one blinders. I’d learned that myself. Maybe his arrogance would get him caught.
After eating, Gia took the dishes to the sink and began to wash them. I watched her as I finished the wine. Neither of us spoke.
“I’m sleeping in Lucia’s room?” she asked once she’d finished and wiped her hands clean.
I nodded.
“Where are you sleeping?”
“Not in your bed. Don’t worry.”
She gave me a smirk. “I’m going up to bed, then.”
I watched her walk to the swinging door. “Gia,” I called once she’d opened it.
She turned.
“Don’t go anywhere else.”
“Like where do you think I would go?” she asked, a hand on her hip.