Chapter 5 #3
He watched my hands. He noticed the footwork change.
He knew Carmelo had been here. He asked about the blades and listened to the answer and then told me something about himself that he didn't need to tell me, and the intimacy of that exchange, the specificity of it, is more unsettling than what happened in the corridor three days ago.
In the corridor he was the diplomat, the charmer with the mask, the man I could dismiss as a puppet and a fraud and a bastard with a briefcase.
In the gym, with sweat on his face and his hands unwrapped, he was something else. Someone who pays attention to the right things. Someone who noticed that I lead with life.
I don't want to think about what that means.
I don't want to think about him at all.
Putting my knives back in their thigh holders, I go upstairs to find Giada, because Giada is the only person in this building who can make my brain stop running in circles, and right now it's running hard and I need it to stop.
She's in her room, lying upside down on the bed with her feet on the headboard and her phone six inches from her face, scrolling through something.
"Gia."
"Mm."
"Billone was in the gym."
She flips upright so fast her phone hits her in the forehead. "AND?"
"And nothing. He trained. I trained. We existed in the same room for twenty minutes."
"Did he take his shirt off?"
"No."
"Did YOU take your shirt off?"
"What the fuck, no."
"Missed opportunity. Was he hot and sweaty?"
"I didn't notice."
"Toni, you notice everything. You counted the guards at the gate in three seconds. You mapped the camera blind spots in a day. You're telling me you didn't notice whether your future husband was hot and sweaty six feet away from you?"
"I noticed that his form is self-taught and his knuckles are conditioned, which tells me he's been hitting things regularly without professional guidance, and that the power comes from anger rather than technique."
"So you noticed his body in detail but you're categorizing it as tactical intelligence."
"It IS tactical intelligence."
"Babe." She sits cross-legged on the bed and looks at me with the expression she uses when she thinks I'm being stupid, which is the same expression she uses for most occasions because Giada thinks everyone is being stupid most of the time.
"You just spent twenty minutes in a sweaty basement with a man you're marrying in five days and the only thing you took away is the angle of his punch? "
"He asked about the karambits."
"Oooh." Her eyes widen. "What did he ask?"
"Which one I reach for first."
"That's..." She tilts her head. "That's actually a good question. Most guys would ask if they're real or whether you've actually killed someone. He asked about your instinct. That's not a dumb question."
"I didn't say it was dumb."
"You're not saying it was good either, which means it rattled you, which means the pretty lawyer with Aurelio's jaw is getting under your skin and you'd rather chew glass than admit it.
" She grabs her wine glass from the nightstand.
It's empty but she pretends to drink from it anyway because Giada commits to the bit even when there's nothing left in the glass. "Toni."
"What."
"Five days. You're going to be married to that man in five days and sleeping in his room and eating breakfast across from him and existing in his space for the foreseeable future. At some point, you're going to have to stop treating him the same way you'd treat an enemy combatant."
"He IS an enemy combatant."
"He's a man who asked which blade you reach for first. Enemy combatants don't ask about your instincts.
They study them from a distance and exploit them.
He walked up and asked." She points the empty glass at me.
"That's different, and you know it's different, and the spinning you're about to start doing with Vita is going to confirm that it's different. "
I look down. My right hand is on Vita's handle. The finger ring is against my index finger. The spin hasn't started but the preparation for it has, and I roll my eyes at her.
"I hate you," I say.
"You love me and you'd die for me and I'm the only reason you're in this compound, so pour me some actual wine and tell me everything about his arms."
"I'm not telling you about his arms."
"Were they good arms?"
"Goodnight, Giada."
"IT'S THREE IN THE AFTERNOON."
“Oh, and Carmelo is training me now, byeeeee.” I close her door on the sound of her squealing and begging me not to go, and walk back to my room and sit on my bed and pick up Vita and spin.
Five days.
The karambit rotates on my finger and I think about footwork and heavy bags and a man who asked which blade I reach for first and actually listened to the answer.
I spin until my fingers ache and then I spin some more because the ache is better than the thinking that is going to get me into trouble.
Five days until I marry Matteo Billone.
Five days until the woman with the blades becomes the wife with the blades, and whoever Matteo thinks he's getting is going to learn very quickly that I doesn't come with an off switch.
Vita spins. Morte waits on the nightstand.
Life first. Then death.
He noticed that.
The fucking bastard noticed.