Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Luca
"Why are you staring at my face?" Renzo snaps.
"I'm admiring my work," I reply.
He turns back to the window.
The bruise goes from his left cheekbone down toward his chin and has settled overnight into a deep and impressive purple.
His lip is cut at the corner and he is holding himself slightly to the right which tells me his ribs are unhappy about something.
The Fremont operation had been more eventful than the brief text he had sent at two in the morning had indicated.
Done. Messier than expected. Going to sleep.
Seven words. I read them and went back to sleep and in the morning I had looked at his face across the breakfast table and felt the particular satisfaction of a punishment.
And to rub it in, I was making him drive me to see Kirill, an old friend, instead of having his much-needed rest. He will think twice about petty pranks after this.
Kirill opens the door before we reach it. He is in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up, which is as informal as I have ever seen him and he looks genuinely pleased.
"You're late," he says.
"You moved further away from town," I reply. I texted him last night to tell him I was coming. Yes, I was a bit late because a battered Renzo takes twice as much time to get ready.
He grins and pulls me into an embrace and shakes my hand at the same time in the way we have always done it and steps back to look at Renzo.
"What happened to your face?"
"Work," Renzo says.
"He supervised poorly," I offer.
Renzo says nothing.
From somewhere inside the house comes the smell of garlic that has been cooking for a long time. The domestic smell of a house that is actually lived in. My house smells like cigarettes and fresh linen and whatever the kitchen produces three times a day on schedule. It does not smell like this.
"Come in," Kirill says. "Annika has been cooking since this morning. She'll be furious if it goes cold."
We follow him in. Annika comes out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a cloth and her face opens into a big smile when she sees me.
"Finally," she says into my shoulder. "I thought you'd cancel."
"I would never cancel," I tell her with a smile.
She pulls back and holds me at arm's length and looks at my face. Then her eyes go to the bandaging visible above my collar, where Nathalie stabbed me. "You're hurt."
"It's nothing."
"It's nothing," she replies, in a tone that is not a debate. Then she looks at Renzo and her expression softens further. "Renzo. What did you do to your face?"
"I fell," he says gently, obviously happy that she noticed him.
"Into someone's fist," I add.
Annika looks between us and decides, correctly, that this is not a thread worth pulling. She takes Renzo by the arm.
"Come and help me carry things through. The children are at school so I need the extra hands."
Renzo looks at me. I shrug and he follows Annika into the kitchen.
The table is properly set and the food is exceptional.
"How are the children?" I ask.
"The little one is furious that he can't come to the unveiling," Annika says, passing the bread. "He's decided he's an art critic. Last week he told me that my latest piece was kinda wonky at the nose. He's very advanced, it was kind of wonky at the nose." she replies, without irony.
Annika was a sculptor, she was fully doing what she loved now and from Kirill's proud grin, I could tell he supported her.
Annika coughs suddenly and Kirill reaches for the water jug before she has finished and fills her glass and sets it in front of her. Then he reaches into his shirt pocket and produces a small white pill.
She looks at it. "We've just sat down."
"Halfway through the meal," he says. "The doctor said halfway through."
"I know what the doctor said, Kirill, I was at the appointment."
"Then you know to take it now."
She gives him a look that would stop most men. He holds it pleasantly and refills her water and returns to his food, and after a moment she picks up the pill and takes it and he says nothing about it because he doesn't need to.
"Sorry about that, guys, I am just recovering from the flu," Annika explains.
"You still look at each other like you met last week," I say.
Kirill glances at her. She smiles.
"Some days it feels like that," he says.
Annika smiles at her plate and then looks up at me. "And you, Luca," she says pleasantly. "Have you thought about it? Marriage?"
"Annika," Kirill says.
"I'm asking him a question."
I open my mouth.
"I am curious," Renzo says, from across the table. "He has a woman pining with considerable dedication. Another one—" a brief pause, "—staying as a guest."
I set down my fork. I guess I am letting him handle a few more deals alone.
Renzo cuts his food.
"Renzo means," I tell Annika, "I—"
"Luca." Annika waves her hand. "I'm not easily shocked. You know that." She tilts her head. "I just hope you give one of them a proper chance. Kirill tells me you're cold with women."
Cold.
The garden yesterday, it was cold too and dark.
A garden. She was humming against my shoulder, her feet following mine across the stone, the smell of her hair when I pressed my lips to the top of her head.
"It's work," I say, and pick up my fork.
Kirill says nothing. He reaches across and straightens Annika's water glass that doesn't need straightening and she covers his hand with hers without looking at him and I look at the painting on the wall that the children made and think about something else.
Annika steers Renzo into the garden after the meal. I watch through the window as she hands him a watering can and gestures at a row of herbs.
Kirill and I take our coffee to the sitting room.
I tell him about Phillip. The arrangement, the favor, the eight months of deliberate silence. I tell him about the daughter walking into my meeting room and I tell him about the anonymous police report.
Kirill listens with a frown on his face. It is one of his better qualities.
When I finish he is quiet for a moment.
"It's unlike you to hesitate," he says. "You know exactly how to handle Phillip Keller."
"I know."
"So why are you here?"
I look at my coffee.
"I don't want to damage her permanently for something she has no part in."
Kirill studies me. "How is her relationship with her father?"
I am quiet for long enough that the quiet becomes its own answer.
"I suspect it's not good," I say.
"You suspect," he repeats, gently.
I say nothing.
He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees. "Do you care about this girl, Luca?"
"She's collateral."
"Then use her as collateral." He says it simply, without judgment.
"Her father may not love her but he cares about appearances.
He filed a quiet police report rather than turning the city upside down.
That tells you everything. He wants her found without anyone knowing she was lost." He pauses.
"Make him come to you. Put her in front of him if he resists.
Even a man who doesn't love his child will move to protect his image. "
I reach into my jacket for my cigarettes.
Kirill's hand comes out and takes the packet before I have opened it.
I look at him.
"Annika hates the smoke in the house," he says.
I look at the packet in his hand.
"Sei un coglione," I tell him quietly. You're an idiot.
Kirill replies, "Come te." Just like you.
I almost smile. "Your Italian is getting better."
"Si," he replies and then he stops. "You didn't come here for advice," he sets the cigarettes on the table between us. "You know what to do."
The sitting room is quiet.
"She has you hooked already," he says. I notice he isn't asking.
I think about buying her a birthday cake and her head thrown back laughing at my singing, the pitch of her laugh, the way she had held my hand in the garden without appearing to notice she was doing it.
"No," I say.
Kirill looks at me for a moment. He had arrived at the answer before me and was content to wait.
He pats my shoulder once and stands. "Come on," he says. "Let's go find my wife."
They are still in the garden. Renzo is watering the flowers and Annika stands beside him with her arms folded, directing.
She looks up when we appear.
"Luca," she says, crossing to me and taking both my hands. "My unveiling is next month. You're coming." She squeezes my hands and glances at Kirill.
"And bring someone. Whichever of your ladies has managed to keep your attention." Her eyes find mine and hold them with warm and pointed amusement. "I have a feeling you already know which one that is."
"We'll be there," I tell her.
Kirill pulls her back against him and she tilts her head up and he kisses her, unconcerned with the audience, and she laughs against his mouth and puts her hand over his.
I look away.
Renzo walks beside me as we walk back to the car, and I notice he is still holding the watering can, and he notices this several steps later and sets it down beside the path.
* * *
We drive in through the gate and I get out and lean against the car and light a cigarette.
Renzo comes around the bonnet and stops beside me and looks at the house with his hands in his pockets.
"So," he says. "What's the plan?"
I draw on the cigarette. "Contact Keller. Let him know I have his daughter and that I need my favor called in." I exhale slowly.
"Finalmente," Renzo says. Finally.
I look at him sideways. The bruise has gone a shade darker and his lip has swollen further and he is standing at an angle that he probably doesn't realize is visible.
"Get some rest," I tell him. "You look terrible. I'll handle the cargo tonight."
He turns to look at me and then he turns and walks toward the house at a pace that suggests he is going to be upstairs and in bed before I have finished the cigarette, correctly calculating that the window of my generosity is narrow and should not be tested.
I smoke and look at the gate and think about Nathalie.
I think about how she will look when I tell her I have contacted her father.
I think about Kirill and his words.
She has you hooked already.
I drop the cigarette and go inside to my room and when I open the door, she is standing in the middle of my room.
Her hair is wet, and dripping at the ends, and her face is still damp and her legs are bare and she is wearing my blue t-shirt, which hits her mid-thigh, and it is wet from her hair and her skin, so it is doing very little in the way of its primary function. Her nipples poke out very prominently.
She is clutching her old clothes against her chest with both hands, balled up against her, and her eyes when they find mine are very wide.
I step inside and close the door.
She steps back.
"I—" she starts. "I—my—the shower—" She stops. "The water in my room, it ran out and I—the maids, I asked and no one—I just—" She looks at the shirt and then at me and then at the floor. "I just wanted to shower."
I look at her.
The shirt is from a tailor on Savile Row, a bespoke piece I got three years ago and have worn twice. I walk over to her.
I take the bundle of clothes from her hands and toss them onto the bed and I say, "Stand straight."
She does. Her body is still, I notice. It is only her hands that are trembling.
I look at her.
The shirt clings to everything the way wet fabric does when it has been put on over damp skin and she is not wearing anything under it.
"That shirt," I tell her, "is a thousand-pound designer piece. I bought it in London."
Her throat moves.
I lean in, close enough that she has to keep very still to maintain the distance between us, and I say, quietly, "You touched something you shouldn't have touched. That's not a small thing." I let the pause sit. "We aren't that close, last I checked."
I bring my mouth to her ear and bite.
She falls back.
My hand catches her waist before she goes far and I pull her upright and keep her there and I look down at the wet shirt and then back up at her face and I say, "I don't like people touching my things." I let my eyes drop onto her breasts and come back up. "It irritates me."
She is looking at me with an expression that is trying very hard to be composed and is not entirely succeeding.
"I'm afraid," I tell her, and I almost smile, "you're going to have to pay for this, princess."