Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Valentino
We enter the apartment in Trastevere. Luca clears it first while Amanda and I wait in the doorway. "Clear," he calls from the bedroom.
I guide Amanda inside.
The place is functional. Tile floors. A kitchen barely big enough for two people to stand in at the same time. Two bedrooms. One bathroom.
Amanda stops in the middle of the living room and looks around. Her arms are crossed, hands tucked against her sides.
She hasn't looked at me since I told her not to touch me. Good. That's what I wanted.
My phone buzzes in my pocket.
I answer on the second ring.
"We're in."
"Good. Sit down."
Nobody ever gets told to sit down before hearing something they want to hear. "Talk."
"Elio Mancini started working with Aldo Basile approximately one month ago."
FUCK.
One month.
Which means Elio was already working for Basile when Vittoria assigned him to protect Amanda.
I feel her shift behind me. Closer. Trying to hear. I turn away, walk into the bathroom, and lock the door behind me.
"What did he tell the lawyer?" My voice is steady.
"He said he didn't have a choice."
I laugh once. "Everyone has a choice."
I brace a hand against the sink.
"Aldo Basile had a choice when he put his hands on her. His men had a choice when they held her down. And Elio Mancini had a choice when he decided to work for the man running girls through that agency."
"I know."
"I'm going to kill him. Tell Ferraro to stop working the case and find out where they're taking him. I don't care what it costs."
"Listen to me. You are not killing him today. You're in Rome with Amanda, and I need you there. I'll tell you the second I know where they're moving him. The second. But right now you're going to stay in that apartment and you're not going anywhere. Do you hear me?"
"Do that," I say.
The line goes dead.
I set the phone on the edge of the sink and grip the porcelain until the old scars across my fingers pull tight.
He'd been working with Basile for a month. A month.
Amanda defended him. She rode around Milan with him. Let him drive her to shoots. Trusted him.
It’s not her fault. I drag my hands over my face. She couldn’t have imagined what Elio was doing.
She thought the worst thing about Elio Mancini was a fiancée he never mentioned.
The pain in my chest hasn't moved. It sits there, low and heavy.
I've been shot twice. Once in Palermo. Once outside Naples.
Both hurt less than this.
I don't have a name for it.
Jealousy isn't enough.
This is knowing I've wanted Amanda since she was twenty years old.
For five years I kept filing her away under Vittoria's friend. Too young. Off limits.
Then she walked into a café in Milan and every excuse I'd been hiding behind stopped working.
I wanted her then.
I want her now.
I want her with the selfishness of a man who has spent most of his life worrying about everyone else's survival and almost none of it worrying about his own.
And I told her not to touch me.
I turn on the tap and splash cold water over my face. It doesn't help.
I dry off, unlock the door, and step back into the apartment.
She's standing right there.
Looking at me.
And the look on her face hits me in places I don't know how to defend.
Because I never thought I'd need to.
Amanda
"Who are you going to kill?"
He doesn't answer right away. His eyes find mine and stay there. "Elio Mancini." He says it like the name leaves a bad taste in his mouth.
"Why?"
Valentino takes a step closer.
"It's confirmed," he says. "Elio was working with Aldo Basile."
The words hang between us.
"No." I shake my head. Too fast. Too hard. "That's not possible."
"One month." Before I can respond, he cuts in. "He started working with Aldo's operation thirty days before Vittoria assigned him to you."
The floor shifts. I put a hand against the wall to brace myself.
"This isn't happening." The words tumble out before I can stop them.
"This is actually not happening. Elio worked for the Sartoris.
He was Vittoria's bodyguard. He's been in her house.
He's driven her to places. He's been trusted with her life and you're telling me—"
"I'm telling you what happened."
"He was trusted by all of you." My voice is climbing now. "Every one of those men looked at Elio Mancini and decided he was the person they trusted to protect Vittoria, and now you're telling me he was—"
I can't finish.
"He was also your lover."
I look up.
His face doesn't change.
"That has nothing to do with this."
"Doesn't it?"
"No." I push away from the wall. "It doesn't. I trusted him because Vittoria trusted him. Because your cousins trusted him. Because every one of you let him into your lives. If he was safe enough for her, then—"
"Amanda."
"Don't say my name like that."
His jaw tightens.
"I slept with him, yes, but that doesn't mean I knew what he was. It doesn't mean I knew anything."
Valentino takes another step. "This isn't a surprise."
"What isn't?"
"Trust in our world isn't as simple as it looks."
"Don't talk to me like I'm stupid."
"I'm not."
"You are. You're standing there telling me I should have known. That Vittoria should have known. That Bruno should have known—"
"I'm telling you it happens."
"Not to her."
"Yes. To her."
I shake my head. "No. Not to your family.
" My voice cracks. "I've known Vittoria for years.
I've eaten at her mother's table. I've slept in that house.
Aria loves me." The next words come out softer.
"They taught me what a family is supposed to look like.
" Valentino doesn't interrupt. "Bruno trusted Elio," I say.
"He did."
"So was Bruno wrong?"
Valentino is quiet for a moment.
"No."
The answer surprises me.
"Elio was loyal. For years he was loyal. Then someone reached him."
My eyes burn.
"Then what hope do the rest of us have?"
"Amanda."
"Because if Bruno missed it, and you missed it, and Vittoria missed it, then what am I supposed to—"
"Stop."
I do.
His hand is near my face.
Not touching me.
Just there.
Close enough that I feel the heat of it.
"In our world, you don't trust because someone has been around a long time," he says. "You don't trust because everyone else trusts them. You trust because you check. Then you check again. Then you check a third time. And after all of that, you still watch the door."
"That's a horrible way to live."
"It's the way we live."
"I don't want to live like that."
"I know."
His thumb brushes my cheek.
Once.
I hadn't realized I was crying.
"You don't have to live like that," he says. "That's my job."
I nod.
"If he did what you're saying he did... if he was part of it... then okay." Valentino waits. "Whoever hurt those girls should answer for it."
His jaw shifts.
I reach for him. My hand moves before I can stop it.
He catches my wrist. "Don't." The word is quiet.
That somehow makes it worse.
"Whatever happened between us," he says, and his thumb presses once against my pulse before he lets me go, "is done."
I stare at him.
"You kissed me six hours ago."
"I know what I did."
"You had your hands on me. You put your mouth on my—"
"I know." His voice is quieter now. Not gentler. Just tired. "And now I'm going to kill the man you defended. The man you loved. And you can hate me for it. For the rest of your life, Amanda, you can hate me."
A laugh escapes me.
Short.
Broken.