8. Valentina
Chapter 8
Valentina
D espite the fact that Dario was technically my fiancé, “figuring out what the fuck we want to do” apparently doesn’t involve me at all. Elio, Curse, and Papà immediately disappear together into Papà’s office without a backward glance while Mamma fusses over my streaky makeup and matted hair.
“It’s fine, Mamma,” I tell her, gently swatting her hands away. She purses her chapped lips, the gloss from earlier gnawed away. Probably from anxiety. I know she’s dying to go have a bath, chug a bottle of wine, and collapse into bed right about now. But that desire is clearly warring with some kind of maternal instinct that’s making her hover over me.
“It’s fine,” I repeat, a little more sternly this time. “Why don’t you go have a bath? I have to pee.” I move towards one of the main floor bathrooms near the foyer we’ve just come in through.
“Are you sure?” she asks, but her eyes are already going to the stairs that will take her to the magical land of hot water, bubbles, and stupefying alcohol.
“I’m sure.”
Mamma nods, then pats my cheek and gives me a sympathetic grimace. It’s the sort of expression a person might make if something inconvenient but ultimately unimportant has just happened, like dropping a cake on the floor. An “oh, dear, better luck next time” face.
Better luck with the next fiancé, I guess. Let’s hope that one doesn’t die at your first meeting.
It’s times like these I realize how detached from reality families like ours really are.
Mamma heads up the massive central staircase, her high heels clicking on the white marble. As soon as her brownish-burgundy hair and the sweeping skirt of the back of her gown are out of sight, I turn around, ignoring the bathroom and heading for Papà’s office. Before I get halfway down the hall, I stop and take my shoes off, not wanting my footsteps to echo loudly the way Mamma’s had on the stairs moments ago.
The door is closed, of course, but I try to listen anyway. Luckily, both Papà and Elio have the same deep, rolling fire in their voices, and it makes the sound carry through the door as I press my ear up against it.
“She says he jumped, he jumped. Case closed. Makes things easier for everyone.” That’s Elio talking.
“I don’t believe for a fucking second that he jumped,” Papà spits back. I bite on the inside of my cheek, stomach flipping at how easily my lie’s been torn up, like crumpled paper.
“You already said no one came up either elevator,” Elio points out. “So if he didn’t jump, then Valentina did it, and that’s a shitstorm no one’s going to want to deal with. The suicide story makes sense. It’ll be an easy push. Especially with all this bratva shit. Maybe he really did jump.”
“What bratva shit?” There’s a dangerous edge to Papà’s voice now. Not just anger. But warning.
He doesn’t like not knowing things.
Must run in the family, considering the way I’ve got my ear shoved against his office door right now.
“Apparently he’s been accepting bribes from the Russians for months now,” Elio says. “Helping either pass or squash motions that the bratva either do or don’t favour.”
“The fuck?” Papà explodes. “He’s supposed to be doing that shit for us! The hell you mean, he’s in bed with the Russians? And I didn’t fucking know about it?”
“Well,” Elio says dryly, “maybe marriage wasn’t as tempting a prospect to him as money.”
Papà snorts bitterly. “He doesn’t need more money.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Elio counters. “He might have been Rocco’s heir, but he wasn’t CEO yet. Maybe he looked at his dealings with the Russians as a way to strike out on his own. Besides, interest rates have risen. The condo market’s collapsing. Investors are shitting their pants.”
“Are you trying to tell me that, what, the Fabbris have been cooking their books just to pull one over on me? So that I’d be more open to the union between our famiglia and theirs?”
“I’m just theorizing. The market was better last year when you and Rocco arranged the marriage. Books might have been fine then.”
Silence stretches for so long my heart begins to beat faster in anticipation of the door being wrenched open. But no one opens it, and after a moment Papà says, more quietly now, “Throwing people off rooftops or out of windows has Russia written all over it.”
“But you didn’t find any Russians on that roof tonight. Did you?”
There’s no verbal answer, so I can only imagine quiet Curse is shaking his head.
“And Valentina would have no reason to lie if it were a Russian,” Elio continues. “Hell, if it were the bratva, they’d probably just have thrown her off too. That, or put some poison in her drink. But just because a Russian didn’t kill Dario tonight doesn’t mean he hasn’t pissed one of them off.”
“ Merda ,” Papà swears viciously. “Pissing off the Russians. Maybe the motherfucker really did jump.”
“And maybe it’s damn good luck that Valentina isn’t marrying him after all.”
“Don’t you fucking start with me,” Papà growls. “Not after you nearly got all of us blown up over that Irish girl.”
When Elio replies, his voice rasps with possessive rage.
“You mean my wife .”
Even through the door, I can feel the strain in the air. After a tense moment, the conversation moves on and voices get quieter. I’ve heard all I can for now. Holding my shoes tightly in my sweaty hands, I tiptoe away, not putting my bare heels all the way down until I reach the stairs Mamma went up earlier. The cool marble is solid and soothing beneath the soles of my feet as I ascend. It’s a stark contrast to the heat trapped against my body by the tight shape of my dress.
As soon as I’m inside my room, I rip it off, tossing it into a mangled black heap as I head for the bathroom adjoining my bedroom. I shower, but I do it quickly, because every time I close my eyes under the hot spray of water, images I want to escape come rising up.
Strangely, they aren’t images of Dario’s death.
They’re the images of the man who killed him.
Blue jeans. Broad shoulders. White shirt under August sun. Tattoos. Dark red hair and those eerily uneven eyes. Darragh, appearing like a demon in the elevator doorway. Darragh, advancing with those relentless, long-legged strides.
Darragh, standing right in front of me. Leaning down towards me.
You can’t possibly think that I would save you.
But he did save me.
You want me to kiss you?
I jolt. My eyes fly open. Shampoo runs into them, burning.
He didn’t say that.
Did he?
I don’t remember. Everything’s a mess inside my head, smeared by lack of oxygen.
I rub furiously at my stinging eyes. I’m normally someone who enjoys a good primping session – shampoo, then shampoo again, conditioner, body wash, exfoliant, body oil, hair masks, all that jazz. But I don’t have the energy for it right now. I slap conditioner on the lengths of my hair, wash my body, rinse, then leave the shower.
My clean face in the foggy mirror looks about ten years younger than the woman who walked out the door with her black dress and red lipstick. Thinking of the lipstick makes me remember that I don’t have it – I don’t have my clutch purse at all. I left it on the bar on the roof. Damnit.
I guess I’ll be getting a new phone, then. Or maybe, once the police examine it for evidence, it will get returned to me.
Pulling on a fluffy pink robe, I leave the bathroom and return to my bedroom, only to hear a knock on the door.
It’s not a meek knock, but it is quiet. It’s not as forceful as Papà’s or Elio’s would be. And Mamma wouldn’t even bother knocking.
“Curse?”
I open the door to see that I’m right. It’s the younger of my two cousins. He’s still ten years older than I am, though.
He raises his hand, and in it is my purse. His big palm and long fingers make it look so much smaller than it does in my hands.
“Oh, shit. Thanks, Curse,” I say. My voice sounds horrible. Cracking and raspy.
He tips his head forward in a small nod. I should have known he would have seen it and grabbed it before the police could get to it.
He lingers for a moment, like he wants to ask me something, then apparently decides not to and strides down the hall.
“Goodnight to you, too,” I call at his back. He raises his hand in acknowledgement, then keeps on going.
When I shut the door, it’s as if all the bones holding my body upright give up at the same moment. My knees buckle, and I lurch forward, barely catching myself on the edge of my bed before I fall over. I toss down my clutch, then let my body slump onto the clean, soft blankets.
Thank goodness I ate some of those appetizers before everything went to shit tonight, otherwise I’d probably be in much worse shape. My dinner was basically two sips of a martini that nearly killed me. I don’t know how I’m ever going to look at olives the same again, the little bastards. Between that and gelo de melone , I’ve lost two of my favourite things.
Dio mio . What kind of a person am I that I’m worried about not enjoying certain foods and drinks again when a man lost his life right in front of me tonight?
I hate myself for it, but I can’t summon up any grief. I barely knew Dario, and what I did know, I didn’t particularly like. Now, knowing he was in bed with the Russians…
As my husband, he easily could have gotten me killed.
Darragh simply got to him first.
The more I think about it, the more I know that Darragh Gowan saved me twice tonight. From choking.
And from Dario.
I suck in a sharp breath, relishing my ability to be able to breathe in at all. I turn out the light by my bed and then roll onto my side, staring out the French doors that lead out onto my balcony overlooking the back of our property. Custom-made, those doors. Bullet-proof glass. Through them, I see the moon, fat and bright as a pearl.
“You’re not judging me, are you, bella luna ?” I whisper. “For not being sad?”
For being…
Relieved?
Exhaustion overtakes me. My swollen eyelids lower over my eyes.
When I dream, I dream of a ghost on a rooftop.
Except the rooftop changes, no longer a rooftop at all.
It’s my balcony.