CHAPTER 42
"You think you're hiding it from the other person, but there are things the body tells on its own."
LUCA MORETTI
The convoy left Salerno at four in the morning.
Three armored cars, headlights off for the first two kilometers, the old way.
Raffaele in the first car with four men, me in the second, with Valentina.
Matteo in the third, with the other eight.
Twelve elite soldiers, hand-picked by Raffaele the week before—all with their families paid, all knowing that if they talked, the whole family paid.
Valentina slept on my shoulder for the first fifty kilometers.
I looked at her in the light of the highway lamps passing by the window. Her black hair fallen across my arm, her breathing deep, her hand open on my thigh, and my hand—my hand had gone, on its own, to rest on her belly.
The way it had been going for weeks.
Only this time I knew why.
She's been different since Capri.
Eating little, queasy in the mornings, pale at breakfast, refusing the smell of the espresso, she who'd always had three a day. The hand going to her belly when she thought no one was looking.
Bella mia, I thought, watching her sleep. You think I don't know. You're saving it for the day after tomorrow, so I won't lock you up in Salerno.
And she was right. If she'd told me, I would have locked her up.
I didn't say anything, just let her think I didn't know.
But inside, I'd already changed the plan. She wasn't going up to Salvatore's study.
She'd go into the house—because I couldn't take that from her, he was her father, it was her right—but she'd stay on the lower floor, with Matteo and two soldiers, near the service door she'd drawn herself.
And when the shooting started, Matteo would get her out of there.
I'd go up alone. I'd kill alone.
She wouldn't see it, and what she carried in her belly wouldn't be born to a mother who'd watched her father die.
It was near Cosenza that the car appeared.
"Fratellone." Raffaele's voice came over the radio, calm. "We've got company. Black car, three back, tailing close."
"How many?"
"Two men. Maybe three."
"Take care of it."
"Sì."
I didn't even need to look back. The third car of the convoy—Matteo's and the eight—slowed, let the black car move into the middle, and on the next curve hit it from the side, hard.
A clean maneuver. The black car went off the road, hit the barrier, flipped on the shoulder. Its headlights pointed at the sky and went out.
Valentina woke with the jolt.
"What was that?"
"Nothing, bella mia. Sleep."
She looked back through the window, saw the headlights turned over on the shoulder fading into the distance.
Salvatore knows we're coming, I thought. He sent someone onto the road; he's waiting for us.
Good. Whoever waits opens the door.