Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Adriano
The women have barely left the room when Benito leans back in his chair and gives me a look I know too well. Usually it's aimed at others but it seems I'm the one he wants to interrogate right now.
"Well?" he asks.
I refill his glass and mine and set the wine bottle down.
"Well, what?"
"The girl. She's the one you've been chasing all over the world, right? The one connected to Gabriele."
My half-brother has barely started to probe and already I'm starting to regret that I ever confided in him about what I was doing.
Though I didn't tell him the whole truth he knows I've been looking for Eliza as a favor to Gabriele.
He isn't dumb and I'm sure he's put two and two together but he'll still want to hear it from me.
"She is."
He's quiet for a moment. He sips his wine. Usually when he's got someone tied to a chair, he takes his time.
He roughs them up a little, then adjusts his cufflinks or takes off his tie. It's a performance that unsettles people because he maintains an air of calm the entire time.
His tactics with me are somewhat softer but the routine is the same. Jab. Retreat. Jab again. I'd like to think it won't work on me but, fuck, I need someone to talk to about the situation I've got myself into.
"What was she to him?" He says was because he knows as well as I do that the minute Katya Kuznetova entered his life any other women he'd been involved with were relegated to the past.
"They were…" Lovers isn't quite right. Gabriele told me they hadn't fucked. Or maybe lovers is what they were because they didn't fuck. I'm not too sure on that. "Together."
"When?"
"Three years ago."
Benito nods. "So right around the time he got his face carved up."
He makes it sound like that was something Gabriele chose to do. "Yes, around that time."
Benito stands. He removes his jacket, drapes it over the back of the chair and then sits. I could point out that this can be a normal conversation but if he wants to act like he's dragging the truth out of me, so be it.
There may be things he will have to press me on. I'm not sure yet how much I'm willing to share.
"So after that happened she disappeared." Benito starts to roll up his cuffs.
"Planning on hitting me, Fratello?" I ask.
He looks down at his sleeves and huffs out a laugh as he realizes what he's doing. "Not unless you deserve it."
"I'll try not to deserve it."
Against most men I can hold my own but Benito is on a whole other level. His combination of aggression and skill makes him hard to beat. He spends time in the fight cage. That's not a sport I've ever participated in. I do box but I doubt my brother's heard of the Marquis of Queensbury rules.
"She disappeared after Gabriele was hit.
" Benito picks up the thread. That's the other thing about him.
Once he's on the right track there's no distracting him until he gets to what he wants to know.
"So she either panicked and ran in case they came after her, or she had something to do with it. Tell me it's not that."
"She had something to do with it."
Benito pinches his nostrils closed then drops his hand to the table, making the plates clatter.
"What did she do?"
I want to tell him everything but before I go on there's something I need to be sure of. "Swear to me that you'll not share what I tell you. Gabriele doesn't want it known."
"Who am I going to tell?" Benito says with a shrug.
"Uh, Lorenzo."
My half-brother is close with our cousin Lorenzo in the same way I'm close with Gabriele.
We spent time with each other as kids. Gabriele's calm was a good complement to the abundant energy I had when I was a boy and Lorenzo's easy going charm helped balance out Benito's intensity.
Somewhere between the four of us we would have made a half decent human being.
"I won't tell Lorenzo," he vows.
"Okay, what I know is that Eliza and Gabriele were dating. He thought they were on track to get married. One night, he goes to meet her at a restaurant but she's not there. Instead, he runs into some Hungarian thugs he refused to do business with. They carved him up and left him for dead."
A muscle in Benito's jaw twitches. "Why would she do that? Money?"
"Some money might have been involved."
She obviously had cash to get away and someone made her fake passports. Those don't come cheap.
Why haven't I asked her about any of this yet? I don't want to think about that too closely.
"But her brother was involved with the Hungarians,” I continue. “He messed up a drug deal or something and owed them. Her giving up Gabriele settled the debt."
"Fuck! Where's the brother now?"
"Dead. The Hungarians slit his throat a week after Eliza ran.”
I watch as he takes a moment to process that, adjusting the image he had of Eliza in his head. I’m not sure how much slack he’ll cut her knowing she suffered a personal loss in this mess too.
"Okay, so why doesn't everyone know about this?"
"Gabriele didn't want his brothers involved. Don't ask me why. You know what he's like."
"Yeah, I do." Benito gulps down half his glass of wine and refills it. "And he asked you to go after her."
"Not really." When I think back to the conversation we had in the hospital when he was high on morphine or whatever and feeling sorry for himself, I remember him telling me all about Eliza but I'm not sure he did ask me to go after her. "But I couldn't let her get away with it."
Benito's eyebrows draw down into a deep V. "So you chased this girl for three years without telling anyone you were doing it and you're not even sure Gabriele asked you to."
Well, now he's making me sound like an idiot. I work my jaw. "That's about the size of it."
He rubs his chin thoughtfully. "When did it stop being about Gabriele and become all about her?"
His question throws me off balance. "I… what do you mean?"
"Oh, come on, Adriano. Three years? You're not known for your commitment."
"It was for Gabriele."
Benito scoffs at that and I know my answers are starting to sound lame. "If that's the case, what's she doing in your house?"
"Gabriele told me to deal with her."
"By wining and dining her and making puppy dog eyes at her?"
The wining and dining I'll concede to him but I have never made puppy dog eyes in my life.
"She's a prisoner. She spends her days in a locked room."
"And her nights in your bed?"
I scrub a hand over my face and Benito laughs mirthlessly. "Fuck, Adriano, you've got yourself in a mess."
"You think I don't know that?"
"Damiano's going to shit a brick when he finds out you're in love with the woman who set his brother up."
That brings me up short. "I'm not in love with her."
"Tell yourself that but I know what I saw."
"You saw nothing."
"Whatever." Benito drains his glass and reaches for the second unopened bottle sitting on the table.
He studies the label for a moment before grabbing the corkscrew and opening it.
Apparently our conversation requires a lot of alcohol but I'm not going to indulge in any more. I need to keep a clear head or I'll admit to all sorts of things I don't want to acknowledge yet.
That list is getting longer all the time, but that’s a problem for another night.
"Okay," Benito says. "Let's lock it away for now and deal with it when it becomes a problem."
That's as close as he'll ever come to telling me he'll support me no matter what. I take it.
"Great." Now that's settled I drink some wine. "Anything else you want to discuss? Where we'll bury our father, perhaps?"
"The old bastard isn't worth a bullet." Benito hates our father with a passion and I can't say I blame him. I feel less animosity toward him but I can't stand the asshole either. "I'll let you deal with him however you want. We have more pressing matters."
"Such as?"
"Marseilles. Damiano wants you and me there. He asked me to convey the message in person."
"When?"
"Tomorrow night. Everyone's sending people since it's a shared issue. The Albanians are cocky and it requires a coordinated response."
"How long will this take?"
Benito scowls. "Why? Reluctant to be away from home all of a sudden?"
His obvious disapproval of Eliza doesn't surprise me. Where some men have their fingers crossed when they pledge their allegiance, my brother is loyal to the core. If someone hurts a person he’s sworn to lay down his life for, they’re the enemy as far as he’s concerned.
His attitude toward Eliza does worry me, though.
"You won't say or do anything to her," I warn him.
"I'll be the model of civility." His reply is sarcastic but he means it. "We'll be away a couple of nights, three at most. It depends how cleanly we execute the plan. There are multiple locations to hit."
"Okay. I'll make arrangements."
Benito shakes his head disapprovingly. He knows what arrangements mean in this context. I need to ensure that Eliza is both contained and safe in my absence.
"Paolo can handle it, surely?"
"Yeah, but I need someone on site as well. I'll put Simone in charge."
"He's a good kid."
At twenty-eight, the good kid is two years older than my brother but his smooth skin and apparent inability to grow facial hair make him seem younger.
Now that's decided, Benito and I relax and talk about other things. He tells me about the training he's set up for new recruits to our organization and about Lorenzo's vineyard.
I'm not sure if it's the winemaking or the other aspects of our cousin's life he wishes he could have.
He talks with affection about Lorenzo's wife Lucia and their kids. There's a wistfulness in his tone that I've never heard from him before.
It could be that he's thinking of settling down. I can't tease him over that since my own thoughts are also heading in that direction. Fuck, I’m a mess.
One minute I’m denying being in love with Eliza and the next I’m imagining a future with her.
The man I was before I walked into that coffee shop in Edinburgh would be appalled at me.
When it gets to midnight, I tell my brother I've had enough and make my way upstairs. As I approach Eliza's room I see the door is closed and the lock engaged, signaling she's inside.
I pause for a moment, my hand over the handle. Do I want to fuck her senseless or repeat what we had this morning?
As I open the door and find her lying on the bed waiting for me, wearing nothing but a serene smile, I decide it's the latter. I want to take my time with her. Don't ask me why.