“Do you like nature programs?” he asked but kept talking immediately. “I’ve always been a fan, ever since I was a kid. David Attenborough taught me more English than any of my teachers.”
I glared at the man when he paused. No matter what I asked, he ignored the question and just went about saying whatever he wanted to. The best plan I had, short term, was to let the man continue. No reason to participate in his rigged game.
“I never missed the ones about the oceans.” He sighed, long and wistful. “In a different life, I might have been a marine biologist. That would have been fulfilling but it just wasn’t in the cards, got dealt a rigged hand, I’m sure you understand. Care to guess my favorite sea creature?”
“Sharks,” I deadpanned, channeling my best Aubrey Plaza, “ooh, scary.”
“Sharks?” he scoffed, head jerking back, “no, no, no. The octopus. Fascinating animal with their camouflage ability, intelligent, too. But I don’t want to talk about octopi. I only asked the question so I could bring it around to my favorite sea mammal. The orca.”
“Oh, did you watchFree Willywhen you were a kid too?” When anger took my tongue, I didn’t pull it back this time. I’d had enough. “Did you cry at the end? ‘Jump, Willy, jump.’”
“I saw a documentary on orcas and how some pods teach their young to hunt,” he continued as if I hadn’t spoken, “a few of them take the hunt to great lengths. In one they teach their young to beach themselves, snagging seals before shimmying back to the water. When one of the parents gets a seal, they give it a chomp, maybe break a flipper then release it wounded. The young orcas practice hunting on the injured seal. They play with it, let it swim away, thinking it could escape before attacking. So few predators treat it like a game, toy with their prey.”
He fell silent. His left hand drummed against the table, his right rested against his cheek, one finger extended toward his eyes. His neck muscles contradicted his relaxed posture. They remained tense, ready to spring should he need to.
“So you’re the predator and I’m the prey?” Somehow my voice remained measured, cold, even as my pulse thundered. “Did my father hire you to do a whole scared straight thing? Are you my minder for the rest of the trip?”
“Don’t worry, Gianna. I don’t hurt innocent women and children.”
“Yeah, the most reassuring thing a strange and dangerous man who I never met but knows my name can say is ‘I don’t hurt innocent women and children,’” I hissed. “Did. My. Father. Hire. You?”
“He sent me, in a manner of speaking,” he answered.
Even so far from home, mobsters were the same. The smart ones always kept their words vague. After bugs and wiretaps took down so many of the bosses, no self-respecting Mafioso ever said exactly what they meant, especially in public.
“Well, when you go back to my father, you can explain to him that I don’t need any protection.”
“Oh, my dear, I have a very different message for your father,” Alexei spoke the last word as if it was a curse so bad, had it been printed the editor would use ‘F-word’ to blunt its impact. He didn’t work for my father, he worked against him.
“I’ll scream.” My eyes darted to the occupied tables around us.
No one matched my dangerous adversary, not even close. If we’d been back in the States, the old guy from Cleveland might have been packing. Hell, I always carried a .357 in my handbag back home and I knew how to use it. Still, Alexei wouldn’t try anything in public, would he?
“Why would you scream?” He held his hands up to his sides. “We are just two people having a pleasant conversation. I even sent your would-be rapist running, piss dribbling down his leg.”
“Do you want a thank you?” I asked. “Not like you did it to protect me.”
When Marco had given me the first drink, I got rid of it. His second would have been wasted too, even if Alexei hadn’t forced him to drink it instead. The man hadn’t saved me, but why had he tried to in the first place? We’d only been talking for a few minutes and all I had was question after question.
“I thought about letting it happen,” he admitted, offering a shivering shake of his head. “I wanted to talk to you alone, after all. If the idiot succeeded, he’d get you out of here. I’d follow, wait for the right time; there are so many narrow and winding side streets and alleys in Rome. You saw how easy he was to get rid of.”
“That’s what I would have done,” I said before he could continue and waived my arm out toward the other patrons. “You said you wanted to talk to me alone, but we aren’t exactly alone right now, are we? Let that son of a bitch drug me, follow and take him out. Then you’d have me all alone and in no state to argue or get annoyed when you started blathering.”
Alexei blinked at my response. His head jerked and that ever slappable smile faltered. Good. It was time I knocked him off balance, scored at least a small victory.
Everything the man had done since he stepped out of the bar had been to keep me confused and intimidated. His attempt to frighten me served that goal. A scared person wasted too much on their fear, and not enough on surviving, slaying what had caused the fright in the first place.
Katie had called me a cold, calculating bitch earlier. I was my father’s daughter. It was time I showed Alexei exactly who he was fucking with. Glaring at the man, I focused on my breath, keeping it even. He wanted me scared? I’d do my best to hide it.
All too soon, my opponent recovered. The smile brightened and he looked toward the Colosseum wall across the street before pale blue eyes met mine again.
“Do you know how many people died across the street there?” he asked, continuing without an answer, “Four hundred thousand. Estimated, of course. The Romans kept good records, but time eats us all. Most of them were criminals, prisoners of war forced to fight. Imagine a petty burglar forced to fight a seasoned gladiator, a true killer. There’s no game there, no honor.”
“Honor?” I cackled loud enough for the old Ohioan a few tables away to flinch, probably overdid it. “There’s no honor in your line of work.”
“Finance can be quite cutthroat, you have me there.” His shoulders rose and fell. “But it's not just about honor. It's about the quality of the competitor. A chess grand master gets no pleasure from beating a rank amateur, even in four moves. Just the same as the gladiator dispatching men who’d never even held a sword in their life.”
“So, I’m your competition and you don’t want to make it easy?” I reasoned aloud, finally getting a handle on Alexei; just enough insight to follow his moves. “Then why are you speaking in riddles? If you want me to be your ‘worthy competition’ tell me about the game, whatever the hell it is you want?”
