the facts. Hour after hour, day after day. The contessa stores it all in her mind. I’ve tested her more than once. She’s fantastic. She remembers everything. And with her excellent education, she’s in a position to make judgments that surprise even me.”
“How nice to know that in the future I won’t have only you to deal with, but also”—here she glanced into the lounge and saw di Santis flirting with the bodyguards—“but also the contessa.”
“Life is a never-ending series of tribulations, my dear.”
“If you call me that again, I’ll push you over the railing.”
He laughed. “Mutual respect is a wonderful thing. But that’s not what brought you here. The video interested you, but that wasn’t all, am I right?”
The strong breeze off the sea had loosened several strands of hair from the clip she wore, and they were blowing around her face. “I’ll make you an offer, avvocato. We can beat around the bush for hours, but we both know what the end result will be. We depend on each other. I don’t like you at all—well, maybe I like you a little better than I like your contessa in there. She’s probably unbeatable at sprinting in high heels.”
He laughed heartily at that. Ah, so this was the way to get at him. Just tell him the truth.
“You depend on me as much as I depend on you,” she said, slightly relieved that now she could fall back on the speech she had prepared in advance. “I don’t know anything about the business affairs of the Alcantaras, and I need someone to keep all that at a distance from me. As you’ve obviously already begun to do. On the other hand, you could never be capo of the Alcantaras, because you don’t belong to the family. My relatives in Milan and Rome would never accept someone like you as head of the clan. As a lawyer who can spring them from prison, and as a miraculous human calculator and financial genius—no problem there; they love you for that. But you’re not an Alcantara, and you never will be.”
He was observing her very closely now. “What are you suggesting?”
“I am the head of the clan, and nothing will change that. I’m beginning to feel at home here on the island. I represent what this family stands for, and I am now the public face of the clan, whether the others like it or not.”
She had learned it by heart, but she thought it sounded good.
“Why are you doing this to yourself?” he asked. “Why don’t you just take a large sum of money and your new boyfriend and go off to live happily ever after somewhere at the other end of the world?”
“Because no one—not you, not those idiots in Palermo and Rome—none of you trust me to do anything. Because everyone’s just waiting for me to mess it all up.”
“That,” he said, smiling again, “that’s an unorthodox view of the situation. But I understand what you’re getting at.”
“I’m accepting my inheritance, avvocato. I will lead the Alcantaras.”
“And you think you can do it?”
She gave him a sweet smile. “This is where you come in. You do what you’ve been doing all these decades—you remain the genius in the background. The one who pulls the wires. Lord God Almighty of Taormina. I can butter you up as much as you want. I know how to pay compliments, I promise you I do.”
He sighed. “I think I understand you, too. You represent the clan; I do the work.”
“That’s the plan.”
He breathed in and out deeply. “I’m an old man.”
“What do you need? Another nurse like your protégée there? With longer legs, bigger breasts?”
“I can be very obstinate. Pigheaded. Difficult to deal with.”
“But you have the contessa. You can always take it out on her.”
He smiled. “You have no right of veto. No say in business affairs.”
“Forget it. I do.”
“We play the game like that or not at all.”
She shook her head. “You obviously don’t understand yet, avvocato. I make the rules. You throw the dice and see that they always come up sixes.”
He blinked, maybe because she was standing in front of the sun. Or because his expression had become a little more forced than ever. “What do you want, Rosa?”
“I’m no Mother Teresa. I know what I’m getting into. But there will be rules. No arms deals. No drugs.”
He laughed at her, just as she had planned. “Then how are we to earn money? With ringtones?”