LUCA MORETTI
I smoked the cigar alone on the terrace.
Valentina was inside, finally asleep, after two hours of tossing.
I'd watched. I'd waited for her to go still before I went out.
Tonio.
That was the name I handed over. Acquaviva had given me all three that night: Tonio, Donna Beatrice, Enzo.
The driver of twenty years. The housekeeper of thirty-two. A new soldier of eight months.
I took the cigar out of my mouth and looked at the ember.
Tonio drove my father's car for twelve years before he drove mine. Tonio carried me in the trunk in 2009 when I took a bullet to the ribs and had to get out of Rome in secret. Tonio looked after Adelina for six years in Capri. Tonio is not the traitor in my house.
Donna Beatrice raised Raffaele after Mamma died. Donna Beatrice hid a Beretta in her apron because my father asked her to hide it, in 1994. Donna Beatrice has never sold anyone out in her life and isn't about to start now.
Enzo was a new soldier. Good kid, from Salerno, recommended by the Romano family. Eight months in the house, no access to anything that mattered.
Acquaviva's three names didn't make sense.
Carlo.
Carlo Acquaviva, sixty years old. Consigliere of my family since my father's time. Forty years with me, counting my own nineteen. Raffaele's godfather, along with Salvatore. Baptismal godfather of my son, if I have one.
Was it you?
I didn't have proof yet, but I had forty years of a man inside me who knew how to read another man. And Carlo, on the phone that night, had tried to rush me in a way he'd never done in twenty years.
I put the cigar out on the stone, took the phone from the pocket of my robe, and dialed Raffaele.
"Pronto," he answered on the second ring.
"Fratellino."
"Padrone."
"Come back to Posillipo. Tomorrow."
"Sì."
"Don't tell anyone."
"Capisco."
"I'll arrive in two days. You wait for me in Papà's study. Alone."
"Sì, padrone."
I hung up and looked out at the Tyrrhenian Sea.
Forty years, Carlo.
I didn't want this. You're the one who wanted it…