Chapter 10 #3
“I’ll keep quiet then.” I put a finger to my mouth. The guy chuckles and then goes back to reading.
Cassian is the easier brother to deal with, it seems. He’s still young enough that he isn’t as suspicious as the others might be. That will likely change in the next few years.
Poor kid.
It’s just the way of this life though. When you’re in a crime family, eventually you have to pick a role and stick to it.
I make my way down the hallway quietly with my books in hand, and the first thing I do is go upstairs and grab a few articles of Alessio’s clothing from his closet, just in case I need to prove that I’m here for him.
While I’m in his room, I snoop around in his desk. Looking for anything interesting.
It feels wrong to be doing this. I find photographs of him with his mother and Carmine. I find letters he’s written but never sent. I don’t read them, even though it’s exactly the kind of thing Eivor would want me to do.
When I’m sure I can leave his room and tell Eivor that I didn’t find anything of interest, I do.
There’s one more place I need to go though.
Carmine’s office.
The office that used to belong to his father, and his before him.
The floor creaks underneath my feet, and I pray that Cassian is too engrossed in his late-night reading to realize that I’m passing the library again. And there’s only a couple rooms past the library.
The office, the board room, or drawing room.
I move to open the office door, but it’s locked.
With a click of my tongue, I reach into one of my pockets and pull out a lock pick. This is far more precarious than I want. If I’m caught doing this, there’s no question that I’ll be under fire.
With gentle and slow hands, I unlock the door, listening to it click several times. I shove the lock picking kit back into my pocket, folded up where it belongs, and open the door.
The office is still and dark. I close the door behind me, and turn on the light. It’s another move that could cause me trouble, but it’s what needs to be done.
I search the most obvious areas first. The bookshelves, the tops of tables and the desk. There’s information about the driver from the shooting. Theories that Carmine has written down and they’re not much different than the ones I’ve formed myself.
There’s a journal, that I open and quickly realize I’m reading a page about Carmine’s first few interactions with Soren. Being recapped several weeks after they happened, along with his father’s death. I flip through a few more pages.
It’s clear how intense the conflict between the Dresvannis and the Fiorellis was, and I wonder if Carmine has any idea that it’s not over just because he’s married his brother off to Rosalie.
Nevertheless, there’s nothing there for me to find. Nothing that would be of any use to Eivor and his desire to blackmail or embarrass them into giving him more power than he deserves.
I’m about to give up after unlocking the final drawer and relocking it, when I realize the bottom panel of the desk is uneven. Ever so slightly. It doesn’t look like an issue with the make, and as I touch and tug at it, it gives.
Dust flutters out as I take the bottom panel of the desk off just enough to reach my large hand in and feel around. Wood, dust, pin pricks of small nails that have been dislodged.
Papers.
I can feel that they are glossy papers under my fingertips.
I pull them out, a couple at a time, until I don’t feel anymore. I doubt Carmine even knows they’re here, since the dust tells me that the panel hasn’t been taken off in at least a year.
Maybe they’re left over from his father, or even his father. I’m not confident it’s something that can help my situation, especially if it’s too old to matter anymore.
Until I flip the glossy papers over and realize they’re photographs.
Some are small and taken with a polaroid camera, others are larger and taken with a different camera and printed out later.
It takes me a moment as I look at them in the dim lighting to process what I’m looking at.
Limbs. Naked limbs. Short dark hair, long light hair, and clothing that’s askew.
Children.
My heart starts to pound in my chest.
I’m looking at photographs of children. Naked and…
Bile rises up into my throat and I squeeze my eyes shut as I flip to the next picture but don’t look at it right away.
This can’t be…
I open my eyes. There he is.
Alessio. He’s so young, small, but he looks so much the same. Those same eyes, but filled with fear and confusion.
Carmine.
I move onto the next photograph, and the next, until I can’t take it anymore.
In my hands I hold pictures of Alessio and Carmine being abused as children. None of them show their father, but it’s obvious to me that he must be the one who took them. He must have been the one who instructed and posed them.
The worst of them are the ones where they are together. Forced into disgusting poses and looking so frightened.
I realize quickly that I’ve found something Eivor would clutch tightly with his greedy hands if he had a chance. If I give them to him, he will use the fact that their father abused them against them.
I shove the photos into the pockets inside my coat as fast as I possibly can, and close the bottom of the desk just like I found it.
I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do anything in this moment.
My stomach is aching, and my eyes burning.
I wish I could erase those photographs from my mind. I never wanted to see that in a million years…but I did. Now I know. Now I know what kind of man their father truly was, and what the hurt Carmine and Alessio have both felt is.
I need to get out of here.
I turn the light off and quickly make my way out of the office, locking it behind me.
No one stops me as I head for the front door and back to my car.
I drive toward the hotel with tears in my eyes and my hands clutching the steering wheel tightly.
Eivor will be waiting for me to tell him if I found anything, but I don’t know what to do. How could I give this to him? How could I not? It’s my job, but…
No, I can’t think about it right now. I’ll decide later. I just need to get back to the hotel and continue what I’m good at.
Protecting Alessio.