But I’ll deal with that when it happens. Until then, I have to deal with this.
I hold my body still. I don’t let myself react.
“Rebecca Grange,” I say, calmly offering my guess about how he accessed the hotel. It’s not a difficult guess. She knows this place. She would’ve been able to tell Piero how to get up here. “I understand her coming after me, but what the hell does it have to do with you?”
“So it’s true,” Piero says, parting his jacket and sliding his hands into his pockets. I don’t see a gun, and there was no one else in the hallway when I pulled up the security feed. He’s here to talk.
“What’s true?” I ask.
“Her story. I didn’t believe it at first when she told me that one of the boys from the Island, all grown up, had blackmailed her husband into suicide and taken everything.”
My skin tightens at his easy reference to the Island, but I still don’t let myself react. Not visibly.
“Not everything,” I argue. “If she hadn’t wasted what I left her with, she wouldn’t have needed to come slithering back here looking for that painting. And, yes, I know why she wanted it. I saw the account number on the back before I destroyed it. That money’s been gone for years.”
Piero looks bored. “She said something about a painting, but I don’t give a shit. This isn’t about Rebecca Grange.”
I believe him. He has no reason to care about her. Her husband, however, is another matter. Probably not a friend or Piero would’ve come after me years ago. But if Piero recently discovered what I did to Peter Grange, he might be grabbing an excuse to avenge a former business connection, or even just a fellow connoisseur. I can’t guess at his precise angle, but like Rebecca Grange, he’s undoubtedly after money. There isn’t enough in the world for people like the Granges and Valencis.
I got distracted from my interrogation of Elias—I mean, Elio. I never got answers. I fell too quickly into our game. With him already playing, it was so easy to let it happen.
But now he’s under my desk, threatening to expose me.
Of course, Piero must know that I have his son. He’s the one who put Elio in my path, and that, really, is what this is about.
But I play along. “So what is this about?”
Piero, however, doesn’t ask about his son. “My nephew Ernesto went missing last night. Know anything about it?”
“Why should I?”
“Because his final search history was all about you.”
I feel Elias—fuck, I meanElio—trembling against me. He must be dying to speak. But he also must know that I have a gun. I made sure that he heard it.
“So?” I push back.
Under the desk, a hand settles on my knee, but I feel it only faintly. I go a little numb at times like this.
“So,” Piero replies, “when I saw that you now own The Axis, which used to be owned by Peter Grange, I paid a visit to his widow. All I wanted was a way into this building, but I got a whole story to go with it. And a few things started to make sense.”
My brain trips a little because there’s no discernable reason for him to pretend that he’s only today learned about what I did to Grange. But I stick to my role as the cold, calculating opponent and say,“Did they now.”
“Yeah, they fucking did. You see, I used to take Ernesto to the Island and let him play there.”
A sensation of both hot and cold water starts running through my body. I know where he’s going with this, and I can’t stop him. I can’t mentally escape either. I have to stay in my role, but now my role has to include hearing what he’s about to say.
“Did he fuck you?” Piero asks, and I try to let the question go past me. “You’re about the same age and you were probably bigger than he was, but with restraints? Drugs? Someone to hold you down? He could’ve done it.”
I lock all my muscles to keep myself from shaking. I make myself hold Piero’s gaze. That’s all I can manage. Words are frozen.
“Well?” Piero prompts. “Is that it? Did he fuck you?”
I let the words go past again, like they’re not for me. They’re for someone else.
I make myself speak. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It’s sort of true. I don’t remember Ernesto. I don’t remember any of them, not specifically. Except the last one.
