Chapter 22
TWENTY-TWO
Adriano
Paolo has spent two weeks building the plan. By the time we move he knows every gap in Vida's security, every routine, every window. He's identified two approaches that shouldn't exist and he's been methodical about exploiting both of them.
I've worked with Paolo for a decade and I've never seen him more focused than he's been since he got back from that beach.
Two weeks of intelligence gathering, two hours of planning at a table with me and Gabriele and the right people in the room, and now it comes down to execution.
Most operations are business but this one is personal.
That makes its success even more important.
With the people we have on our team, I expect it to go without a hitch.
We go in at two in the morning. Five men, two cars, no unnecessary conversation. Paolo runs through the final details once in a parking lot two streets from the first location then we move.
Vida is staying in a private residence in Parioli. It's a house rented through a corporate structure that eventually leads back to him after passing through Cyprus, Budapest and enough paperwork to discourage anyone less patient than Paolo.
His security detail consists of four men. There are two outside, one on the door, one inside. By the time Benito and I reach the entrance Paolo has already handled the perimeter. The man on the door lasts slightly longer. Not much. We go in.
The house is quiet as its occupants sleep. We cross the ground floor without a sound. The inside guard is dealt with at the foot of the stairs before he's fully awake. There's a moment in every operation where there's a lull. I've never found a word for it but it doesn't last long.
Vida is upstairs. He's sitting up in bed by the time I reach the room. Whether he heard something or simply sensed it doesn't matter. Men like Vida survive because they develop instincts for moments like this. Yet when it comes, it still takes them by surprise.
He looks at me and he knows the past has finally caught up with him. He tries to negotiate, offering me the contents of his safe. Men like him always try to bargain their way out of trouble. I let him think he has a chance of persuading me to spare his miserable life.
But I think about Gabriele in a hospital bed. A frightened nineteen year old girl being told she had no choice. Her brother. A woman standing outside a village bar with every opportunity to disappear and deciding to put her faith in me instead. After three years, this ends here.
Vida can't negotiate his way out of the room. I shoot him where he lies.
The second location is a warehouse near the Tiburtina, the remains of his operation in Rome. Paolo and his men handle it while Benito and I finish in Parioli. By the time we're back in the car my phone vibrates. One message. Done. Two of Vida's men got away in the confusion.
Paolo is already working on it before I can ask. A second message arrives minutes later containing names and a partial licence plate, plenty to go on. I make a note of it and put the phone away. Loose ends exist to be tied. Everyone who crosses us pays eventually.
We're moving again by three fifteen. Rome slides past the windows, dark and silent and entirely oblivious to our purpose. It's exactly as it should be.
"Clean," Benito says when we meet up.
"Yes."
"Paolo's still got it."
"Paolo will still have it when he's a hundred and one years old."
He nods and looks out at the city. "Gabriele?"
"Handled."
"So what now?"
I keep my eyes on the road. "One thing at a time."
He accepts that. The conversation ends and the rest of the drive passes in silence and for the first time in weeks Vida is gone and better things are waiting in my future. I’ve known that for a while and I’m finally ready to embrace it.
Eliza's in the kitchen when I get home.
The light is on and she's standing at the island with a coffee cup in both hands.
She looks up when I walk in. One glance is enough.
She sees what kind of night it's been and she doesn't ask questions and she doesn't offer sympathy.
She puts the coffee down and walks across the kitchen and wraps her arms around me.
I go still.
For a moment I don't know what to do. Then I put my arms around her and we stand in the quiet kitchen while dawn creeps across the windows. Neither of us says anything. We don't need to.
Eventually she pulls back. Her hand comes up briefly to my jaw, checking I'm intact, and then she turns toward the coffee machine. "Sit down."
"You don't have to…."
"I know." She glances over her shoulder. "Sit down, Adriano."
So I sit.
She makes coffee, finds bread, slices the good prosciutto Rosa brought yesterday and five minutes later a plate appears in front of me. She sits opposite me and for a while we eat in silence.
She looks up suddenly and catches me looking. "What?"
"Nothing."
"That's a lie."
"It wasn't a very ambitious one."
That earns me a smile. I count that as a victory.
Outside Rome is waking up. The kitchen fills with morning light.
Vida is gone. The two men Paolo is tracking will be found.
The Vettis will become a problem in their own time and will be dealt with in their own time.
All of that is true and none of it is what I'm thinking about across the breakfast table. The only thing on my mind right now is the woman sitting across the table from me eating prosciutto and drinking coffee as the dawn breaks and pretending not to notice I’m watching her.
The subject of my thoughts reaches for her coffee.
The gate hasn't been locked in weeks. She knows it and she's still here. For now, that's enough.