venticinque
‘ D immi come ti permetti ?’ Lucia snarled, finding Vittorio Gatti at the front of his building, lit cigar in his right hand, phone pressed to his ear in his left. ‘How can you stoop so low?’
Gatti raised his eyebrows upon seeing Lucia there, enraged, fists balled by her sides, her long black hair catching and flicking in the wind. ‘Ah. And right on cue,’ he said, acknowledging her with a nod. ‘And just as you said she might, Tiziano. I’ll call you back.’ Ending the call he allowed the phone to drop into his tailored blazer pocket. Balancing his cigar between his middle fingers he clasped his hands together condescendingly. ‘Can I help you with something, Lucia?’
‘Why are you doing this? You have no interest whatsoever in my school, other than some sick ego-driven plot to own and write off half of the lagoon. You know nothing about us and what we’ve been through. Leave us alone, Vittorio!’
He tutted. ‘Now, now, Lucia. That simply isn’t true.’ His eyes beamed with the most disingenuous concern Lucia had ever seen. ‘I care very much about La Scuola Rosa and its success. And in turn, our success.’
‘Never ever use a possessive adjective when referring to La Scuola Rosa. Or me. The school isn’t yours, and won’t ever be. I’ll be seeing to it.’
‘It’s difficult not to think of it as partly mine, considering I have a contract of sale upstairs on my desk with my name on it. I will countersign the deal the moment your ninety days are up and you have failed to raise the money. Edoardo delivered it personally. We’re going to have such a wonderful time working together. Collega .’ His thin little lips pursed tightly around the word, then morphed into a sly grin.
Lucia launched a belly-aching guffaw. ‘ Colleghi ? Us? You would have to know what a genuine day’s work is in order to call yourself anyone’s collega , Vittorio. And I’d wager that you’ve never spent a day of your life working truly, innocently, back-breakingly hard, like we do.’
‘I see your wager,’ he said, stepping forward menacingly, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘And double it.’ His steel-blue eyes bored through hers, and it was plainly clear to Lucia that Vittorio Gatti’s vast wealth could be outdone by one thing, and one thing only.
His desire for control.
There would be no headway to be made with this infuriating man. Lucia knew that. But it was her stubborn resolve that kept her fighting. ‘Over the bodies of my dead parents!’ she cried.
Vittorio rolled his eyes. ‘Pfft! You are the least of my worries.’
‘How do you sleep at night? Hmm?’
‘Quite well, actually,’ he chuckled. ‘But the sleep following a new acquisition to my portfolio is the richest, deepest of sleeps.’
Lucia wrung her hands to keep from clobbering him with them. ‘You’re not an ally of Venice. You’re its greatest enemy. You’re not worthy of an inch of La Scuola Rosa.’
He waved his hands to shoo her from his presence. ‘Go away,’ he said, an air of disgust now plastered across his narrow face. ‘Tell your story to someone who’s willing to listen.’ He snorted in her direction then turned, bringing his cigar once again to his lips.
Lucia’s mind flicked back to Benedetta’s business card and the unanswered very generous offer on the table.
‘I might just do that,’ she snarled, stepping forward until she was only a few inches from Gatti. The acrid tang of his breath from the cigar filled her nostrils, forcing her to withhold a gag.
‘Sixty-eight days, Lucia. Tick-tock.’
‘ Vaffanculo , Vittorio!’
The walk home was an emotional one. Lucia found herself caught somewhere between disappointment and frustration, yet also felt weighed down by the realisation that Benedetta’s book offer might have to be her one-way ticket out of the muck. But, now that she didn’t have Tiziano’s €100,000, would very generous stretch as far as she needed?
With the idea of that reprieve came a wave of sadness, followed by guilt. Selling her story would mean selling herself, in a way, and relinquishing her parents’ privacy. Their stories, their treasures. Their little private world. And, perhaps worse, it would mean feeding the media that had ruined her life. It would force her back into the public eye, time and time again, leave her open to being scrutinised, made an exhibit of. More than thirty people had died the night of that accident on the water, but it was Lucia, of all the family and loved ones left grieving, who the media had chosen to immortalise through that iconic photo.
There was only one person who could truly understand Lucia’s inner conflict. Someone who had been there from the start, and before it, too.
She pulled her phone from her bag and dialled. ‘Are you home? I need your advice.’
Mariella’s apartment in Cannaregio, not far from Santa Lucia station, was warm and cosy. Just like her. It was nestled on the second floor of a block, with the thinnest of calli separating it from the next. With small windows, the apartment was dark at the best of times, but today, given the grey cloud cover, shadows had already taken up permanent residency – and it was only midday.
Mariella fussed around the kitchen, tending to a pot that was simmering on the electric stove. ‘Hungry?’ she asked. Lucia’s hollow stomach answered for her, and Mariella chuckled. Plucking the wooden spoon from the plate on the benchtop, she gave the pot’s contents a stir. ‘ Brodo ,’ she said. ‘Your timing couldn’t have been better.’
Like an exhausted teenager returned home from school, Lucia slumped sideways at the little kitchen table, and her fingers worried at the edge of the lace doily which separated the fruit bowl from the tabletop. ‘ Grazie , Mariella.’
Mariella served them each a bowl and brought them to the table. ‘Here. Eat,’ she insisted, setting Lucia’s bowl down in front of her. The spoon slid its way around the inner rim, and Lucia righted it before it could slip under the broth’s surface.
‘It smells good.’ The salty umami headiness reached Lucia’s nostrils, and her mouth salivated in response. She smushed a few carrots against the bottom of the bowl with the back of her spoon, and picked at some of the chicken with her fingers. Taking in a few mouthfuls, she said, ‘Just like Mamma used to make.’
‘The same. I always make it her way.’
Lucia guzzled down a few more mouthfuls. ‘I needed this. I vomited in a canal.’
Mariella’s brows pinned together. ‘Why?’
‘From shock, I think.’ Setting the spoon down on the table, Lucia said, ‘I went to see Tiziano about his offer.’
Mariella’s shoulders rose. ‘And?’
‘He won’t give me the money.’ Her eyes closed and her hands rested in her lap. ‘On account of the social media post situation, and because he had a better offer.’
‘An offer from?’
‘Gatti.’
Mariella slammed her spoon down on the table with such force it caused both their glasses to rattle then tip, spilling water across the tabletop. Rising to her feet, Mariella’s face went bright red. ‘He did what?!’
‘Please, Mariella, sit down.’ Lucia had reached from her seat across to the kitchen bench to retrieve a tea towel, and was doing her best to soothe Mariella while also mopping up the spilled water. ‘I’ve already gone to see him. He’s the most horrible, miserable man.’
Lucia recounted the events of her morning. Mariella remained standing, her face still mottled with anger. ‘Why did you go alone? I could’ve—’
‘I think it’s the personal closure I needed. I wanted to confront him myself. And now I know for sure: two of the most powerful and wealthy men of Venice, both of whom profess to have the city’s best interests at heart, have room only for their own.’
Mariella finally returned to her chair, and reached across to take Lucia’s hand. ‘So, what else is left for us to do?’
Lucia found she was calm and collected, despite the stressful and seemingly hopeless situation she found herself in. ‘My savings and what I can safely borrow aren’t enough. That leaves only two options, really. The first is that we continue to plough ahead with the Venezia, Ovunque! project, earning what we can to take the edge off. But it’s only been five days and we need to keep making content to make it worth people’s while subscribing. It’s going to be a lot of work for slow and unpredictable returns, I think. The second option is that I sell my story and hope the advance will cover the remainder.’
Mariella couldn’t hide her concern. Her eyes darkened and her hands knotted themselves together on the table next to her bowl of broth. ‘Lucia . . .’
‘I know. It’s not at all what I want. But it’s either that, or we let Gatti in and pray for the best. Or . . .’ Her throat tightened. ‘Or, I sell him my share too and walk away.’
‘No, Lucia. No!’
‘I just don’t think I can share the school with anyone, Mariella. You’ve been with us forever – since the start. Can you imagine anyone else running it? Changing it? Erasing my parents? Erasing our history?’
Mariella’s eyes had begun to well with tears. ‘But the palazzo . . .’
‘Is mine. Of course. But he could buy the business and take it elsewhere.’
‘And what would you do?’
A solitary tear trickled down Lucia’s cheek, and she caught it with her sleeve. ‘I’d just . . . disappear. Like my parents’ legacy.’
‘This is not an option, Lucia.’
‘I don’t see any viable alternative.’ The image of her little eleven-year-old face – cold, wet, in shock and mourning, plastered across the papers and television – returned to her mind. Then the stories following the covert surveillance operation from within La Commedia.
Those eyes. L’Orfana .
‘Surely you could negotiate some boundaries around what you share, Lucia? If there truly is no other way.’
Lucia’s emerald-green stare locked on to Mariella, and she asked the question only Mariella, of all people in the world, could answer. ‘What do you think Mamma and Papà would tell me to do?’
Mariella shook her head. ‘Lucia, there’s no way to know. They never experienced what we did after they . . . They never saw . . .’
‘I know. And this is why I am so torn. I feel like I am disappointing them.’
‘Nothing of what you do is a disappointment, Lucia.’ She too wiped away a tear. ‘But know that your incredible parents would have wanted you to do what you feel is best. What you sense is right. They spent their time empowering so many of us. They enriched the community. They cared and supported the neediest. Now the time has come for you to empower yourself. Do what you need to do. For yourself .’
Lucia held her breath, allowing the words to settle in her mind. Finally, taking a deep inhale and long exhale, she announced, ‘I think I know what I have to do.’ She nodded decisively. ‘Thank you for the permission, Mariella.’
‘Permission to do what?’
‘To betray the one person I’ve strived to protect and keep safe from harm all these years.’
‘Who’s that?’
‘ L’Orfana .’