“I can’t say for sure,” I whispered. “But Big Bismo recited Bible verses to me that made me respond without thinking about them. I don’t remember reading or knowing Bible verses, but somehow, Iknewthey were wrong after he brought them up. So maybe I read them after he’d recited them before.”
I used the bench to help me rise to my feet. I walked slowly toward him and wrapped my arms around him, resting my head against his back. “Same with you. I remember seeing you for the first time. I remember the feelings it stirred inside of me. I even remember the tingle on my neck. I remember putting my hand there, wondering what the hell it was. But those times—the missing ones—I can’t remember them at all. Whatever happened between us stuck to my bone, though. I. Just. Know. You. Aniello Assanti. I know you better than I know myself.”
“Then you should remember,” he said in Italian. But he’d said it so quietly that I wondered if I even heard him correctly.
“Remember what?” I whispered.
Ignoring my reply, he pulled me around, keeping me to his side so we were both facing the statue.
“This is it,” he said, his voice calm, but the look in his eyes was fathomless. “Enough food and water for one day. Maybe two.”
“Oh,” I said when I realized. “But the walls—”
“Look easier than they are.”
“I see,” I said. “I’d have the sun, the stars, the air, the roses and the couple, even a way out that looks easy. But the beauty of it is to make me suffer even more. Suffer for the fatal flaw they consider love.”
He nodded once.
“That’s.” I took a deep breath. “That’s not common. Usually, it’s the end of a barrel we see last. Quick. This all seems so drawn out. Torturous. Like the devil himself thought it up.”
He rolled his shoulders, like his suit became too tight all of a sudden. “Maybe he did.”
I gazed up at him. “You?”
He grinned, but it wasn’t pleasant. “You asked me that before.” He shook his head. “This is a business to me. Nothing more. Nothing less. I get in and I get out. Unless it’s personal.”
“This is personal?”
“To him,” he said.
“Who’s him?”
“The boss.”
“Ah,” I breathed out. “The man who brought you in.”
“The same man who will try to take me out,” he said.
At the word “try,” I stood up a little straighter. He was going to fight for this. For us. Even if we went down together.
“You brought me here before,” I said. His remark had caught up to me.You asked me that before.
“Sì,” he said. “The choice is yours.”
“Be with you and risk dying here? Or walk away and die every day of my life without you?”
He didn’t answer.
“You’re giving me the choice,” I said.
“I have always given you the choice,” he said, his words sounding more accented. “What I still don’t understand is why the choice was not given to me—if you ran from me to him.”
Then he turned and started to walk toward the fence.
“Aniello!” I called, my voice breaking on his name.
He stopped.
