The village lights are starting to twinkle as darkness falls, and I can smell something amazing drifting from one of the houses, garlic and herbs and something that makes my mouthwater. Someone is cooking real Italian food, and I'm about to go find my first proper meal in my new home.
Tomorrow, I'll start tackling the house repairs. Tonight, I'm just going to enjoy being Madison Sullivan, Italian property owner, in the most beautiful village in the world.
Even if my property is mostly held together by hope.
Chapter 2: Enzo
I watch the rental car struggle up the mountain road from my office window high above the village, and I already know this is going to be a problem.
The American woman Madison Sullivan, according to the lottery paperwork my sources provided, drives like someone who's never seen a road that wasn't perfectly paved. She takes the curves too slowly, stops completely when a goat wanders into her path, and I can practically hear her GPS having a nervous breakdown from here.
She's early.
Three days early, which means either she's very eager or very stupid. Possibly both.
I've been tracking her arrival since the moment she won Giuseppe's house in that ridiculous lottery scheme the government cooked up to deal with abandoned properties. What they didn't bother to mention in their charming marketing materials is that some of those abandoned properties come with complications.
Giuseppe owed me fifty thousand euros. His debt didn't die with him.
The car finally reaches the village square and I watch her park with the careful motions of someone who's terrified of damaging a rental. She sits there for a moment, probably gathering courage or checking her appearance, before climbing out with an enormous purse and an even more enormous smile.
She's smaller than I expected. Blonde hair caught up in a messy arrangement that's supposed to look casual but probably took twenty minutes. Jeans and sneakers and a bright bluejacket that screams tourist. She looks exactly like what she is, a sheltered American girl who thinks the world is fundamentally good and everyone in it can be trusted.
This will be too easy.
She takes a selfie in front of the village sign, which confirms my suspicion that she's one of those people who documents every moment of their lives for strangers on the internet. Social media is useful for tracking people, but it also makes them predictable. And careless.
I step out of my office and follow her progress on foot through the village from various windows and doorways, staying far enough back that she won't notice. Not that she would. She's too busy gawking at everything like she's wandered into a fairy tale instead of a place where people have been surviving through necessity and fear for generations.
She waves enthusiastically at the old men outside the village’s main café, butchering a simple Italian greeting with such confidence that several of them actually smile back. They probably think she's harmless. They're not wrong, but harmless doesn't mean consequence-free.
After she disappears into the mayor's office, I make a phone call.
"She's here," I tell Emilio, my most reliable lieutenant. "The American who won Giuseppe's house."
"Want me to handle it?" His voice is emotionless, professional. Emilio's good at handling problems quietly and permanently.
"No. This one requires a more delicate approach."
I can practically hear him frowning. Emilio doesn't do delicate. "Boss, she's just some tourist who got in over her head. Why complicate things?"
Because killing random Americans brings unwanted attention from governments with actual resources and long memories. Because she won the house legally and her disappearance would be noticed and investigated. There are easier ways to collect debts than creating international incidents.
I don't explain this to Emilio. He's not paid to understand strategy.
"Just keep the men away from her for now. Let me assess the situation."
I hang up and return to watching. She emerges from the mayor's office practically giddy with excitement, clutching an old iron key in her hand. Signora Rossi must have managed not to mention the complications of the house. I specifically requested the debt issue be left for me to handle.
The walk up to Giuseppe's house takes her fifteen minutes longer than it should because she stops to admire every doorway and smell every flowering vine. She has no idea that half the houses she's photographing are empty because their owners fled rather than face bankruptcy or worse.
When she reaches Giuseppe's place, she stands in front of it for a full minute, and I can see her optimism wavering slightly. Even from my vantage point two streets over, it's obvious the house is a disaster. Giuseppe stopped maintaining it years ago, once he started borrowing money against it to pay for his medical bills.
But she squares her shoulders and marches up to the front door with renewed determination. American stubbornness, probably. They think any problem can be solved with enough positive thinking and elbow grease.
I give her twenty minutes to explore before following. The front door is still propped open, and I can hear her moving around inside, talking to herself in that bright, confident voice Americans use when they're trying to convince themselves everything is fine.
"This is just cosmetic," she's saying as I approach the house. "Nothing that can't be fixed with some time and creativity."
