Chapter 58 Gabi
GABI
“Prove it? How?” I say, gaping. Don’t they get the urgency? Chiara. Any other girl trapped in Randazzo’s network since he died.
He pulls the laundry basket closer and studies the content. “You’ll have to figure that out. Let’s see what we have here, shall we? For starters, a burner phone—”
“So I could call my brothers in case you were a madman!”
Yuri chuckles.
Ivan smiles. “That is debatable and totally dependent on the shit I need to deal with on a specific day. Let’s just say you’ve only seen my good side because it’s been out on display.”
I huff, the vodka roaring to make an appearance now. “Fuck that. I’ve seen you with your girls, and that’s why I stepped into this horrid bombed-out mausoleum, knowing you wouldn’t—You wouldn’t—”
The words don’t come out. Hurt me. There’s still time for that.
Ivan stills where he’s been pulling something else from the basket, and his expression becomes unreadable, his cold gaze on me somehow softening.
“I’m working on the bombed-out part, but it’s kinda hard to hire contractors from the outside, you know, having to explain the bullet holes and so on.
” He pulls my fairy tale from the basket, not breaking off our intense stare.
“I agree it’s garish, though, proper dorogo-bogato, but what do you expect?
Lavish Russian kitsch was all the rage for people fresh out of a communist regime where they had nothing.
It was my mom’s taste. We can renovate to yours later.
Once we’ve patched up all the bullet holes. ”
He says it as if I’m staying.
My heart’s anxious beating seems to slow down two paces. I have no idea why…he might not hurt me, but a quick death comes in many quiet ways.
Ivan has my fairy tale in his hands and is flipping through the pages. “What is the significance here?”
“It’s just my story. Please don’t destroy it.”
“When did you make it?” he asks, pausing on a double spread I can’t see from here.
“I worked on it intensely for a year when I was nineteen. It was one of my graduation projects. For fine art.”
Ivan closes the book, but gently. “It will go to the lab for testing. They will do nothing but test for poison.”
“And that after I let your girls touch the illustrations—”
“Poison is as much an art as this beautiful book of yours, Gabriella, and a Russian specialty. I’m not taking any chances.”
Ivan puts it on the desk and pulls out the stack of letters. In his hands, they look old and frail.
“Really?” I say on a huff. “My mom’s letters to Mother Lucia? I didn’t even know about those until Dominic tracked me down in Italy.”
“I glanced through them,” Yuri says. “There’s nothing there. I’m more interested in all the messages she’s been sending Dominic on the phone we gave her.”
With a nod, Ivan puts the stack aside and pulls out my other phone.
“It’s my friend, Chiara Bellini. Dominic is trying to track her down, because there has been a string of murders in Rome, the victims suffering the same fate that Mother Lucia did.
I think they’re trying to find anybody who knew me to figure out where I went.
” I leave out the porn part. Something tells me that won’t go down well right now.
“It tracks,” Yuri says. “The messages are somewhat cryptic, but it’s because they had an initial call which I don’t have transcribed.”
My jaw sags. Calls? Transcribed? And they think I’m the spy here?
Ivan raises a brow, and I can’t say whether he buys my story or just thinks it’s a ploy to buy me time.
He puts down the phone without comment, then pulls out the Bible.
I shake my head. “My Bible? One of the few things I’ve inherited from my mother? Honestly, Ivan—”
“Why are these words highlighted?” he asks, opening the book and showing me a random page where one word is highlighted in pink. The color has faded, but there are many colors and many words. I’ve never found the link or logic between them.
“I don’t know. That’s how I got it. I didn’t do the highlighting, and I have no idea what it meant to her.”
Yuri leans over and takes the Bible from Ivan. He studies it, flipping through the pages. “My best bet would be that this is the key to a secret code. When did you get this?”
I touch my golden cross with a swallow, wishing I’d had that vodka top off.
More alcohol will soften these harsh memories.
“The day with the Russian and the piercing. Randazzo left it as a gift to soothe over what they’d done to me.
The Bible is as treasured as my necklace because they were both my mom’s, even if I didn’t know it at the time.
” Despite every other horrid other memory of that day, I got a gift from her, too.
Yuri flips to the title page and holds it out to me, pointing at the inscription in Italian.
“Bianca, my mom, was Randazzo’s stolen daughter, so I can only assume it was her Bible when she was a girl in his house.”
“Stolen daughter?” Ivan asks.
“She wasn’t Randazzo’s biological child. He stole her off the streets in Napoli.”
“Fucking Mafia,” Yuri grunts as he closes the Bible and stacks it with my fairy tale. “Nobody can back up your Bible story?”
“Nobody, to my knowledge, who is still alive. The woman was there, the one who did the piercing, and she saw the gift, but I bet she’s long dead.”
With a nod, Ivan rummages through the few other things Yuri has deemed worthy of inspection, but there isn’t much except some cosmetics and makeup. Eventually, he looks up. “Unlock the phone and show us the calls you made on it.”
Yuri passes me the burner phone, and I do as they ask.
“There’s only one call, and I suppose if I were a real spy, I would have erased any trace of it.
” But I’ve already established I’m too stupid to be a spy; now if it could only sink into their thick heads, too.
I hand the phone to Yuri with the call register open. “I called Dominic.”
“Why?” Ivan asks, leaning on to the desk with both hands.
A lie won’t save me here. At this rate, they will sniff one out in a second. They’ll force me to tell them everything I know about Milana, and I can’t break her trust. I don’t hesitate and appease them with the truth.
“Because Milana realized I understand Russian and, under threat of exposing me to you lot, forced me to help her out of this depressing bombed-out mausoleum.” I drag in a deep breath.
I still don’t know how they figured the burner-phone bit out, but it’s a moot point at this stage.
“So I phoned Dominic for help and faked a period to have a moment of privacy.”
Ivan just stares at me, shaking his head. “And then Matteo phoned me the same day to propose that Luca marry Milana. Fuck me.” He drops his head back and rakes over his face with a grunt.
“Fuck us,” Yuri says. “Your sister has always been the smartest of us all, Ivan.”
“Well, she’s made her bed so let’s see how she likes lying in it. And Luca Scalera better stick to the fucking deal and never let her go back to Russia.”
I deflate. Oh, God. We did everything for nothing. I fold my hands together on my lap, scraping the inside of my palm with a sharp thumbnail to hide my distress.
Ivan picks up his phone and calls Igor to accompany me back to my room.
“Are we done?” I’m still alive, and nobody has sent me out at the dead of night to go dig my own grave yet.
“For now. All of this still proves nothing, Gabriella. This case isn’t closed.” He circles the desk as I stand, itching to flee this room, the secrets I revealed, and these men’s intense scrutiny.
“What about—” I start, knowing the time isn’t right. For some things, there’s never a right time. “What about the marriage?”
“You mean our marriage?”
“Yes.”
My voice is small, but I’m asking for clemency and protection from a man who would never have exchanged marriage vows if he knew I was just using him as a temporary hide-out. Nothing here is based on love—it’s all just business dealings, and I’m suddenly so sick of it, I could scream.
“You’re locked up now, Gabriella.” He gathers a few stray locks from my face and carefully hooks them behind my ear. His touch is so gentle, I could weep. “Don’t fight the cage, moya ptichka, you’ll only hurt yourself. Wait until I decide to forget to close it.”
There’s a promise of freedom in my future, but it’s going to be on his terms.
Or maybe it’s a trap he’s already setting, plotting a quiet, gentle death I wouldn’t see coming at all.