CHAPTER 19
"Deferred desire doesn't die. It grows fat."
VALENTINA ROSSI
I woke late.
I'd fallen asleep at four in the morning after two hours staring at the ceiling and reliving his hand on my nape, his mouth on my collarbone, the next time, you won't be able to stop. I'd slept dreaming of the cellar, of the mahogany desk, of the taste of whiskey on his mouth.
I woke at nine-thirty with the sun already high and the guilt sitting on my chest.
My brother slept in a cellar last night, and I slept dreaming of the man who put him there.
I took a cold shower and put on black trousers with a gray blouse.
Raffaele was alone in the breakfast room.
"Cognatina."
"Good morning."
"You didn't sleep much."
"Neither did you."
"I've slept little for thirty-three years. It doesn't count."
I sat down in the chair across from him. Donna Beatrice appeared, poured black coffee without asking. Then she looked at Raffaele a second longer than natural and left.
Raffaele looked at me over the rim of his cup.
"You're furious with him."
"I am."
"Because of the cellar?"
"Yes."
"Bella. Would you rather your father got Matteo back?"
"No."
"Then..."
"But he could have put him in a room."
"He couldn't. And you know it."
"Raffaele..."
"You're in conflict, I can see it. You think you should hate my brother in the afternoon and want him at night. Welcome to the family. That's how a Moretti's woman has slept for four generations."
"I'm not anyone's woman."
"Bella, you've been a Moretti's woman since the day you kissed him under the arbor."
The cup paused half a centimeter in my hand.
"How do you know about the arbor?"
"I didn't," he said, his smile widening. "But now I do."
"You're a dangerous man."
"I'm a useful man. That's different."
And that was when Luca came into the room.
He came in through the side door, from the office. White shirt, sleeves already rolled, jacket draped over one arm. He stopped in the doorway and looked at me, then at Raffaele, and of course he clocked the distance of at most twenty inches between the two of us seated at the table.
"Good morning," Luca said.
"Good morning, fratello," Raffaele answered, without getting up, without moving his cup.
"Valentina."
"Luca."
He walked to the table but didn't sit. He put a hand on the back of my chair—the palm on the wood, behind my shoulder, without touching me, but I felt the heat of his hand pass through the wood and hit my shoulder as if he had touched me.
"Raffaele. Don't you have a meeting with Acquaviva at ten?"
"Mine's at eleven."
"It's now."
"Capisco, fratello."
Raffaele got up and took his jacket from the chair. Before leaving, he stopped beside me.
"Cognatina." He kissed my hand, three seconds longer than natural. "We'll talk later."
He left.
Luca said nothing for about ten seconds, but then he put his hands in his pockets, without looking at me:
"Valentina. Don't be alone with my brother."
"Why?"
Then he looked at me, his black eyes without any softness.
"Because I'm ordering it."
He simply left the room before I could answer.
I sat there with the cold cup in my hands and the blood running hard in my neck for the fifth time in three days.
Donna Beatrice came back five minutes later.
"Signorina. Signora Varga left this yesterday before she went."
She set a white envelope on the table and left.
I looked at the envelope. No name on the outside. Sealed.
I opened it.
Inside was a small key, gold, old. And a sheet of paper folded in three. Bianca's handwriting, in black ink:
Bella,
I forgot to tell you something. In 2015, before your father ordered Matteo killed, he kept the scheme's documents in a steel box.
The box is in a house in Mondello that belonged to your mother.
Back room, behind the Saint Sebastian painting, in the right-hand baseboard of the window.
There's a false bottom. The key opens it.
If you ever need proof against him, it's there.
Take care.
—B.
I read it three times.
I put the key in my trouser pocket and folded the letter.
Now I was carrying two letters against my chest.
One told me: don't mistake the fire for the smoke.
The other told me: here's all the smoke, in a steel box.
That night I didn't go down for dinner.
I asked for a tray in my room, and Donna Beatrice brought it without comment.
I ate half and pushed the rest away. I tried to read the Calvino and read the same paragraph six times.
At eleven-thirty, I went down the service stairs to get cold water from the pantry.
And he was there.
Leaning against the pantry counter, alone. Nothing over the white shirt, the sleeves down—the shirt rumpled as if he'd spent the whole afternoon in it. And he had a glass of whiskey in his hand.
He saw me but didn't move.
"You came down."
"I came to get water."
I walked to the refrigerator and opened it. I took out the glass bottle and poured a glass. I closed the refrigerator but didn't leave.
I stayed there, glass in hand, ten feet from him. The pantry was dark. Only a low light over the counter where he was leaning. I saw him in silhouette—the shoulders, the open collar of his shirt, the glass of whiskey in his hand.
I couldn't see his eyes.
"Luca. How long have you been drinking?"
"Since seven. You asked me not to touch you, Valentina."
"I didn't ask that."
"Go away, bella."
"Why?"
"Because I've had four drinks and you're barefoot in the dark of my pantry, and if you stay two more minutes I won't answer for myself."
I looked at him, at his silhouette.
And I, with Bianca's key in my trouser pocket and my brother in a cellar two floors below, did the hardest thing I'd done in three weeks in that house: I climbed the service stairs without looking back.