was innocent,” he said. “Valerie isn’t.”
“I know that. And yet…” She shook his head. “Trevini and the others are right. I’m a disaster as head of a Mafia clan.” She laughed out loud. It sounded hysterical, and made her furious with herself. “Even the words are like a bad joke. Head of a Mafia clan!”
“Then ask her questions. Try to find out what really happened back in New York. What Michele wanted with you.”
“Tano,” she corrected him.
“Both of them.” The anger in his voice made her shudder even more than the cool wind from below. But the goose bumps on her arms and legs felt good, perfectly natural, unlike the icy breath of the snake.
“I can’t talk to her,” she said after a moment’s pause. “If I do, I’ll go for her throat. It’s…I’m surprised at myself. When I saw her sitting there, totally helpless, stoned out of her mind—I didn’t even feel sorry for her.”
“It’s what she deserves.”
“That sounds so simple. But it’s a little more complicated for someone who wasn’t brought up knowing the basic rules of the Mafia.”
He stroked her cheek, smiling. “Where’s the tough Rosa who was on that first flight to Sicily with me?”
“The odd thing is that all this should have toughened me up even more. Made me more realistic about it. But instead just the opposite has happened.” She ran her fingers through her hair, and propped her chin on her knees. “I don’t understand myself anymore. And that’s an awful feeling. I don’t want this. Can’t everything just go back to how it was before Trevini brought the whole thing up again?”
“He’s a calculating man. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
“Yes, sure. But now it’s too late. I can’t just act as if I never watched that video.”
He looked out into the dark. “Are you asking me what I’d do in your place?”
She’d known the answer to that for a long time, and it wasn’t what she wanted. “No.”
Minutes passed, and neither of them said anything. Their hands met again, but he didn’t make another attempt to get closer to her. It was probably up to her to take the next step.
All she said was, “And then that ship.”
“I have people finding out as much as possible about Thanassis and the Stabat Mater. They’ve come up with nothing but a few newspaper reports. Looks like he’s cut himself off from the outside world in every possible way. Erected a kind of firewall around his business affairs and his private life. Not easy to get past that.”
“Do you think he’s a member of TABULA?”
“How would I know?”
“Exactly. We don’t know anything.” Alessandro didn’t conceal the fact that he was at a loss, and it was good to see him, too, baffled for once. Without any answers. Or suggestions. Or any idea how to get out of this mess.
“There are just too many things I don’t understand,” she said. “And now my father is part of it as well. Can’t anything be simple for once?”
“What did you say to Trevini’s proposition?”
“What do you mean?”
“When he asked why you didn’t get out of here, taking a large sum of money.”
“He can go fuck himself. Figuratively speaking, anyway.”
“He’s right.”
“What?” She stared at him, at the fine profile that looked, against the indigo twilight, as if it had been drawn with a quill. “How can you of all people say that?”
“I’ve thought of doing it myself,” he admitted. “More than once.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You’re exactly where you wanted to be.”
“But you matter to me more.”
“I’m not running away from you.” She tried a smile. “Hey, you have a sauna. And a great pool. I wouldn’t give that up for the world.”
“Maybe we will go away, all the same, some time or other.”
“Sure.” She didn’t believe it for a second.
“Can I take a look at them? Those furs?”
“Come tomorrow. Maybe you’ll arrive before the villagers march up the mountain with lighted torches to burn the monster on her pyre.”
“Your grandmother was a monster. Not you.”
She widened her eyes theatrically. “A reptile? Nine feet long? How does that sound to you? There we are, the story of my life. My boyfriend turns into the most beautiful animal in the world, and what do I turn into? Godzilla.”
He drew her close to him, and she was thankful for that. He often guessed what would do her good even before she knew it herself. But why did the same never happen to her? Was that why it was so easy