Bill studied me, his expression unreadable. “Right…. Okay, so I’m headed to the deli down the street. What do you want?”
“I’m good.”
“He said you’d be difficult,” Bill muttered in Italian with a ragged sniff breaking up the words.
“He wasn’t wrong,” I responded in the same language. “I’ll take a coffee, though, if you don’t mind.”
Bill nodded absently, marching out the front door. It slammed closed behind him. The cat poked his head up, staring after the recently departed henchman.
“Stealing his food made him grumpy.” I scratched the creature behind the ears. “That wasn’t nice.”
The most piercing green eyes turned up to me. It was as if the cat begged to differ.
A quick search found my fully charged phone on the L of the counter that served in place of a free-standing island. There weren’t barstools there, though. I sank onto the sofa, the only place in the whole loft to sit. The grey cat hopped off my lap, tail waving as it prowled across the cushions to the single throw pillow. The beast paused for a moment before diving behind the navy square.
A bolt of white shot from under the space, the grey cat hot on its heels.
There were two of them.
I laughed to myself as the cats ran about. The white beasty had the remnants of Bill’s breakfast clamped fast in its jaw. It wasn’t until they leapt onto the kitchen counter, ready to climb on the fridge, that I shook myself.
“Wait! Iknowyou—”
There was something vaguely familiar about their antics.
Instead of checking my messages, I tapped into my social media. It wasn’t possible. It just…wasn’t possible. Mad at myself that I didn’t follow the Instagram account that dreadful morning on the beach, I had to spend the time searching through my sister’s followers to find it. When I did, I sat back with a jolt.
Sure enough, Vinny15Sina had the exact same cats. And this was the same apartment.
“I found you,” I breathed.
Vincenzo had a tangible, digital presence after all. He was a cat dad, posting about his pets every so often.
“I don’t believe it.” A manic laugh choked out of me. “All this time.”
When I saw the names of the cats, my heart stopped beating. No. Just…no.
Those were the names a silly girl picked out with her boyfriend.
That was too much. Right now, I needed simple things. Being here, in his loft, was as much as I could handle. I clicked my phone shut, stood quickly, and began to explore. After so many years, I wasn’t going to waste this opportunity to delve into the mind of the long-lost boy. But the man who existed in the present was unfamiliar. There weren’t any personal touches in the whole loft. The second bedroom held a set of iron dumbbells. The bedroom I’d slept in had a bed, some unimaginative clothes in the closet, and the basic necessities in the bathroom.
He didn’t even have a TV, let alone a video game console.
“Oh, Enzo, what happened to you?” I muttered.
What he had were two cats. Otherwise, he merely existed. But those animals were proof that the rough man who chased me through the dark had a soft side. The nostalgic pancake date, the cats—these messed with my head more than if this place was filled with life.
Chapter 36 – Vincenzo
Ishoved the tablet toward Alexei. “Che cazzo!”
The office smelled of fish. The stench from the warehouse below permeated the space, leaching into the walls. No wonder my business partner wore such expensive cologne. Otherwise, he would reek of guts and brine.
The pakhan of the Russian Bratva nodded in agreement. “I told you it wasn’t good.”
Maksim Varga made certain dictators look like friendly teddy bears. Hundreds died at his hand alone, and thousands from his commands. He kept a puppet government running the small country of Karsovia, but anyone who spoke out against the tyrannical leadership was promptly silenced. They traded in arms with some of the worst governments in the world, and Varga wasn’t above using chemical weapons on his own people to provoke skirmishes.
“Riddle me this.” Alexei scratched his chin. Several days’ worth of jet-black stubble framed his harsh face. “How does your old friend rack up that kind of debt with a war mogul?”
