Chapter 7 Sophie
SOPHIE
PLAYLIST: AKA’S WHITE WOLF – AMéLIE FARREN
Islip out of the house, my heart racing and beating up into my chest. I still can’t believe what I just did. It was probably the stupidest idea ever, but it was also stupidly brilliant. Because I now have a phone and a gun—well, and also, Rosalia coming after me.
But if she does hunt me down, I might be able to convince that Guiseppe character to kill her for me. I will tell him everything they told me to do, and it’ll hopefully be enough for him to act on it.
I thought about running away, trying to hide.
But I am a realist. And right now, I am in Sicily.
With no money. Not speaking the language.
And since Kat has found me before, she will most likely find me again.
There is no running from them, unless I run into the arms of a mob boss. But he is my only chance right now.
The question is, how do I find out where he is before Kat finds me via Rosalia’s phone? They said he has a Masseria, a villa somewhere, but how can I find someone who probably doesn’t want to be found?
And then Luisa.
Luisa, I gasp.
The plan I made wasn't one I thought through properly. I have to call Luisa.
I take Rosalia’s phone as I slip into one of the many alleyways of the city I am in and dial Luisa’s number. It’s the only one I know by heart aside from my mother’s.
It rings. Please answer, I beg. I know she has had her phone on silent for years now, and she hates calls.
“Hello?” she says, and endless relief spreads through me.
“It’s me,” I say as I slip into the next alley.
“FIFI!” Luisa shouts. “Where the fuck are you?”
“Somewhere in Sicily,” I say. “I don’t have much time.
A woman abducted me; her name is Rosalia Vittare.
My father betrayed her or something. You need to hide; they’re coming for you.
Tell your father to hide you all on a base or something.
Now. Not in an hour. Now!” I say, emphasising the last word.
“What?” asks Luisa. “Are you on drugs?”
“No, I am not!” I shout. “I was tortured by that woman, and she threatened to kill you if I didn’t cooperate, so do what I say. I need to go. I stole her phone. Promise me you’ll do what I told you—“
“Yes,” she says, totally perplexed.
“Do it, now! I’ll call you again,” I say and hang up.
I turned off location services the moment I unlocked the phone with Rosalia’s face, but I don’t know if that is enough. Since Kat located me in Rome, she will surely find Rosalia’s phone.
I slip into the next small alley.
I have no clue where exactly I am. It’s definitely a bigger city, probably Palermo. Night falls slowly over the old buildings. I stride through the streets, and I feel hunted. Watched. I spin round. But no one is there.
“Mi scusi,” I ask a man I walk past. “è Palermo?”
“Sì, sì,” he says and looks at me as if I am an alien. And I might be. Who in their right mind asks if they are in a city they somehow came to?
“Stai bene?” he asks me, but I don’t understand. Bene is good. Or something like that, but stai? Never heard the word before. There’s only so much Italian I understand. It might even be Sicilian.
I try to tell him I don’t understand.
“Not from here,” I say. “Grazie,” I add and hurry away. I draw enough attention to myself through my dress and the way I look, with my heart-shaped face and long blonde hair; many men have called me attractive and lusted after me. One of the many reasons I took the martial arts classes with Luisa.
I wrap my mind around how I get to that Guiseppe guy. Suddenly, Rosalia’s phone vibrates.
I look at the display.
Kat is calling.
I will not answer. If she calls, she knows, and she’ll come after me.
But I suddenly have an idea.
I skim through the contacts on Rosalia’s phone, and there are several Giuseppes in it. Shit.
I need to think. Make a plan. But where can I go where they won’t find me?
I have to turn off that phone. I don’t want to give it away, because it proves what I did, where I escaped from.
“Think,” I tell myself.
Bells chime nearby, and somehow they draw my attention. Somehow, the sound feels so familiar. I have heard them before, or haven’t I?
I count. Ten.
My mind wanders back to the moment Rosalia had squatted down where I sat on the stairs, that golden cross dangling from her neck. She’s a believer. A Christian. She would never try anything in a church.
Well, she’s a Christian who tortured, says a voice in me. But it’s the only place I can think of that would shelter.
I try to locate the church whose bells I just heard, and it takes me half an hour to find it, only to stand in front of a monumental building with its doors closed.
Shit.
I am desperate, so I rattle at the doors. Of course, in vain.
I sink to the ground with my back resting against the doors, and dig my face into my hands. There is nowhere I can go.
I can’t go to the police, because that Rosalia and Kat will find me, I bet they’re all corrupt here anyway. I can’t hide. I can’t get to Goiuseppe. I don’t know what to do—everything is so pointless.
My breath flattens.
What am I even doing here?
I am on the verge of getting a panic attack with cold sweat appearing on my forehead and the world zooming out.
Suddenly, the door behind me clicks and opens.
An elderly padre opens the door and says something that sounds very angry.
I swallow hard.
“Mi scusi,” I say, standing up and bowing slightly. “I—I didn’t know it was closed—I was in need of—“ I begin and stop myself. “Mi scusi,” I repeat.
A scent of old books and centuries of history trails up my nose through the open door, goosebumps spreading over my arms. I know that smell. I—
His eyes wander to my wrists, even in the dim lights, and I can’t hide the traces of what had happened.
“Entra,” he says, gesturing me inside as if he were to do something forbidden. And maybe he was. Harbouring a hunted woman.
I bow to him again when I step through the door past him and whisper, “Mille grazie.”
The church is dark, with only a few candles lit near the altar. But I have no eyes for it.
I walk down between the rows of wooden benches. I have walked this path before.
Every single one of my steps on the marble floor echoes multiplied through the resonance of a church's acoustics. Slowly, my fingers caress the backrests.
An image from my past flashes through my mind. I know have been here before. My head twitches.
I stop at the seventh row because that is where I see my father sitting with another man in my mind, while I am told to be quiet and occupy myself. I must have been eleven at that time. But I can’t consciously recall being here after the age of six.
Maybe you did erase memories, whispers a voice in the back of my mind.
I slide into the row. My hands find the wood next to my thighs. A deep breath in. I have been here before.
I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe that everything happens for a reason. A magical feeling spreads through me as I acknowledge that I might be meant to be here again. A greater reason for all that has happened.
I close my eyes and fold my hands in my lap. I never went to church much, but I do pray. Some may call it God, I call it a universal consciousness. And so I talk to it, in my mind.
Suddenly, a voice rips me from my prayer.
“Antonella.”
I outside doesn’t react. But my inner world does. My heart races momentarily and beats up into my throat.
I recognise the voice.
Images come back.
Steps that come closer.
Heavy steps.
Steps of a man.
He sits down next to me, a wave of an oaky perfume and cigar smoke rolls over me.
He is an older, probably in his late sixties, with grey hair brushed back with gel. He wears a black polo shirt that’s tight around his belly, white trousers, and a leather belt.
He overall looks like a fat spider that knows it is about to land its biggest catch. He aged badly compared to the picture in my mind that came back. Or maybe I don’t remember it well because it was so long ago.
He also looks quite pale in the face, with hollow eyes. But that’s what a man with a life like his looks like, is it not?
“You remember me,” he says without looking at me. I say nothing. “What happened to you?” he asks and points at my wrists, still without looking into my eyes.
“Rosalia Vittare,” I say. “She abducted me in Rome.”
“Rosalia Vittare,” he repeats slowly. “How did you escape?”
“With the help of a golden pole from an art piece in her house, a letter opener and this gun I took from her,” I say and pull the gun from the inside pocket of the jacket I stole from her.
“Your father was a great man,” he says with his raspy voice that sounds like he has smoked too many cigarettes in his life. “Saved my life.”
“Rosalia wanted to kill me because of him,” I say.
“Of course she does,” he says and laughs, a cough mixing into it. He has hanging eye bags, puffy skin and a double chin. The face of a man who lived rough and hard.
If I ever pictured a mafia boss, this would’ve been it.
“Why is that?” I ask.
“Rosalia is a myth, someone no one really knows. She is the daughter of one of the greatest men of all time, coming from one of the oldest families. One day, she started killing them. One after another. She is taking over all the businesses. In secret, through middlemen.”
“Except you.”
“Except me.” His mouth tugs into a gleeful smirk.
“And what had my father to do with it?”
“I will be in your father’s debt forever,” he says cryptically.
“Because he saved your life?” I ask.
“Amongst,” he says, and gets up. “Let us go. It is unwise to linger too long in open places.”
“How did you find me?” I ask, not getting up.
“You did not need finding,” he says. “I promised your father to watch over you.”
I am utterly taken aback.
“So you knew where I was? That she took me?”
“Not exactly who and where, I could only assume. I have been in this business for a long time. But my people have their eyes everywhere.”
I scoff and shake my head in disbelief.
“Are you coming?” he asks.
“I want you to kill her, Rosalia,” I say.
“And what do I get from you if I do it?”
“Nothing,” I say as I get up and walk past him. “You have a debt to pay.”
His rich chuckle resounds after me, while all I can think is that I am making a deal with the devil here. I have no idea how I managed to dig myself into a situation like this, but this will, most likely, all go over my head.
But something about it is so thrilling. All those years of my studies, I read about the cases and the minds of criminals, while secretly listening to true crime podcasts and using my knowledge of them.
And now, I am in the middle of one big criminal organisation.
From the other side. And the rush I feel right now might be my death, but after living my entire life for my mother and getting good grades, breaking out feels like freedom.
The padre who let me in has vanished, and I don’t ask.
I walk.
Giuseppe has two men with him: one has horrible, dark eyes that x-ray me like I am some sort of villain; the other is muscle-only and looks like he has the same three thoughts every day.
We are walking to a pair of black Range Rovers, and the door is opened for me.
Before I get in, I turn around. I don’t know what makes me feel this way, but I still feel watched. I let my eyes sweep over the street, and then I see her. Pretending to be someone else, a local.
Kat.
I don’t see her face at first, but I’d recognise that body everywhere.
I let my eyes sweep further to not draw attention to her, because the bodyguard’s gaze follows mine.
“Is there something?” asks Giuseppe.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I felt watched all day,” I say, pointing to the opposite side of where Kat stands.
My eyes meet hers for a single second. I could tell Giuseppe she is there, and Rosalia would be gone. But there’ll be no way out if Giuseppe finds out what really happened. No. Right now, I’ll keep my options open. So I let my eyes wander further.
“Well,” Giuseppe says, “because you have been.”
I scoff, knowing it wasn’t his men, but I’ll let him in the belief and climb in the car.
I don’t know where any of this is going, so I’ll keep my options.
We are driven off, and I fish Rosalia’s phone from the jacket pocket. There is a message on it. From Kat.
Kat
He needs to die, but not right now. Make him trust you.
I stare at it and can’t quite comprehend. Who does she think I am? A killer? They are crazy people. I swipe the message away and hold the phone out for Giuseppe to take.
“It’s hers. In case she is tracking it.”
He looks at it, opens the window, and throws it out.
“My little sister knows where to find me,” he says, and I know I will fall. Hard.