7. Luca
Luca
The credit card statement fills the left side of my monitor.
Where are all Giada’s purchases?
I expected enormous deliveries of clothes, shoes, jewelry, handbags…hell, I know women who’d buy a Lamborghini on their husbands credit card. Women in our world treat marriage as an opportunity to establish rank. I wouldn't have objected. I told her to buy whatever she wants.
The total at the bottom of the statement is eighty-seven dollars and forty-three cents. I read the charges again. Two online novelty shops. Nothing from the boutiques, jewelers, or high-end department stores I expected.
There's a knock against the open office door. Giada stands there in gray trousers and a blue sweater with a cardboard box in her hands.
“Come in,” I say.
She stops beside my desk. Her attention lands on the statement. Her fingers press into the cardboard.
“You checked the card,” she says.
“I did.” I turn the monitor toward her. “You spent less than a hundred dollars.”
Her shoulders draw toward her ears. Her fingers press deeper into the cardboard. “You said I could buy whatever I wanted.”
“You can.”
“You said no limit, but I kept the receipts. I can return all of it.”
“Giada.” I wait until her eyes rise to my tie. “I'm not asking you to return anything. I expected a larger bill.”
“Why?” she asks.
“I told you to buy whatever you wanted.”
“I did.”
I rub my forehead. “You arrived with one suitcase. I thought you’d buy clothes and shoes and, hell, I don’t know. ”
“I have clothes and shoes. They’re comfortable and I like them.”
Of course. Every answer is plain, with no performance behind it. I look at the box. “What’s that? One of the purchases?”
“All of the purchases.” She puts it on my desk and opens the flaps. A stuffed brown creature sits on top, round and wrinkled, with eight stubby legs. Giada takes it out with both hands.
“This is anatomically simplified,” she says. “A real tardigrade's legs are shorter relative to its body, and the claws are wrong. It has a nice face, though.”
“Charming,” I say.
“Yes.” She sets it beside my keyboard, then removes a black mug covered in the same creatures and two folded shirts. “The blue one shows a tardigrade in a tun. The green one has six legs instead of eight, so I'm returning it.”
She reaches into the box again and closes her fingers around something small. “This is yours.”
I hold out my palm. A tiny silver pin no larger than my thumbnail drops into it.
“You bought me a gift?”
“I thought you might want one.” Her thumb rubs the seam of the box. “Since you listen and don’t tell me to shut up when I talk.”
I look closer at the pin. It’s the same thing—one of those water bears she’s obsessed with. A tardigrade.
“What is it about tardigrades?” I ask.
Her brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
“Why are you so fascinated by them?”
“Because they’re fascinating.” She says it as though the answer should be obvious. “They can survive extreme temperatures, radiation, dehydration, pressure, even the vacuum of space.”
“They are fascinating,” I agree. “But you seem more than fascinated. You seem obsessed.”
Her smile disappears. She looks down at the box and rubs her thumb over one of the folded flaps.
“Giada?”
“You’re annoyed because I talk about them too much. I understand.”
“No! I’m just curious…” Shit. She looks hurt. “Honestly. I’m not annoyed.”
She studies me for a long moment and then says quietly, “I may have a condition called monotropism.”
“Monotropism. What does that mean?”
“My attention becomes hyperfocused. I can think about one subject for hours, but changing my attention can be difficult.”
“Is this something you’ve been diagnosed with?”
“No. I researched it myself.” Her fingers keep tightening around the cardboard and loosening again. “My parents would never have allowed a diagnosis. They said I was flawed and stupid and weird. To them, giving it a name would only provide me with an excuse.”
A searing rage burns through me.
Rafinelli called his daughter cruel taunting names because he couldn’t be bothered to understand her. He let her believe that the way her mind works makes her defective.
I keep my expression still. Giada doesn’t need to see my anger.
But when I find Rafinelli, he’ll answer for every cruel thing he has done to my wife.
I fasten the pin to the lapel of my dark suit.
Giada’s face lights up. “You're wearing it now?”
“My wife gave it to me.”
“It doesn't match your suit.”
“It matches me.”
Her mouth curves. No shy smile this time. This one changes her whole face.
“That species is Hypsibius exemplaris. Scientists use it in laboratories because it's easy to grow and lays eggs.”
I rise from my chair.
“I’m going to hug you now,” I tell her. “Firmly.”
Her eyes widen, but she doesn’t move away. I step into her space and wrap my arms around her, one hand spread between her shoulder blades and the other firm against her lower back. She doesn’t flinch. I pull her against me with steady pressure.
She goes still for one breath. Then her body sinks against mine. Her arms circle my waist. She rests her cheek on my chest and holds on.
My cock hardens against my zipper.
I want to keep her here. I want to lower my mouth to hers. I want to teach her how to use that sweet mouth until she forgets every fact in her head except my name.
But not yet. Soon.
“That’s your penis.” Her face is pressed to my chest, and her voice is muffled
Christ, this woman. “Yes.”
I loosen my arms before I fuck her right here on my desk.
Giada holds on for one second longer before releasing me. She steps back, a flush spreading over her cheeks.
“Thank you for the pin.”
“You're welcome.”
I return to my desk chair to peruse the reports on my screen.
The loyalist businesses under review have supplied plenty of paper and little progress.
Giuseppe and Antonio have left no direct trail.
The payments in front of me move through vendors, contractors, and accounts held by men who claim they haven't spoken to either fugitive.
She comes to the side of my desk to gather her new things, leaving the stuffed tardigrade beside my keyboard. “That one can stay here if you want.”
“He stays.”
“I think it's a female.”
“She stays.”
“Some species contain both male and female reproductive organs and can self-fertilize—”
“It stays.”
“Are those three companies connected?” she asks, studying the reports that fill the monitor. Each company's invoices are grouped beneath a separate heading.
“They all belong to Moretti loyalists—Corsini traitors, but the ownership and accounts are separate. We are looking for payments that lead to Lombardi or…your father.”
Her attention moves between the columns. “Can you put all three sets together?”
“Why?”
“I want to see the dates in one list. The company headings keep separating them.”
I open a new sheet and combine the records. “Oldest or newest first?”
“Oldest.”
I sort the rows by date. Giada leans closer, one hand braced on the desk. Her shoulder nearly touches mine. The memory of the warmth of her body pressed against mine returns with enough force to distract me from the screen.
She studies the list without speaking. Her fingertip follows the dates in the air. She counts once under her breath, then starts again at the top.
“Can you show the cents in their own column?” she asks.
I separate the last two digits from each payment. “What do you see?”
She looks through the reorganized rows again. “The payments are thirteen days apart. October fourth, October seventeenth, October thirtieth. Then November twelfth and November twenty-fifth.”
I check the next dates. She’s right.
“The company names rotate,” she continues. “So do the cents. Forty-two, eighteen, sixty-three, then forty-two and eighteen again. If the same pattern continues, the next payment should end in sixty-three cents.”
I scroll down to the next entry. Sixty-three.
Weeks of reports sit behind those numbers. My men divided the records by business and reviewed each company alone. Giada asked for the information in the order she needed, then found what none of us saw.
“Those aren't three separate sets,” she says. “They're one set with the company names rotated. People can label a payment anything they want, but a repeated pattern follows rules.”
Her sentences come faster as she explains the rotation. This is the same delight she gives tardigrades, focused now on records that have stalled my search.
I pull the second chair beside mine. “Sit.”
Her expression closes at the sharpness in my voice. “I shouldn't have looked.”
“You should have.” I turn the monitor fully toward her and soften my tone. “What else do you see?”